Zhao Wei gets a giant key in Jilin City

Vicki Zhao Wei journeyed to Jilin City in the far northeast where they specialize in making keys and locks for really big doors, behind which live the model municipal workers that she was in town to honor. She was onstage for about 20 minutes, passed out a few autographed pictures, probably reminded everyone that Dangerous Liaisons will be opening soon and was whisked away to her next stop.

No worker came forward to claim the award nor were any identified, but one imagines that a model municipal worker in Jilin City or anywhere else in China would rank between the Stakhanovite ideal and the Beijing traffic police. Aleksey Stakhanov was the real life USSR version of the semi-mythical John Henry in the United States although John Henry was a steel drivin' man while Stakhanov was a coal miner. Beijing police officers were criticized when they wrote tickets for cars that were covered with debris or disabled by floodwaters during the recent flooding.

International Herald Tribune; Xinhua; Global Times; RT; ibiblio