China vs. Japan

[Charles]

Refueling a light aircraft in Japan:



and the same aircraft refueling in China:



More pics and commentary from James Fallows of Atlantic Magazine.

[Mulboyne]

Fallows wasn't happy at being photographed and fingerprinted:

...Unfortunately Japan's way of ushering in the Thanksgiving holidays has been to institute mandatory fingerprinting and photographing of all foreigners entering the country. Let me put this bluntly: this is an incredibly degrading, offputting, and hostility-generating process. The comment is not anti-Japanese: when the U.S. does this to foreigners, it's wrong and degrading too (as many people, including me, have pointed out over the years). But Japan has just ushered in this procedure, and they deserve to take some heat for it...The people around me in the passport line -- and, in 90 minutes, we had time to talk - were from a dozen different countries and many walks of life. But they were united in one sentiment as they moved toward the fingerprint machine, and it's not one that Japan's diplomacy is designed to foster...more...