Beijing, China - It's just a T-shirt. Or so we thought.

The shirts were 'banned' by the Chinese government. (AFP/Getty images)

Our search for the so-called "communist Obama" T-shirt began with a capable intern scouring markets in Beijing. It depicts U.S. President Barack Obama wearing a Red Army uniform, the "Chinese communist-style" outfit made famous by Chairman Mao. On the front it says, "Serve the People" in Chinese. On the back, "Oba-Mao" in English.

Our first scan of Beijing turned up nothing. But a tip led us to the basement of Shin Kong Place. In an unassuming souvenir shop, we found a T-shirt in extra-large. During our flight from Beijing to Shanghai to cover the president's arrival, a news blitz indicated the shirts had been "banned" by the Chinese government amid worries that they may offend the American president.

Thank goodness we'd gotten ours in time!

But there was no way to confirm the government had indeed taken the shirts off the shelves, so we decided to check for ourselves. We headed to Yatai Xinyang market at a Shanghai metro stop in search of Obama-branded merchandise.

The Chinese also make wallets and trading cards featuring the "Communist Obama" image.

We found nothing but could not be sure they hadn't sold them there before. So, I chose that opportune moment to do a piece to camera with the shirt in hand. Bad move? Maybe. But it ended up being great television.

Two security guards happened to pass by at the moment I announced to the camera: "This is the T-shirt everybody is talking about." And that was it. They scrambled toward us and tried to pry the shirt out of my hands. I didn't give in.

Technically, we did not have permission to film in the market. And the security guards scolded us for not getting permission ahead of time.

There was a bit of yelling and quite a scuffle. My producer Jo Kent emphatically stated our case. Photographer Miguel Castro kept his cool. By this point, we had everything on tape.

We ended up being detained for two hours in the cold maze of a market. A crowd gathered round. More security and then police showed up. They wanted our press cards, our passports, but most of all, they wanted the shirt.

Ultimately, they confirmed that we were indeed "real" journalists (that is legally reporting in China.) But that didn't stop them from scolding us and making it very difficult to leave. After asking repeatedly and then one last time for the shirt, I refused.

Finally, they let us go. Phew!

It was worth it. The shirt got attention on the air and sparked buzz online. In fact, some members of the White House pool and a few colleagues in Atlanta actually tried to bribe me for it.

Nothing like juxtaposing communism and democracy in more ways than one. Just another day on the job.

TOKYO, Japan - U.S. President Barack Obama landed in Tokyo, Japan, on Friday in his first stop of his Asian tour. The White House press corps jumped into action, watching the president’s every move. Not in person, mind you, but on TV monitors.

CNN’s Ed Henry and Dan Lothian report on U.S. President Barack Obama’s arrival in Japan.

Due to security and agreed-upon pool arrangements, one camera shoots the landing and a pool reporter informs the rest of the White House reporters. It’s an unusual sensation sitting next to fellow correspondents watching pool TV and then reporting what they’ve seen on their TV channels.

I’m sitting next to CNN White House correspondents Ed Henry and Dan Lothian. They do this every day, following the president’s every move, his every word. How they report the news has the potential to affect governments around the world and the citizens of those governments. 

The White House pool is a smooth system - there’s barely been a hiccup today. There won’t be very much face-to-face time with either President Obama or Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, but there will be electronic eyes tracking every move.

(CNN) –  My trip back to my native Bulgaria this summer took on a special meaning because of an event that changed the course of history and my life! Twenty years since the fall of communism in Eastern Europe, I was taking special notice of how things had changed. I noticed a new generation gap, separating those like me, who grew up with communism, from those who have no memory of it.

I came face to face with that reality on the plane back home to the United States. 

I was chatting with a 20-something Bulgarian college student on her way to a student work program in the U.S, when I had a flashback to 1991, and my own trip to America when I was that age.  I almost didn't make it. Not because I was late for my flight. But because, to use a famous Cold War scholar's phrase, "history" had not quite "ended" in 1991.

Just a month before my flight, communists opposed to Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev's reforms, deposed him. All of sudden, it seemed, my dream CNN job could have been shut down behind the "Iron Curtain."

Fears grew in Bulgaria, that a return of communism in Russia would bring the Cold War back to tiny Bulgaria. A week later, it was over. The communist revival attempt failed, I was free to board my trans-Atlantic flight!

I glanced over at the young woman sitting beside me. Such a relief that history is no longer in our way. But even though we're both enjoying the benefits of change, there's one big difference. I experienced that history first hand; she's only heard about it from her mom. And that's a generation gap I gladly embrace.

I can still taste the concrete powder that filled the air when the Wall came down. It had a chalky sense of history about it. A taste one never forgets.

Evelyn Preuss in the rubble-filled streets of post-war Berlin.

My parents emigrated to the U.S. in 1960, seeking a better way of life. They were both children of war. My father, Gunter Preuss, grew up as a German in occupied Poland. He has lots of stories about death and suffering. Things a child should never witness.

My mother, Evelyn, is a Berliner. She fled into the cellar during Allied bombing runs. They never knew whether their house would be there when the all clear siren rang. Another example of things a child should never witness.

