There maybe was some confusion caused by the post(s) I offered last week featuring the co-branded PETA/Lingerie Football League protest in downtown Seattle. To recap, four of the women from the LFL's Seattle Mist came out on a very rainy Wednesday a few weeks after the Holidays shopping season ended to protest the selling of fur coats. It could be noted that Nordstrom - the Seattle retailer anchoring the downtown retail district around Westlake Park where the protest occurred - doesn't carry fur garments. In the top picture here, one set of legs is from that of a player, wearing her turf shoes. Presumably made of leather. And in that same pic are the leather boots (again, presumably) of a PETA organizer standing next to her in Starbucks after the rainy show. Or maybe their footwear is synthetic, derived from petroleum. In the other picture here, you see at least one leather bag, more leather shoes, and I don't even want to get into dissecting what the lingerie uniforms are made of (I'll leave that to the real fans out there). Obviously these aren't the parts of the images anyone will look to for meaning when the central subject(s) are toned, fake-tanned (this is Seattle, after all...and one of the sponsors of the Mist is a tanning salon), let's just say sporty-clad women on the street. But if you're going to be out there making a point, I think the debate should be teed up. The protest brought to mind things I've seen Dan Matthews from PETA say for the past two decades (one particular interview with "Dateline NBC" in 1995 serves up some of his universal or holistic views on the use of animals). To paraphrase - just don't do it. Because I'll assume he's consistent, he represents the view that even honey or silk shouldn't be used (don't tell the sweet Mist players that all those silky garments that are LFL's namesake possibly came from worms or you might have a strike on your hands). One takeaway from this is that holistic beliefs are hard. And if you're casual about it, you're opened up to charges of hypocrisy. I could take it further to make a point I've always maintained about these protests. That they have very, very little to do with animals. This is about "class" and not the kind that has anything to do with whether people think it's appropriate to wear your underwear out in public (on that note, I'm a total libertarian). No, this is about targeting people for the buying decisions they make and their presumed position on some metaphorical socio-economic roster. Because if it was only about the animals, all those leather shoes and silky uniforms and downy-outerwear and honey-infused tanning products or latte sweeteners and I'm sure plenty of other stuff not even mentioned might warrant their own passel of protesters. Who'd surely look very different. And where's the fun in that?

Well, the whole "follow me as I tour my way through China" plan didn't exactly work out as planned. Sorry 'bout that. Funny thing about government censorship. It's not really a big deal for most of us. Yet when it affects something you care about, the insidiousness proves irksome.

So instead I'll now embark on a recap of my ten days in Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong. Ten days isn't much time at all to get acquainted with such a vast and fascinating new place. I did, however, pay close attention and what I've got to work through in my own writing might offer a bit of perspective for others who are also trying to assess the world's increasingly eastward tilt. Or at least I'll get a bit of what I'd intended to say out there, and do the ol' end around on those short-sighted Chinese censors. That'll show 'em.

For today, look to Bejing. Cooler than freon city. The run-up to the Olympics in 2008 turned over the landscape to historic dimensions. From what I heard repeatedly, residents are still trying to assess just how many changes occurred. Whole neighborhoods were razed for aesthetic considerations. The high gloss buffed onto Beijing for that brief fortnight has mostly dulled into a collection of so-so venues in an otherwise roiling landscape of growth and renewal. Walking around the Bird's Nest (the main Olympics stadium venue) a day after strolling through the Forbidden City put obvious bookends on the new and old for me. As it surely has for millions of others. Still, I was more struck by the contrasts between the meandering alleys (called hutongs) and the luxury goods retailers. Where else can you see people burning trash in the gutter alongside the same street where you can go window shop for Ferraris and Lambourghinis? The contrasts abound. One evening I passed by a bustling Starbucks nestled into the same lakeside strolling district in the Houhai neighborhood where I got solicited repeatedly with the catch phrase of "lady bar", just before wandering the dimly lit hutongs looking for a place appropriately called No Name Bar. Whipsawed forward and back between eras, it all works. Add in countless bits of unintended street theatre, deep deep history and a feeling of being surrounded but completely safe. I know I saw little more than a passing moment when I was in Beijing. A tripwire moment that I'll look to for years to come for when I started paying serious attention to the new edge being cut there.

For tomorrow, I'll touch on what I saw still in the north of China, but outside of Beijing. Along with elements seen as a part of my tour - the reason for my being there, in the first place.