Locke photo charms China

SEATTLE – A photo of the new U.S. ambassador to China carrying his own backpack and ordering his own coffee at an airport has charmed Chinese citizens not used to such frugality from their officials.

ZhaoHui Tang, a businessman from Bellevue, Wash., snapped the photo Friday on his iPhone when he spotted Gary Locke wearing a backpack at the counter of an airport Starbucks. Locke is the first Chinese-American ambassador to China and a former governor of Washington state.

Tang uploaded the photo to the Chinese social media network Sina Weibo because he thought it was cool to run into the new ambassador at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.

He didn’t expect it to generate 40,000 reposts and thousands of comments.

“This is something unbelievable in China,” said Tang, a Chinese-American citizen.

“Even for low-ranking officials, we don’t do things for ourselves. Someone goes to buy the coffee for them. Someone carries their bags for them.”

The image drew favorable online commentary in China, where government bureaucrats and business leaders are notoriously officious and status conscious and even a low-level county executive travels in a chauffeur-driven car with a retinue of secretaries and security officers.