We went to China in 2003, to make a film for PBS about the rapid social changes in play there. China is a beautiful and fascinating country, but we found the mix of rampant consumerism and big brother political oppression to be very disconcerting. We held our production meetings in Starbucks and McDonalds, and then were followed by secret police everywhere we went to film. Often our subjects would cancel interviews in the middle of the night, after being visited by a local Communist party boss discouraging their talking to foreigners. One of our crew was arrested, roughed up, and sent out of the country for trying to film a large labor demonstration, that the Chinese government denied was even taking place. We’d rather film in a warzone than China any day, its easier to dodge bullets than it is the reach of the Chinese Communist Party.