'Being a woman will not save you'

Quote from my colleague Yingyi after we were subjected to a banquet with government partners in Xining at the start of a field visit to the Tibetan Plateau.

I say subjected as it's not my first choice to be confronted with plates of tripe and forced to down shots of wine every 5 minutes while everyone around the table gets so hammered they probably couldn't remember their own name.

The fruit platter at the end helped to wash it all down.

The things we have to do to keep relations sweet...