An R rating for the Chinese New Year Parade broadcast? Thats what raced through my mind when we saw the topless dancer on the Forbidden City float. Ben reminisces this week, as he gets ready to co-host live telecast of the largest Chinese New Year Parade in the western hemisphere.

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Ben Fong-Torres says 'Bon Voyage' to fellow San Franciscans heading to the Shanghai Expo.

James Fang, San Francisco-Shanghai Sister City Committee Chairman, presents former S.F. Mayor Willie Brown with the recently published history, A Celebration: San Francisco-Shanghai Sister City Committee, Honoring 30 Years of Friendship, 1980-2010 . They will be part of San Francisco Week June 17 - 25 at the Shanghai World Expo.

We were in a well-appointed luxury apartment with a tenth floor Bay view to die - or at least get severely injured for. And most of the 40 or so guests, it seemed, were packed and set to jet off, in the next day or two, to China.

It reminded me, kinda, of a sendoff bash some 30 years ago, when I was part of a crew for Cycling Through China, an entertainment documentary. Two of the sponsors hosted a bash a few nights before we took off for Guangzhou, by way of L.A., Macau and Hong Kong. The room in their Pacific Heights home buzzed with excitement. The doors to China had opened, but the country was still in transition, with larger cities going through Westernization. Hotels and discos were being built, fast.

The title,