Dinner with President Clinton

My family was at a dinner also attended by President Clinton. There was one very nice well-appointed room, and a second less formal room with a long cafeteria-style table. Clinton was supposed to sit in the nice room, of course, but instead he wanted to sit in the informal communal table. My family sat on one end, and of course, everyone was speaking in Chinese, and laughing and being loud. I kept giving "I'm sorry" looks to Clinton's aides.

Then a female Chinese Army officer came in, and demanded to see everyone's papers. I was wearing a quilted silk Chinese jacket, and she made me take it off. She also wanted to know why I was wearing an outer jacket indoors - it was suspicious. I tried to explain that it was just because I was cold - I was only wearing a tank top underneath...