Attitude of Gratitude

I have recently been trying to get a visa to go to China and it has been nearly impossible because they have reduced the number of visas they are giving out with the Olympics currently taking place there.

The process has been a bit painful, but I finally did get one after several trips to the Chinese consulate last week. I had problems with one question on the form: "Have you ever been arrested in China?" I ended up saying no, but I did get detained by the Chinese military the last time I was there. Does that count? I like to think it doesn't.

My last company sent me to Xiamen in China for the month of March 2000 to cover for a woman who was out on maternity leave. It was an incredible experience that has long since stuck with me and left a sweet spot in my heart for China and its people. I am absolutely thrilled that I am going back, if only for a few days. I hope I get to see some of my old friends while there.

But this story isn't about the good times, it is about how an American gets held in China at a military base for 7 hours.

"Day, 18: Saturday, March 18th, 2000:

I get up real early to go out of town with Kelly and his girlfriend Candy to his hometown of QuanZhou (pronounced Chen-zou). We took a bus there and I slept most of the way, but not before Kelly telling me that 80% of Chinese people are farmers, but they are only given 2 hectors (however much that is... I am assuming it is very small) per family. So, most people are very very poor and just want to make a better living for themselves. They will do this any way possible - selling your rides, selling trinkets, selling
food, etc.

Once we got to Hui'an City, we took a bus to another city called CongWu Town. Apparently in this area it is well known because there is a special dress the women wear here. They dress almost fully covered, xcept for their stomach during hot weather (75 degree weather is still considered cold and a reason to wear long sleeves!) and pull their hair back tight and wrap it wonderfully with colorful bows and ribbons. Apparently their husbands left for Taiwan and they are waiting for them to come back (or something like that).

Also, this area is known because the women do all the work instead of the men. They are out working while the men take care of the home. And this region is also known for its cut stone. They have a ton (literally - ha ha!!) of stone factories.

We decided to go see this HUGE statue of a typical woman from this area. To get there we found a tricycle with a little bitsy cab on back that we could all squash into and she gave us a ride to another little village. She let us off near the ocean and we were instructed to walk up the hill.

As we walked up the hill Kelly and Candy told me that there was a military base and that we would go a different direction up the mountain to this statue. Pretty ironic since the Taiwan elections are going on today and they are electing a man who wants to separate Taiwan from China...

Anyways, I take some photos of this statue. In one of them I make Kelly to stand on the foot of it to show how huge it was. Then I sit down to eat an orange. It is then that I notice that the guys from the military base are looking at me with binoculars, so I wave at them. No harm in being friendly, right? I didn't understand why they were staring at me, but didn't think much of it because it isn’t unusual for people always stare at me here.

About this time a soldier walks up with a rifle and asks if we wouldn’t mind going with him. We go and they being walking us to their military base. Kelly tells me they just want to find out who we are and that this will only take a few minutes. I'll never fall for that one again! We go into a room and are asked to sit down and they are very hospitable and bring us some tea and say that they have to go get their guy in charge. No big deal. The time is 1pm.

An hour passes. They are sitting around chatting with us. I am drinking tea, going to the bathroom, reading a book. Bored. They are all talking in Chinese, so I don't know what is going on. About an hour and a half after we get there they ask for my passport and my camera to make sure it is real. It is at this time they tell me that you are not supposed to take pictures of this statue. They take my camera away with them. They tell me they are going to develop the film because this is a military area and there might have been radar equipment in the photo. I told them that I intentionally left out their building because it would have ruined the photo of the statue. The time is 2:30pm.

Another hour passes. Some more people show up in cars. The time is 3:30pm. The guys are just going to ask us a few questions. They take Kelly and speak to him alone for an hour. They give us peanuts and some other strange nuts I’ve never seen before to eat. Candy and I played around with a basketball to pass the time. Then feed us some noodles. Then they take Candy and she is gone for about an hour before they bring her back. By this time I see them outside the window and they have developed my photos and can see there are none of the military base. But they still won't let us go. Luckily I had only taken 3 pictures so far on that roll, so there wasn't much for them to look at.

