Getting a Chinese Visa in Addis Abeba

As we intend to travel through China towards the end of our trip we took advantage of the time in Ethiopia to apply for a Chinese visa in Addis. Well, applying for a Chinese visa in Addis is pain! Why? China tries to keep the number of job seeking Ethiopians low and therefore makes the process lenghty and complex. So there I stand in front of the embassy at the end of a line of about 20 people. Nothing happens for 10 minutes, 20 minutes,... half an hour. Not one single person moves in. Interpolating how much time it would take me to get in (rather days than hours) I get a bit worried... . Eventually the door opens and one person is allowed in. I take the chance and talk to the guard who just replies with WAIT! Seems like there is nothing to do. But then he sees my passports and says, "ahhh Red Cross, please come in". I hesitate for a second as it's not very fair but then decide to take advantage of his colour blindness and move in as it's the only chance for us to get the visa. 30 minutes later I applied for the visa. A week later I'm there again waiting to pick up the visa when a young chinese guy walks out for a smoke. We chat together and it turns out that he is a Chinese Army representative at the Embassy. After an interesting chat he leaves with the words, wait here. He returns with a self burned CD ROM with a PDF file of a scaned China Lonely Planet on it that I can read a bit about China. Great isn't it? Applying for a visa and even get a copy of Lonely Planet?