China had a bit of a COVID freakout last week, after cases were discovered in Chengdu, Zhangjiajie, Nanjing, and other places. I happened to be on the road in western Sichuan when I felt the ripples. Here's what a "zero-tolerance" COVID policy looks like out there: Last Wednesday, after a 5-hour drive west, we were stopped at a police checkpoint and told to turn back. Our health codes were green, but we didn't have a COVID test from the previous 48 hours, so we couldn't go any farther. A cop strongly suggested we leave the area completely.

Having been rejected from multiple hotels in the past 10 days (I've been traveling with a friend around NW China on vacation), it seems to me that receptionists and hoteliers have been pretty embarrassed/surprised by their government's discriminatory policy toward foreigners. This is also an observation about Chinese regulatory overreach, how dumb policies enacted at the top can make people at the bottom, through no fault of their own, also look dumb.

For instance, the receptionist at the first hotel we tried tonight called the local police bureau...

China's having a real "No dogs and no foreigners allowed" moment.

A friend walked into a bar in Beijing tonight only to be denied service and handed this sheet of paper: The bartender, who was Chinese, looked apologetic, my friend says, and told him that this was an order from "above."

This is a bar that is co-owned by a foreigner and, incidentally, has been getting a lot of foreign customers recently. It has attracted the wrong ppl's attention.