Dear Slate, yes there are chocolate bars in China
Lot o' Hotpot: Three Travellers
Interview: Kerry Ann Lee, culture shock = inspiration
Garbage burning protests: The online life of dissent
Coming soon to a police checkpoint near you
Adam Minter has the answer:
Having spent years reporting on this country’s insanely efficient recycling industry, it frankly seemed inconceivable to me that Chinese airports would allow perfectly good carry-on items go to waste (much less, the incinerator). And, tonight, as I arrived at Shanghai Pudong on a late evening flight from Hong Kong, I confirmed my suspicion. There, just on the other side of Customs, was this:
That’s right. The Shanghai Airport authorities are gathering up all of the lighters seized at security, and giving them away to arriving, smoking travelers. Welcome to Shanghai, have a smoke (only partly) on us!
Now, I’m no smoker, but I have to admit that this is the most commonsense solution to a problem that most people never even realized that airport administrators have. Pure genius, and pure, Shanghai-style hospitality!
Now, why don't they show the same kind of hospitality with all the confiscated booze?
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Upon leaving Shanghai this past Spring, I completely forgot that I still have in my purse the little pepper spray my boyfriend got for me for self-defense (it somehow made it through the security at JFK on the way over to Shanghai...and I suppose it's not very effective when I forgot about it). The security at Pudong seized the spray, was very rude about it to me ("how can you forget about such a thing? you can cause the whole plane to go down"), and DECIDED TO PLAY WITH IT RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME. They sprayed each other with it and giggled for a good 10 minutes.
I'll much rather see that it ends up in a pile of lighters to be given away rather than having some 20-year-old boys and girls spraying each other and laughing in front of travelers while they're supposed to be ensuring our safety.
I've lost a lot of scissors, nail cutters and my only pen knife over the last few years and it just makes sense to pick up confiscated ones on arrival. That of course is way too counter intuitive for beleagured airlines and airports to implement.
Picking up another person's nail cutter seems kinda gross to me man...might just stick to lighters...