Village Outside Beijing and Spending Two Hours in a Police Station

I took a 2.5 hour bus from Beijing to a village outside the city, aiming for a couple days of relaxation and reading. City life, especially a day as large and hectic as Beijing, can be draining, and a village in the mountains sounded like a nice reprise.

I packed a backpack with a few clothes, some toiletries, a copy of my passport, my Kindle, and a couple old-fasioned books, and set out for the subway which would take me to the bus station on the outer western side of the city. Unfortunately, with no access to a printer (truly unfortunate when you need to print out Chinese characters), I had only the pinyin name of the village.

It was my first time riding the subway alone which means I had to decipher the signs and figure out my route. It was easier than expected, with much additional English signage added in preparation for the Olympics.

I arrived at the subway station, exited, and tried to find the bus stop for bus 192. This proved more challenging. I asked a couple people, got pointed in a direction, and eyed the signs for the 192 stop. Eventually I found it, but I was already pretty tired, and I noticed the sky go from grey-from-smog to grey-about-to-rain, and I considered turning back and abandoning my village trip and just staying in Beijing to read.

At the 192 stop there were lots of taxi hawks and other people hassling me, screaming at me in Chinese, etc. The usual fare. When the bus arrived, I boarded, showed the ticket lady my destination. We tried to communicate. She pointed out of the bus and ahead on the road, as if I were not on the right bus. This confused me — two locals I had asked on the street said 192 in this direction was the right way, as did the online guidebook I consulted. The taxi hawks followed me onto the bus and started screaming “No! No! No!”.

I got off the bus. I walked ahead in the direction the woman pointed, as much to get out of the sight from the touts as much as to find the right bus.

Luckily, up ahead I found another stop, and waited, and a bus came. This time around, the ticket man looked at my destination and told me to come on-board. I gave him my pen and notebook (which I always had at the ready) and he wrote down the fare. 16 RMB. I paid and sat, awaiting the two hour bus ride ahead.

By this time it was already about 5:30 PM and darkness was approaching. Not good, because I was to arrive in a small town, and then find a taxi to take me to the village. Harder to do in the dark.

The ticket man tried to talk to me as we approached my destination — what he was saying, I have no idea, I just prayed he wasn’t trying to tell me the town was sketch or that there were no taxis or something.

I got off in Zhangtaing (sp). By now it was 7 or 7:30 PM and pitch dark. I couldn’t see anything, let alone any taxis who would be able to take me to the village that, while somewhat known, I did not have written down in characters so all bets are off. I decided 10 seconds after arriving in the town that I would go to the village the following day, and stay at a hotel in the town.

It was drizzling rain and there were puddles. I had to badly go to the bathroom, and I was also starving. The first people I bumped into started harassing me, of course — what they said, I have no idea, but it does pretty tiring to always be accosted and sold to.

I walked into a restaurant — their door, like so many restaurant doors, is not a door but rather vertical, cut pieces of plastic that you push open and through. Everyone at the restaurant turned and looked at me and laughed or talked amongst themselves while pointing at me. In small towns, away from a big city, they don’t see many tall, white men.

I made the eating motion with my hands (mime the hand sipping soup with a spoon by my mouth), the “waitress” nodded and told me to sit. A few people stood by my table and watched me. I flipped through the menu, which luckily had pictures, and once again faced the predicament of eating alone at a Chinese restaurant. Since everything is family style, it’s hard to pick dishes for just one person. You usually have go to with dumplings or noodles. Because I was feeling hungry, I ordered two full family style dishes.

After placing the order, I tried to ask how to go to the bathroom. In most parts of the world, saying the world “toilet” does the trick, but not in China. After a good full minute of body language miming, they figured it out, and pointed outside the restaurant, and across the street. That I was not going to do. I did not know whether I should fully trust the restaurant staff, and frankly the darkened shack across the street looked intimidating. So I held on.

I ate the food, paid the $1.50 it cost me, and then wrote the word “hotel?” on my notebook and showed it to them. They did a translation or figured out the word and made a phone call. Then one of the guys led me outside, to the left, and to the front of the police station. At first I hesitated. The last thing I wanted to do was deal with the police, and I thought they had maybe misinterpreted my request for a hotel. Then I remembered that Chinese law says foreigners are supposed to check in at a town wherever they spend the night.

This is where the real clusterfuck began. No one in the police station spoke the slightest bit of English. Not a single word or sound. As usual for China, it was wildly overstaffed, with about eight officers sitting in their chair, doing nothing.

They asked for ID. I first gave them my California iD card. Not, they needed more ID. Then I gave them the copy of my passport. No, they still weren’t satisfied. Then I realized that I was majorly screwed without my real passport. I considered bringing it, but decided against, thinking there was an above-0 chance I just stay the day in the village, and when it’s on my person and I’m robbed, I’m really screwed.

They talked among themselves and tried to communicate to me but failed. I didn’t really know what the hold-up was. One cop called a friend who spoke very broken English, and he got on the phone with me and told me, “They must require you passport.”

This was the problem. They kept thinking I had my passport but wasn’t showing it; in fact, I was trying to tell them I only had a photocopy. We were in a standstill. No one knew what to do.

I finally got the phone and called my contact in Beijing who spoke both languages. She explained my situation to the cop. They went back and forth a bit. Then the cop called his supervisor in Beijing who spoke a bit of English. They agreed I needed to leave the town right away and return to Beijing to be with my passport. “According to Chinese law it is illegal to travel without your passport.”

I got on the phone with the supervisor. We had an exchange, and then he said sternly and weirdly solemnly, “Sir, it is in your best interest to leave the town immediately.” For some reason this kind of freaked me out — I sensed some subtle warning in his voice, like if I didn’t leave the town something was going to happen. Something bad. So I agreed to leave, but how? It was almost 10 PM and Beijing was three hours away by car. The supervisor told me to take a 100 RMB taxi. He then checked with the local cop if there were any taxis…but no. There were none.

So they told me I was to stay the night at a hotel, but leave at 8 AM the next morning. I agreed. They walked me to a hotel. I paid 200 RMB and go on my bed and read.

The next morning was grey and drizzily. I left my hotel at 8:30 AM, wandered around the streets of the town a bit. Nobody was working. Dozens of people standing on the street, doing nothing. Not exactly surprisingly — there are few businesses in the town, other than a hotel or two and a restaurant or two. I’m guessing unemployment in the town is 40% or so.

Then I went to the bus stop, and went back to Beijing. No village, no reading getaway. Just some time in a bus and some time in a police station.