Unfortunately, the best laid plans of...mice and mousy men. It was hard to hit the ground with the song in my heart since I couldn't even see the ground here in China through the gray haze until we were just about down on the ground, thus depriving me of the view of the spectacular airport that I had so coveted. The compensating shine was the relentless smiles of the Chinese hosts, who cloaked me in a cocoon of friendliness and efficiency from the second I stepped inside the terminal.

This insular world of the Olympic family had me speeding through the massive airport and all manner of other obstacles and ensconced in my hotel room within two hours of landing. The hotel, perfectly nice if you don't mind sheetrock for a bed, captures in its name all the mystery and romance of China not to mention some of the eroticism of modern Chinese film: Meet me at the Foreign Experts Building. Okay, it sounds like a place better suited for a symposium than a rendezvous.

Dinner was something of a parody in which I ordered duck, waited 15 minutes only to be told to try again, then--same thing. The beer came fast, though. I settled for a somewhat Westernized hot and sour soup and sauteed eggplant, quite excellent and probably a safer first -night choice anyway. Exhausted after 17 hours of travel, I couldn't be deterred by an extra-firm bed and slept beautifully for all of three hours, somewhat less than the nine I had penciled in my schedule.

But my problems didn't amount to a hill of beans compared to those of the Olympic Committee's because morning--Opening Ceremonies minus three days now--showed the haze still smothering the city. And pretty soon the whole world will be watching and it is not a pretty sight. The fireworks and other spectacles of Friday night's Opening Ceremonies would probably not be affected too much by the smog. But there is a worse threat: rain, which could clear the smog while smothering the fireworks. And Saturday's Olympic program features the long cycling road races--my friend, George Vecsey of the New York Times labeled the cyclists the "canaries in the mine"--as they could be the first athletes to brave the smog at great distance.

I came here rooting for the Chinese to pull this off, but so far I don't seem to be helping one bit.

This morning’s attack, which killed 16 police in the far western region of Xinjiang, did not exactly surprise me, but it may have startled at least one senior official from the area, Kerexi Maihesuti. Just last Friday in a Beijing press conference for foreign media the vice chairman of the Xinjiang region described the threat of ethnic Uighur separatists there as a disorderly band of wanna-be’s “with limited power” who are “not competent make the attacks which some hostile forces wish".

      Are authorities dangerously downplaying the threat? Well, not always. A People’s Daily editorial last month warned grimly that “The Beijing Olympics is facing a terrorist threat unsurpassed