I had to look up TSA. Some of the following may sound racist and/or culturalist and/or xenophobic or similar. It's certainly not intended to be and hopefully isn't seen that way by any. It's an attempt to describe things as I've seen and experienced them. Various things that I mention below may very well not be the norm - but they are based on my hands-on personal experience. While my experiences may be wholly unrepresentative of some situations you will meet, there is a good chance that they will not be vastly different from what you would experience in some cases and possibly in many cases. I will be happy to continue to do business in China in future. But only on terms which I deemed were liable to produce a mutually satisfactory result. China has security arrangements to check people travelling on internal air transport and on some rail systems. Such arrangements may not be in place everywhere but I'd consider this normal in any country these days. NZ is Oz's brother just across the water. We have security checks of passengers on internal flights which are similar to those on international flights - XRay checks and baggage content limitations etc. We do not (yet) have 'full body scanners" but they will probably come. We have had one attempted "hijacking" on a very small aircraft by a woman who was probably mentally unwell. No success, minor injuries to a pilot and she could not have achieved her aims if she had been successful initially. When travelling internationally and flying QANTAS I have been subjected to 'at the gate' checks by Australian security staff in addition to the airport security. These are every bit as rigorous as any other. Passengers who but a 'coke at the lounge vending machines have it taken off then at the gate by the Oz security staff. When transiting China-Oz-NZ I have on several occasions had to get off the plane in Oz with all cabin gear and then be checked back on xx minutes later through a full security check and back to the same seat. Annoying fellows :-). On one outgoing trip I was asked to participate in a personal bomb carrying check- taken to side room and have a machine check me. They said it was 100% voluntary. I asked what happened if I declined. They said that my trip would stop there :-). I complied. In China at some airports they check people about 30 at a time in batches using a wipe strips which are passed lightly over all as they run amongst you and then bulk check them in a machine. I wondered what would happen to the 30 if they got a positive :-). On one trip incoming to Qingdao (Olympics on in Qingdao at the time) my luggage turned up last on the carousel - not a fluke as happened. At customs I was taken to a side room and 6 or so customs staff went through every item in all my bags and asked about them one by one in detail :-) . I was carrying as full an electronics workshop as I could - tools, components, misc parts like O-ring sets (new, made in China, unopened). Dozens of DVDs, ... . They took the DVDs away "to read". This was actually all quite fun and I accept it was justified enough and it only happened once in ~ 12 visits. Within Australia and within NZ and not on aircraft I would expect movement to be unencumbered and unchecked. In NZ if driving we must carry a drivers licence or face an instant fine. We have no national ID and Oz do not have either as far as I am aware. Driver's licences here serve as a defacto ID for sales identifications. In China where XRay machines are installed on rail lines the checking is usually extremely perfunctory and often a backpack may be carried through unchecked. Aliens (green or other) need a passport for hotel bookings or transport bookings. A few years ago in Beijing I had to submit my passport to obtain internet tome at a I. cafe but I think that may not be done everywhere. Apart from passport when booking I have never felt specifically watched or noticed officially in China - except when I point my camera at certain things which can elicit sudden responses. (Pretty lake running N-S in middle of Beijing - lower half is ringed by a military area. No visually obvious. Nice pagoda with walkway out to it is part of this. As I found out :-). I hear much about bribery and corruption in China and about having to do business their way but it seems reasonably possible to do day to day purchasing and ordering and even manufacturing without this necessarily being an issue. Secondary to my main activities in China, I spent some time 'on site' doing some work for a US businessman, in a shall-remain-nameless inland city, who has manufactured in China for about 30 years. At a dinner with him and a high level Taiwanese man who manufactured in China the latter was lamenting the amount of bribes needed to be paid to local party officials to do business. The US manufacturer said he refused to pay any. Being a "westerner" he could manage this. He was hard drinking and a good entertainer and his local contacts ate well at his expense but got no cash or kind apart from that. He spoke good Chinese (by Western standards) which would have helped immensely - but still used a local translator on business trips. I have two rules for people wanting to do business in China: Rule 1 is 'You have to be there". ie You or a competent representative who has power to act on your behalf and who is wholly dedicated to your best interests must be intimately involved in all parts of the business and manufacturing