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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.

As I rambled from one tourist destination to another, the hushed excitement was palpable. "Are you here because of your president's visit?" or "Don't you know the president of China is here in town?" was heard in elevators and in coffee shops. People gave me welcoming nods and friendly smiles when I replied that I'm tangentially connected to the president's visit.

To an outsider like me, Seattle is like a kung fu master who keeps a low profile despite his feats. It's not showy, so you'd have to look closely to find its charms and strengths. Even the Space Needle tends to blend in with the surrounding cityscape. The next-door Chihuly Garden and Glass has more outbursts of colors than anything I saw, yet even there the outdoor installations tend to hide in the plants.

Some in the Chinese media call the city "the second Silicon Valley", but I surmise that Seattleites might not be happy to hear it. It does not tout its high-tech pedigree as we are accustomed to, but it has a chic ambience fit for the artist type.

The city's balance between urban sophistication and quiet assurance is distilled into a couplet on Bruce Lee's gravestone - "Having no limitation as limitation, and using no way as way" - that can sum up the legend as well as the city where he spent his formative years. For me, Lee epitomizes the best from East and West. He was a true global citizen - way before the era of globalization.

In Lakeview Cemetery near downtown Seattle where people of diverse races and nationalities come to pay their homage to Lee, I had a feeling that, today, we have the historic opportunity to turn into a prairie fire what one person started at the University of Washington as a single spark.