A reporter in Europe: China vs the truth

BRUSSELS - Last Friday, when I met my colleague Wu Jiao, one of the journalists with President Hu Jintao's delegation to France and Portugal, I offered a joke: "You are in the circle and I am in the second-track."

I spent the all last week in Paris and the French coastal resort of Nice. Apart from interviewing a business leader, a veteran politician and a professor in Paris, I spent the rest of my time on the streets. I had managed to find how ordinary French people and Chinese tourists felt about the president's tour and how they see China's development.

In Nice, I chatted with a hotel manager, a real estate agent, a taxi driver - and even a beautiful Russian woman on holiday there. I even had the chance to visit the restaurant La Petite Ferme - President Nicolas Sarkozy's venue of choice in which he hosted a private dinner for Hu last Friday.