At about 5pm they start asking me questions. Since no one speaks English and they won't allow Candy or Kelly in the room and they had to bring in an interpreter. They are apparently not convinced by this time that is this all an accident and that I didn't know I wasn't supposed to take pics. It went something like this for about 45 minutes:

1) What is your name?
2) What is your birthday?
3) What is your address?
4) How long have you been in China?
5) How long do you plan on staying?
6) Where do you work?
7) When did you come to this city?
8) Why did you come here?
9) How do you know these people?
10) What are their Chinese names?
11) How did you find out about this statue?
12) What did you do today?
13) What all did you take pictures of today?
14) Did you know this was a military base?
15) Did you see the sign saying that you can't take pictures?
16) Did you know you weren't supposed to take pictures?
17) Didn't your friends tell you?
18) Did you see people at the military base while you were taking pictures?
19) Did you wave hello to them?
20) Do you feel bad for what you have done?
21) Did they offer you tea when you came to the military base?
22) Are you telling the truth?

I figure out at this point that my waving hello to them have gotten them all worked up! And when they asked me if I read the sign telling me not to take pictures I laughed at them and told them I didn't because I obviously can't speak Chinese, I suggested putting a sign of a camera with circle and a line through it if they wanted foreigners to understand not to take pictures. When they asked if I felt bad for what I had done, I laughed again and said that of course I didn't feel bad because I hadn't done anything wrong. And yes, I am telling the truth because I don’t have anything to lie about!

All this time they have an interpreter asking me the questions that some angry guy chain smothing cigarette is asking while trying to look intimidating. Instead of recording my answers, or using anything from the 20th century, the angry guy wrote everything out in Chinese, based on what the interpreter was saying, with other people writing it all out also. It was crazy, and totally inefficient and a waste of time. Then they made me fingerprint all over all the pages with this red ink and sign my name on something that I can't even read! It was unbelievable.

After this I think that they certainly have to let us go now. After all, we had been there for hours, they have interrogated each of us separately so it was clear that everything is just an accident and that the pictures didn’t show the base, but they didn’t. I was seriously beginning to think they just wanted to keep us there!

Finally at around 6:30pm I am beginning to get impatient and all of a sudden they want to search all our stuff. I let them search my stuff, but I wasn't too happy about it, but Candy refused to let them search hers. At this point they forced her to read a book on National Security. After that we wait. And wait. And wait longer.

Finally at about 8pm they say we are okay to go. By this time they have to give us a ride back to town because the public transportation is no longer running.

Come to find out afterwards that they had their equivalent of the CIA in the States come out to interrogate me, as well as their National Security, the military police, and Foreign Affairs all present. During the detainment, I had no clue who these guys were. All I know is that I just was sick of waiting there! I can think of much better ways to spend my time, especially in China!

My personal opinion about the Chinese military..... I thought they had no reason to detain us that long and that they just wanted to keep us there. They were incredibly inefficient and could have finished all this bullshit in about an hour, but they chose not to. They didn't seem like they had anything to do, and my showing up taking pictures must have been some real excitement the day of elections in Taiwan. Not only that, they seemed to want to practice their English.

In this particular base they were living in pathetic circumstances. They have the worst outhouse style bathroom without electricity that I have seen yet (and I have seen plenty so that is saying a lot! At some point I even had to borrow a lighter from someone to go to the bathroom when it was dark. They have one rotary phone, and something that looks like a Morse Code machine for all outside interaction. They had one TV, and it was all fuzzy because they didn't have a satellite - they couldn't even get normal TV!! They looked bored and played basketball to pass the time during the day. They have a garden and it looks like they have to grow their own vegetables. They just looked like they were happy to have visitors. They look like they live in much worse conditions than the normal Chinese civilians I’ve visited and it makes me wonder why anyone would willingly chose to go into the military!

Afterwards we went back to the hotel and didn’t do much else in the city. I think we were all a little exhausted by being detained by the military all day and happy to have that over and done with."