BEIJING — In the short amount of time she's been in Beijing this time around, Clarissa Chun has felt awed and awkward.

She's in the land of her paternal ancestors to wrestle in the 48-kilogram weight class during the Beijing Olympics, and quite confident she can claim a gold medal. Chun, a 1999 Roosevelt alum from Kapolei, has delighted in visiting China before; the only issue is that she doesn't speak Chinese.

"I wish," she said at a press conference yesterday, hiding a smile as she covered her face with her hands. "That's just so terrible, because my last name is Chun so they know that I'm Chinese, and all the Chinese people ask me if I speak Chinese and I'm like, 'No,' and they all laugh at me. I hope I'm not insulting them."

Chun only arrived here Wednesday, but her early impressions have been very favorable.

"Oh my gosh, the Olympic village is beautiful," Chun said. "I think I expected the worst — I expected really bad air quality, I expected 100-degree weather, 90-percent humidity, and when I came, it was just so nice. As we were driving by, the streets were clean, the flowers were all pretty. Not like how I remembered it in 2002.

"They said in Athens (in 2004), things weren't ready and everything, and I heard in China, the buildings were done so fast. They're hard workers and I know they do get things done."

Chun is something of a hard worker herself. She readily admitted she didn't even hear of women's wrestling until after she graduated high school. The sport joined the Olympics in 2004, and Chun is making her Olympic debut buoyed by a first-place finish at the Olympic team trials, where she knocked off Olympic bronze medalist Patricia Miranda in the finals.

"I learned a lot from Olympic trials," Chun said. "Anyone could have faced Patricia Miranda and just conceded to her because she's a great athlete. I respected her, but not so much where I didn't believe I could beat her. After I beat her that just gave me more confidence and a lot of energy in preparing for Beijing and the Olympic Games. I'm ready for the world."

Chun, 26, said she will have seven friends and five family members in Beijing to cheer her, though not her paternal grandmother, an octogenarian who isn't up to the travel. It is from this woman Chun learned so much about her heritage while in Hawai'i.

"My grandma is really old-school Chinese," Chun said. "I remember growing up doing spirit days, where we go to the graveyard and honor my great-grandfather, my grandfather, my great-grandma. I remember folding fake money and putting it in bags and sewing up the bags, and at the graveyard they would have bins and they would light the bins on fire and burn the money."

Chun wants to see the Temple of Heaven once she's done competing, and return to the Great Wall. Over the coming days, though, her focus will be on her training, and maximizing what she believes are her advantages. The women's competition begins next Friday.

"I move a lot," she said. "Me having a judo background, I know how to throw. I like being very offensive on my feet, so I'll take shots. I've been working on my defense, so I feel like I'm ready to go."