After the war, she said “Berliners just picked themselves up and rebuilt.” My family settled in New Orleans, Louisiana.

We grew up in middle class suburbia - a long way from the bombed out streets of Berlin. It was important to my parents that we spoke German in the house and visit relatives overseas. So in the summer, my brother and I would head to Germany - the divided one.

One grandmother lived in Kassel, West Germany. It seemed just like home but hilly with castles. I remember U.S. troop training and seeing tanks rolling down the streets. It made me feel proud, even though the Germans called us “Ami’s.”

The trip to see my other relatives in West Berlin was quite an adventure for us kids. We would drive through an East German border town. There were machine guns and guard dogs. There was an overriding feeling of paranoia and fear.

The soldiers never smiled and seemed angry. This was not something we ever expected. This became my legacy of the Cold War. Something the friends back home could not relate to.

Back in the safety of West Berlin, we once again felt cozy. I never did spend a lot of time at the Wall during those visits, but always felt its presence.

I remember once discussing the Wall with my parents. Mom said: “It is part of our lifestyle, we are divided there will never be one Berlin.”

Flash forward to November 1989. CNN was broadcasting the impossible. The Wall was coming down.

My mother and I knew we had to be there. We made travel arrangements. My memories of that heady time are filled with joyful trepidation.

Was it really true? Am I climbing on top of the Wall with hammer, chisel and spray paint cans? My mother’s first thought - “I wish my mother could have seen this, she would never have believed it.”

Evelyn and son, CNN's Andreas Preuss, at the falling Wall.

Mom was been back several times but staying still in the West area. I went back during the German Presidential Election a few years ago. There were construction cranes all over.

That feeling of paranoia was gone. The heady taste of capitalism was alive and well. A lot of money, hope and promise was filling the former Wall Zone.

My second hometown was changing. Places that I remembered as being the most prominent streets like the Ku-Damm seemed worn down and forgotten.

The buzz was in the East. I did find a spot where mom and I touched the Wall. It was now part of an outdoor museum and a reminder for all to see.

TOKYO, Japan – When Hideki Matsui lifted up the trophy for the World Series Most Valuable Player (MVP) award, it was a moment felt deeply by Masanori Murakami. Murakami was the first Japanese player brought in to play for the San Francisco Giants in 1964.

Hideki Matsui celebrates with the World Series MVP trophy at Yankee Stadium on November 4, 2009.

He wasn't just the first Japanese, he was also the first Asian to enter the American sport. This was before Japan's emergence on the global stage and less than 20 years after World War II.

Murakami didn't have the million dollar contracts, the interpreters or the kind crowds. "I envy those young players," Murakami said. "It was much tougher for me. I faced a lot of discrimination."

That is an understatement. Murakami, ever polite and humble as an elder Japanese gentleman, doesn't like to talk about those fearful times, when he was badgered on the San Francisco Giants bus by his own teammates.

The public was even worse - the FBI was alerted due to death threats against Murakami and his manager.

Forty-five years later, Matsui is a national hero, both in Japan and in the U.S. He's joined by Major League Baseball giants Daisuke Matsuzaka and Ichiro Suzuki.

"Japan and the U.S. are like brothers now," Murakami said. These brothers now toast their new hero and celebrate his accomplishment in the World Series. But for Murakami, it's beyond celebration. It is a triumph.

HONG KONG, China – My recent interview with Aki Ra, a Cambodian dedicated to landmine removal after being forced as a child by Khmer Rouge to plant mines, reminded me of my own close brush with unexploded ordnance.

A Cambodian woman walks past a landmine awareness sign near the Thai border in July 2007.

I was on a reporting assignment in former Khmer Rouge turf in northern Cambodia.

After hours riding on a bumpy road, nature called. We were in an area that had just reportedly been cleared of landmines and the government was resettling military families there.

Some villagers came out to greet us. We asked for a bathroom but there was none. Instead, they pointed to a path that still had a sign warning about the presence of landmines. You can never be sure if the mines are all gone, they said, so just stay on the path and find a spot along the way.

There were no trees and I juggled modesty with safety as I hesitatingly inched down the path. I turned back a few times and saw the dozen or so villagers standing on the road, watching my progress.

I finally got my business done and briskly returned along the path to our car.

But I have never forgotten that moment. It made me think of the risks that Cambodians, and others living in such heavily-mined countries - Iraq, Colombia, Afghanistan - take everyday to go about their daily lives: Tilling a field to cultivate crops, walking to school, rounding up the family's livestock or even finding a spot for a community outhouse.

As a reporter for an international news agency in the country for more than two years, I encountered many Cambodians - old and young - whose futures in one of the world's poorest countries were literally hobbled by these weapons of war.

They all made do with their challenging situations in a country where physical fitness is part of daily survival, since many Cambodians are doing some type of farming or fishing to put food on the table.

Meeting Aki Ra, who has now started his own non-profit group to rid the country of mines, reminded me how much this sad legacy of decades of conflict will continue to linger on for Cambodians until the last mine is cleared. Read the article on Aki Ra