Struggles with Police and Losing my Shit in China

The spot where I was dropped off

 First blog for a whole year..

 This ordeal happened to me in China recently after I left a bag containing my laptop, tablet and other precious electronics in a taxi as I was dropped off at my hostel. It was something that's easy to do and extremely difficult to remedy.. 

French, Pokemon addicted doctors

It started on a delayed flight from Xi'An to Kunming. I was deep into conversation with four trainee French doctors. They caught my attention because they were the only other Westerners on board and they all played Pokemon on old-school Gameboys.

It transpired we were all staying at the same hostel and they generously agreed to find a vehicle that could fit us all.We haggled at the airport exit gate with a gang of slightly dodgy looking characters until we settled upon a price. Our driver was a Chinese man in his late 50's who could speak very few words in English. He led us down to a basement car park, we piled into a modern grey minivan and took off.

One of the four French dudes

The world cup match between France and Nigeria was about to start and at 11.58pm the lads started passionately singing La Marseillaise.

Losing my shit

At exactly midnight we rolled up to a spot near "The Hump Youth Hostel" (seriously). After we collected our stuff from the car the driver asked "Okay?" We all nodded said thank you and walked away.

I had walked around twenty metres when I looked at the four Frenchmen before yelling: "FUCCKKKKKK!" There have been few moment in my life where I've felt a sense of sheer panic but this was one of them. I sprinted back to where the minivan had just been.. but it was gone.

I'm not saying it was exactly like this but close

Getting it back: Disinterested Police

After a sleepless night thinking about my lost photos, the next morning I arranged to go to the local station with a staff member from the hostel. They assigned me a fresh-faced teen called Danny who was a local but had lived in the states for a few year so could translate.

The hero of the day..looks and acts older than he is

On arriving at the station I saw a small office room in which several officers were sitting around. It wasn't the most professional looking outfit. One was sleeping, one had her cellphone out and others were tapping away on computers. Danny advised me that police in China were quite different to the West so we'd be lucky to get help and we'd need to be patient. He said: "They are so rude, they just don't wanna be bothered."

We made the report but were told that it was impossible to find my bag without the number plate and we should forget ever getting it back. The police we were dealing with could not have given less of a shit. I know there are plenty of more important crimes than a stupid white guy who forgets his stuff but it wasn't a

difficult case to solve!

I couldn't help but think while looking around the station; the filthy toilets, ancient computers and generally poor facilities - that police in China might be under-resourced.

If only I had encountered
cops like this..

CCTV Cameras not so bad? 

After insistence and patience by Danny and myself, some of the police agreed to review CCTV footage with us from the night before (eventually they just let me do it while they looked on). In Sherlockesque fashion, we trawled through video after video, angle after angle... pausing, rewinding and trying to find the car. Eventually we found it but unfortunately the video quality wasn't good enough to see the car's plate.

We were referred to another station who were said to have better quality cameras but they just sent us back to the original station!

The car in question.. what's the number plate though?

Round in circles

We returned to the original station to get permission from the airport police to see their footage. Again they said: "Give up."

We waited another hour before a kindly middle aged cop said he would drive us out there in his own car (I paid road tolls). He smiled and wasn't rude and that was a big difference compared to most of the police I dealt with. 

After 40 mins we arrived at the airport and continued to be ignored and rebuffed. Even with a policeman accompanying us, security at the airport said the cameras were poor, nothing could be done etc

The police's attitude

Feilock Holmes

I explained that the previous night, the only five white dudes in the airport all walked into the car park at the same time and that must have been captured somewhere on film!

After waiting about an hour at the car park some airport cops turned up. 

They escorted us to a big-brother control room where there were many monitors and several people sitting at control desks.. I knew our arrival time and I remembered that our driver had used a tag to buzz out the gate. This was a crucial clue.

How I felt most of the day

One of the airport staff switched to camera view of the whole carpark and fast forwarded from 11.10 pm to 11.26pm when a pack of white fellas strolled to a car.. Booyah!

He switched to another angle for the gate camera which staff use and at 11.31pm, the car we were aboard was shown on camera. Number plate and all!

Breakthrough!

We had the number plate. We went to another station waited another 30 minutes. The police got the details and took us back to the original station.

The driver was called and was defensive saying that he was no thief and that he just hadn't gotten around to calling the police yet. He agreed to come directly to the station with my bag.

On the case at the airport.. Finally a breakthrough

Success!

Finally the driver arrived. He offered the policeman a cigarette but seemed angry. Apparently he was worried he would lose his job because his boss thought something dodgy was afoot when police asked about him. The friendly policeman called the airport boss to clear things up. I offered the cab driver some money for his troubles. He asked for triple but I maintained my original offer and he took off.

I was very lucky. Nine and a half hours with Chinese police was a small but frustrating price to pay for being forgetful.

Lessons to be learned from this chapter when dealing with Chinese police: 

Success with friendly cop! After 9.5 hours

*Whether you are robbed, lose something or are scammed - when dealing with Police in China - timeliness is important. You also must be persistent .

* Be extra super bloody vigilant with your belongings when in foreign lands, especially while in transit. I'm usually so careful but on this occasion I slipped.

* If in China either learn Mandarin or have Chinese friends or associates when you get into trouble. Very few people can speak English.. I would have gotten nowhere without a translator.

*Take photos of the number plates or ID's of the cabs you are in.. That way, you are covered if you do accidentally leave something behind.

*Don't carry around too much stuff. Having loads of possessions and moving around all the time means it's easier to misplace an item.

END