Shanghai Scrap

Jay Weiner of MinnPost, an online news site based in the Twin Cities, has covered every Olympics dating back to Los Angeles, at least. He’s a very good, very respected writer, and he’s just arrived in Beijing, to this welcome:

… [a]s I stood in line to have my passport checked, a police officer approached me. His English was excellent.

“Where are you from?” he asked.

“The United States,” I answered.

“You are a journalist?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said.

“Write only good news,” he softly ordered. “It will be good for both of our countries.”

… [T]he young woman scanning my passport muttered, “No politics.” In English.

[By the way - the first officer's excellent English, and the fact that he tells Weiner that his uncle worked as a journalist covering the 1972 ping pong diplomacy meets, suggests (to me, at least) that the current Immigration staff at Beijing Capitol has job experience that extends well beyond stamping passports. Not that this should be a surprise, I suppose.]