BEIJING -- "Please, may I look?''

"Would you like this one for that one?''

Ah, the Olympic pin.

Before I left Maine for the Olympics, Joan Benoit Samuelson had one piece of advice: "Get some pins to trade."

Little did I know what that would lead to.

For five days, I walked around this city of 17 million in anonymity. Nobody looked at me. Then I got a couple of pins and everyone became my friend.

The Chinese people have become, well, almost fanatical about collecting Olympic pins: team pins, sponsor pins, cartoon pins, sports pins. Doesn't matter, they want them.

And those who deal in pins -- always trading, never selling -- think that's a good thing.

"The people here are really getting into it," said Mike Rose, a firewood dealer from Rochester, N.Y., who is attending his 11th Olympics. "And when the locals get into it, trading just thrives.''

The collectors set up every day on a street corner near the Main Press Center. At first, the police tried to move them. Then they realized that this was harmless.

On good days, when the sun isn't too hot or the rain isn't pouring down, people line three or four deep to look at the pins and try to trade for their favorites.

Language is never a problem. You point to the pins you like and hold out the ones you want to trade.

"It's been really good," said Timm Jamieson, an architect from Roanoke, Va., attending his ninth Games. "What means the most to me is that the Chinese people are really getting into it. And it's actually overwhelming because they are buying pins, trading pins, wanting three, four pins for their pin."

OK, so they're a little naive; that's understandable. For the most part, this is new to them. And heck, everyone is looking for a deal.

And the pin trading is infectious.

Fan Ke Shu, a young volunteer from Beijing, was walking down the street after visiting the collectors, the lanyard holding his credentials smothered with various pins: team pins from Canada, Russia, Portugal and Hungary, and a pin of the Olympic mascot Nini.

"They're so beautiful," he said. "And you can get one and give it as a present."

Of course, he will trade any of them, except his favorite: a 1996 pin from the Atlanta Summer Games, which he keeps tucked snugly in a waist pouch.

Yan Li, another young volunteer from Beijing, was pleased with her acquisition of the Australian team pin. It was given to her by an athlete.

"We have lots of pins," she said, holding out her lanyard, covered mostly with sponsor pins. "We love to trade pins."

And that's good news to Jamieson, Rose and Luie Barbosa, a health-care professional from Los Angeles attending his 15th Olympics. The three have set up next to each other and keep the trading lively.

"We just set up, try to trade and make good will with the Chinese people," said Jamieson, who began collecting badges when he was a Boy Scout, eventually leading to his current hobby of pin collecting.

As Jamieson is talking, he is interrupted by a man trying to persuade him to look at his German soccer pin.

"Later," Jamieson says.

The most popular pins are always team pins, which is why I was willing to trade my 2008 International Olympic Committee pin for a 2008 team pin from the British Virgin Islands, of which only 300 were made.

Also popular, for some reason, are media pins. The CCTV (Chinese television) and Japanese media pins are hot.

"I think (the CCTV) is their media," said Jamieson, holding one up, "and it also represents the Opening Ceremonies."

I have a Washington Post pin, given to me by former Press Herald writer Barry Svrluga, who covered the Michael Phelps/Superman story all last week. Everyone wants it. Sorry, not going to happen.

Unless, of course, you're willing to trade É