There is a first time for everything

There's a first time for everything, for example,

my first breakfast in China,




my first umbrella, milk, mutton, and beer in China




my first Internet cafe in China





my first subway ride in China






and my first freeze photo in China.




In general I am happy to see, find, hear and experience new things, but there are certain things that you would rather not want to experience at all, such as being pickpocketed in a foreign country. I mentioned this in the previous posting, but here are some photos from the day it happened to me.




Curtis, a cool b-boy from America whom I met online and finally met up in People's Square, sent me some of the photos he took when I was arguing with the cops in Nanjing Road.

I was walking down Nanjing Road with Curtis and Andrew, and on one side of the road there was a couple of poles that were a part of a building and people sort ot had to squeeze together to pass through that place, and I guess the thieves know this well enough to take advantage of it and the police was also aware of it, since more than three casual-clothes officers were hiding in the passers-by, waiting for something to happen.

While I was walking past the poles I felt a light pull on my backpack and when I looked around my electronic dictionary was gone from the side pocket of my bag, and behind a guy who was standing right behind me was another guy quickly disappearing from my sight but I saw one last inch of my e-dictionary in his right hand.

Panicked and embarrassed about what was happening, I didn't know what to do for the first two seconds, but then I pushed the guy behind me aside and grabbed the thief was trying to get away and yelled at him "Hey! What are you doing?" and my friends, who were walking about three meters ahead of me, looked back and saw me grabbing a guy in a yellow jacket by the collars and came over towards me. But even before they arrived before me, three cops came out of nowhere and handcuffed this thief, and held on to me so that I couldn't leave either.

At first I didn't believe they were real cops because they literally came out of nowhere, where were they? how did they get here so fast? as if there were Superman or something? but they showed me their badges and belts, and about two minutes later cops in uniforms came to the spot, and then I knew they were real cops.

I wanted to thank them and turn back and leave, since it was four o'clock and we still didn't have lunch, but the officers told me to come with them and didn't give me my e-dictionary back which they said they would just have a look what it was.

So that's when the arguing started, none of them spoke good English and none of us had good enough Chinese, so we were struggling to talk to one another, and finally we understood and people around us (there was a huge crowd surrounding us within 3 minutes) told me that I should come with them to the police station and write a testimony.

In what little Chinese I knew, I told the officers that 'I don't want to go, so just give me my e-dictionary back, and thank you, but don't worry, I'm alright, I want to go and have lunch with my friends, we are busy.'

They understood my sentences, but then nothing changed, they were pulling my arm and telling me to get in the patrol car. And at that point, for some reason, I wanted to find out what it really was all about and decided to cooperate, although I was sorry to my friends who were enjoying their holidays and had to come to the police station with me. And I appreciate their company and support - Andrew, Curtis, thank you guys!

Here are some photos of the scene :









this is the poor guy who tried to steal from me






These two officers wrote a three page report altother of what happened, how it happened, what I saw, what I looked like, what I was wearing, and who I was, and it took such a long time for them to finish writing and then they took it to someone who can type, and then had it printed on another piece of paper, and made me and Curtis sign.

They told me I would have to come back to the police station in two days to pick up my e-dictionary after it has been evaluated of its value and used as a reference to decide how many months this thief will get in prison, and I did go back, and got my dictionary back without any further trouble.

One thing to remember is you've got to be careful all the time with your belongings here in China, and if I carry things around my bag pockets like I am used to doing back home, that's as good as wanting to be pickpocketed. But I want to look on the bright side and think that China is fast becoming a safer and more secure society and on that day I was there in the middle of their efforts to do so, and it gave me a hands-on lesson about China.