LONDON -- In a purple and red uniform, the gray-haired Alan Farmer as an Olympic volunteer was warm-hearted and helpful.
"How can I help?" he would ask the journalists smilingly when they stopped at his desk in the lobby of a hotel.
Farmer retired from a telecom company. After knowing that the Olympic Committee were looking for volunteers, he applied.
It has been reported that London has a total of 70,000 volunteers. During the games, many of them will be working 10 to 12 hours a day without salary.
But Farmer didn't seem to care much. "It (the Olympics) is once in a life time, and I want to be part of it," he said.
In fact, "to be part of it" is just what many British people feel as the Games are only two days away.
With a spectacular Beijing Olympics too magnificent and impressive for the world, the London Games, held amid economic depression in the Europe, might appear less luxurious. The stadiums may be less fancy and scintillating, some are even not completed yet, but that doesn't hamper the local people from sharing the joy of the Games.
To showcase its culture, Britain launched a 12-week London 2012 Festival, or the cultural Olympiad, which was the biggest cultural festival in the history and aimed to have as many people involved as possible. According to the schedule, performances might pop up in the city without notice.
While roaming in London, you might run into a singer.
Last Saturday I saw a big crowd in front of a shopping mall of Westfield in east London, some putting down their bags or carrying their babies to listen to the songs from an apparently famous singer.
Theatrical plays were brought to the Trafalgar Square, which can be watched by everybody, rich or poor, free of charge. The plays were so well-known, like the Lion King, Phantom of the Opera, and Singing in the Rain, that many were humming with the actors. It could give you an illusion that you were in a big chorus.
Even the homeless were given a stage to display their talent, when some 300 took over the Royal Opera House. Under a black hat and playing a wooden guitar in the spotlight, Bryan Morrison was no longer that architect who had mental health problem. When Andrew McCutchion was preparing for his performance with poems, he was not the alcoholic any more-the dream of music inside him woke up.
The festive atmosphere was spread outside London as well, from the sunny beach of Wales to the unfrequented castle ruin near Scotland, from the hometown of Shakespeare to Hadrian's Wall.
I stood amazed in the sea wind, to see hundreds of tents glowing under a starry sky whilst poems were whispered. Late as the event was, local people were dressed in windbreakers and arrived to enjoy the peaceful night.
I sat dazzled by a bonfire, to find the ancient Stonehenge turned into a carnivalesque firegarden. The normally quiet site were suddenly packed with visitors at night, with a long queue still waiting outside to enter. A communication officer told me that the megalithic monuments were off limit in ordinary days. "The Olympics gave us a rare chance to get closer to the Stonehenge," she said.
Not only do people celebrate their culture during their involvement, but they enjoy sports as well.
Great Britain may not be raking in as many gold medals as the United States and China, but the popularity of sports were felt everywhere in the country.
In the parks of London you can see people, young and old, men and women, jogging every day inspite of wind and light rain. During the weekends, kids who are not even old enough for schooling play football guided by their community coaches. While watching their matches, I was overwhelmed by a strange idea that I may be gazing at a future Beckham or Rooney.
In the small town of Much Wenlock, where trains couldn't reach and mobile phones have no connection, people have their own "Olympics" every year. Staff were all volunteers and everyone was allowed to register and compete in the arena of a primary school playground.
I could still recall the smile of 14-year-old Oliver Preece, a boy taking part in the junior biathlon event.
"It is good for people who cannot participate in the Olympics to come here and in this way to be part of the Games," he said.
The words echoed with remarks of Baron Pierre de Coubertin, father of the modern Olympic Games. "The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not to win but to take part," he said.
So forget the shape of stadiums and medal rankings of nations. If people could truly be part of the sports gala, that is what the Olympics meant to be.
(Bai Xu is a London-based writer for Xinhua News Agency. Write to her at bai_iris@yahoo.com.cn)
