Reporters on the job

YUGOSLAVIA DREAMING: Reporter Arie Farnam makes her home in the Czech Republic. When she told Czech friends that she was going to Bosnia and Herzegovina for today's story (this page), "they turned green with envy," she says. For many years during the ice age of communism, Yugoslavia was the dream destination of every citizen of hermetically sealed Czechoslovakia. It was not just their only hope of seeing a real beach. It was a possible escape to the West through a hole in the Iron Curtain between Yugoslavia and Italy. But the Yugoslav wars put an end to tourism. "In the 1990s, I saw Czechs sob over the shelling of Dubrovnik and Sarajevo and later NATO's bombing of Belgrade. The places of their fondest childhood memories were being destroyed," says Arie.

When she returned home and told her Czech husband she had been on the winding mountain road from Mostar to Banja Luka, his eyes grew misty. "He had traveled that road with delight several times as a boy. It twists for hours between towering cliffs of granite all the way to the Adriatic, and for many Czechs it was their highway of dreams," she says.

FEW INTERVIEWs: The Monitor's Robert Marquand went to the free anti-Falun Gong exhibit in Beijing for today's story (page 1). Inside, Bob says, he saw lots of "gory pictures" of alleged practitioners hanging themselves or burning themselves. There was a section on the Falun Gong leader's supposed belief in UFOs. Finally, a section on other cults, including the Branch Davidians in the US and Aum Shinrikyo in Japan. "There were fire extinguishers placed throughout the museum, a not-too-subtle safety measure, apparently in case a Falun Gong member tried to self-immolate on the spot," says Bob. "Most Chinese will talk about any subject. But not this one. It scares them," he says. Of course, when a Chinese TV news crew approached Bob (wearing a Hawaiian shirt) for an interview, he demurred.

Let us hear from you.

Mail to: One Norway Street, Boston, MA 02115 via e-mail: world@csmonitor.com