First Lady Wang Yeping was once mistaken as a nanny by security guards in Shanghai when President Jiang Zemin was the city's Communist Party secretary, an official Web site reported yesterday.
Qianlong.com, the Web site of the Beijing Communist Party Committee, said the incident happened in the mid-1980s.
China's official media rarely report the details of state leaders' private lives. They are often portrayed as being revered by the public.
The embarrassing incident happened one day when Ms Wang visited a friend from Beijing who was staying at an official residence.
The report said she was stopped by two security guards at the gate who did not recognise her, and that one of them demanded she fill in a form before being granted entry, as was the standard practice for all visitors.
The other security guard was quoted as saying: 'Don't make it hard for her [Ms Wang] - a nanny who can't read. How can you expect her to fill in a form?'
