City basks in spotlight despite its low profile

There is something in the air in the Emerald City. It could be the golden glow as leaves turn from green to yellow or red. It could be the sunshine that dispels days of overcast skies and reveals the magnificent 4,392-meter Mount Rainier on the horizon, which, to a first-time Chinese visitor, looks a bit surreal, as if Shanghai and Lhasa, in the Tibet autonomous region, were squeezed into a distance of a mere 87 km.

Then again, it could be the presence of China's president, who has been in town for the past two days. Or it could be a combination of all these factors.

In the city's parks and on public lawns, people are turning out to bask in the sun. "Don't tell anyone it's sunny in Seattle," so goes a jocular saying, "or people would all want to move here." The secret, if it can be called that, is enshrined in an array of movies and television shows in which Seattle is overwhelmingly depicted as cloudy or rainy. It reminds me of Chengdu, Sichuan province, where a sunny day automatically turns into a holiday because people want to go outdoors on such relatively rare occasions.