Outsiders not welcome at Chinese spy museum

Foreigners keep out!

Committed to preserving national secrets, the new Jiangsu National Security Education Museum in Nanjing is only open to Chinese citizens. So, if you want to see guns embedded in lipstick, maps hidden in decks of cards and other accoutrements of the spy trade (or, "tradecraft," as spies over here call it), you have to have the right passport.

Most of the items on display are well past their "use by" dates. Guns disguised as fountain pens and pipes, a bugged calculator and instructions for wiretapping can be found ... some of which date back to the communist fight against the nationalists in 1927.

Even though some of these tools and methods are dated, the government likes to keep a leash on its secrets, so the best you'll get is a second-hand account from a loose-lipped local. A spokesman for the spy museum said to The Associated Press, "We don't want such sensitive spy information to be exposed to foreigners, so they are not allowed to enter." Most of the prospective guests turned away, though, understand the reasoning.

Desperate to get a look? You can usually get in if you have "Chinese features" and look "clean."

Filed under: Arts and Culture, History, Learning, Asia, China