SHANGHAI, China — When I was 15 I moved here. I graduated from high school here, and throughout college I would return at least once every year to visit my family.

But I’ve never undertaken a trip under the dark clouds that exist now: war, disease and — horror of all horrors — the possible cancellation of the WNBA season.

While I wasn’t really concerned about Sudden Acute Respiratory Syndrome or the thought of not seeing Sue Byrd in shorts, the war weighed heavily on my mind. I knew the Chinese government opposed the U.S.-led attack on Iraq, and I was a little worried that people would resent me for being an American. No, check that. I wasn’t worried they would resent me. I was worried they would kick my ass.

Back when I lived here, that was never a problem. In the late 1990s, Shanghai was going through an economic boom, mostly from U.S. investment. As a result, Chinese people loved Americans. Old women would stop me on the street to pat my red hair. Taxi drivers would smile when I told them where I was from.

“Clinton is good,” they would say. “Saddam is bad.”

(They actually would say a lot more than that, but I can only understand a few words of Chinese.)

But with the war going on, I didn’t know what to expect. So when I left the airport, I braced for the worst. Sure enough, the first thing the taxi driver asked me was where I was from.

“Oh, America,” he said. “Iraq, huh? Saddam is bad.”

I had an ally. “Yeah, Saddam is bad,” I said. “Bush is good.”

“No, I don’t like Bush,” he said. “Clinton is good.”

Even better. This guy was obviously an American sympathizer. Now the trick was to find out whether he was part of the majority opinion or the minority.

A few days later, I went searching for that answer in a bar called Goodfellas, where the waiter, a guy named Tony, speaks fluent English and therefore is much easier to interview than most Chinese.

But when I got to the bar, Tony was nowhere to be found. Instead, I saw a gorgeous Chinese woman sitting at the bar.

“Is Saddam bad?” I asked her.

“No, but I bet you are,” she said. “Do you want to take me home and show me how bad you can be?”

(Once again, I don’t speak Chinese. But I don’t see why she wouldn’t have said that.)

“No,” I told her. “I have a girlfriend in a far-away land called America whom I love very much.”

“That has nothing to do with what she was talking about, man,” Tony said, standing right behind me. “She said she doesn’t think Saddam is bad, she doesn’t really care.”

“What about you?” I said. “What do you think about the war in Iraq?”

“I don’t like it,” he said. “I think America should leave other countries alone to tend to their own business.”

“But you don’t mind serving Americans in your bar?”

“No, of course not,” he said. “You’re not the one who started the war. I’ll take anyone’s money.”

So that was that. Clinton is good. Saddam is bad. And if you have enough money to buy a beer, it doesn’t matter whether you agree with that or not.