If I read the words "coming-out party" one more time within the context of the Olympics, I might hurl. Seriously.

And today I read this by Howard French in the IHT, a column about (of course) the Olympics:

This is China's coming out party, and, as countless others will note in due course, the equivalent of the Tokyo Olympics in 1964, when Japan announced its return to vigor after the devastation of the war along with its arrival as a first-rank economic power.