When I first began as a photojournalist apprentice as a teen, my boss was a film guy who had seen coverage in Vietnam, Cambodia & Thailand. The stories he told me about "truthful reportage" made me forever cynical and suspicious 40 years on. He told me of several so-called correspondents who reported on the battlefront from the front bar of the luxury hotels in which they were staying!

All my friends who have been to China and N Korea return to Australia with wildly different (first-hand, witnessed) stories which run at 180º to the Western media, but all positive and 'normal' life/living. I have visited China dozens of times - never followed, never stopped taking photos (I am a photographer), never questioned...& how could I get lost in Shanghai for an hour without someone stopping me if I were under surveillance?! Luckily I found someone who could speak English (as I only speak Cantonese).