Visa

I renewed my passport for my China trip. The good news is that passport renewal has gotten much faster: I got the new one about 10 days after mailing in my application. The bad news is that the new passports are hideous. Where the old passports look dignified and old-fashioned, the new passports bear a chip that allows them to be read through your pocket, quotations from the likes of Lincoln, and pictures of cowboys and cacti. I think my collection of souvenir pigs is less tacky than this passport.

Though the Chinese visa I picked up this week is considerably less ugly than my passport, the application process put a different form of patriotism on display: A video of the Beijing Olympics opening ceremony plays on a loop on large-screen TVs in the waiting area of the visa office. Apparently listing my occupation as "science writer" raised a red flag, because I had to write an sign an affidavit stating that I wouldn't do anything work-related while in China.