process. The person can be a Chinese national as long as they are definitely "your man". My observation is that if you fail to observe this rule when transacting business in any major way you will have problems of every sort imaginable and a few unimaginable ones. While you could try to explain the reason why this is so in western terms it both defies reasonable categorisation and it is not necessary to know why as long as you do it - and as long as you know that if you do not do it you die (metaphorically). While there may be elements of the following it is not principally a mater of competence or honesty or taking the main chance or similar. I feel it may have 'cultural' roots coming out of the cultural revolution where a generation or two got very indoctrinated in a different way of doing and thinking - but again, why matters not. Rule 0 is next but is 0 not 2 because it is more fundamental. Rule 0 is "Don't!" Really that's "If you cannot or will not observe rule 1, don't start.". For a long while I saw about 0 exceptions to rule 1. I've now seen a few - but this may be because of great experience and ability and willingness to visit anytime when needed. I do some minor work for a modest sized company who seems to be able to trust a small manufacturer to keep their best interests at heart - but they constitute a fair part of the factory output which probably helps immensely. Along the way: Everything must be checked, certified, tested. When working with other than top level suppliers you cannot take anything on faith or spec sheet or past performance. Products which are advertised as being the product of the seller are, more often than not, sourced from some common pool which others also use. If there is a middleman he becomes a possible pint of discontinuity or change. Again "why" is relatively unimportant. But an element of this is that in a country so vast with many middlemen and uncertain paths from real supplier to user AND with buyers wanting best price and not caring enough about quality there is a tendency to get what you don't pay for. If you cannot be sure that components came from an expected source they may not have. You can buy product from the same factory for two projects run at two different locations using two different purchasing paths and get good quality from one path and rubbish and excuses and reasons why they cannot do xxx from the second path even when you get xxx from the first path. (I'm still trying to work that one out but neither of the paths will be active in future!). killing the Golden Goose seems inexplicably acceptable in some cases. A factory visit and viewing of a product in the factory is not a sure guarantee that they made it or can make it in future. Published performance results for components using internationally recognised test equipment which you have viewed in their laboratory is not guarantee that the test data is worth anything at all. Any test results of performance data or datasheets need provenance that you are personally happy with or reports from others that you trust or your own tests. When technical results vary from those reported you may well be told that you mus have done it wrong. This may very well not be the norm - but it is my personal experience. The following as a comment on how you can get tripped up in everyday things= : Speaking Chinese would be very very very useful but is optional. Just as well. Chinese language is tonal and if you do not use the correct tones what you say is unintelligible. Worse - English words are given tonal add ons when used by the Chinese and can not be understood by them if you do not say them as they do. My ears/brain refuse to handle this apart from the basics. Genuine conversation - me and lady factory engineer. Circuit is on white b= oard. Me: This resistor ... She: Rezisitor? Me: Yes. Re-zis-tor She: (sweetly) Rezisitor? Me: Pointing to circuit on white board, ... slowly. 'Yes. This 10 k ohm re zis tor in the circuit here." She: Oh. Resisitor!!! Sounded the same to me in all cases. This is not stupidity or incapability in any normal sense (except maybe on my par). It's just completely different brain conditioning over decades of life - on both our parts. The classic L / R which is used to parody Chinese and other Asian speech (LED/red etc) is a product of a lack of one of these in normal speech and an interchangeability A very competent sales person who I worked with in one factory had a good English vocab and reasonable linguistic skills. I noted she would often say "he" when she meant "she". On enquiring I found that the word for he and she is the same in Chinese and the difference is linguistically achieve by ... Hmmm. Method escapes me. Anon - translation in and out of English breaks the "code / data fork" [tm] as it were. The he and she are interchangeable and the bit that makes it so is either lost or lost to me. I used to wonder at the value of bottom end electronic translators which allow one word to be looked up. No longer - having one word which is understood can set the scene for much arm waving to complete the conversation. "Scales" got me a trip to a chemist shop that had scales suitable for weighing me - and my bag. "Airport" can help heaps with a taxi driver. "Bus Station" is rather handy. "Taxi" also BUT 'Daaah Deee' repeated with hand waving usually gets you understood. Anon. Russell -- http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist .