I'll never forget the Beijing cab driver who told me that the government had told them that the women attending the women's conference in Huai Rou were all prostitutes and that we might take our clothes off at any time. He was a cab driver, so he had a little more sophistication than one who might agree to that. And the fact that my friends in Hunan were not allowed to buy train tickets to come and visit me was another sign of both their paranoia and their control. The surprisingly normal telephone connections to others around the country were a real sign of progress in the important area of communication.