With the Olympics only a few weeks away, Beijing is looking to make some last minute improvements.  While for most cities this would mean street-sweeping, mowing the lawn, etc., Beijing's ideas are more along the lines of brain washing its people.

The Chinese department of propaganda recently issued a pamphlet to Beijingers that describes proper etiquette for conversing with foreigners and disabled persons.  On the list of things not to do are picking one's nose and scratching one's head or yawning during conversation.  A list of topics to avoid discussing with foreigners has also been issued and includes marital status, wages, jobs, where foreigners are from, health, religious and political views, and anything else that it is possible for two human beings to have a conversation about.

Because the Paralympic games take place immediately after the Olympics, citizens of Beijing have also been told how to treat disabled people (to summarize, they should be treated like people).

The Chinese government's idea behind this "behavior pamphlet" is to show the world how "civilized" the Chinese really are.  Unfortunately, the way it comes off is that the Chinese are the oddballs of the world and constantly need to be told to play it cool and that the Chinese government would actually like to suppress normal Chinese culture.  This takes us back to the lesson that we all learned back in high school: China, it's best just to be yourself.