How to handle police officers in China.
BY ALAIN CHARTRAND
I often stand on my balcony looking outside. There is a big intersection. It’s funny to watch the Chinese drivers drive through red lights, pedestrians trying to cross the road in the middle of traffic (not waiting for the light to turn green). Sometimes there are accidents, but the funniest thing is just before the green light turns red, cars, buses and pedestrians make “a run for it” before the other opposing lights turns green. Of course, there is always huge traffic jams, especially during rush hour. That’s my favorite thing to take pictures of from my window. (Maybe, I’ll send some in the future).
Last night my friend Stacy and I were looking at the traffic from the window, making fun of stupid drivers between watching movies. Seems like a pretty normal innocent night, right? Wrong!
As we were watching the movie we hear a loud banging at the door, I answered without hesitation. In front of me were three Taiwanese cops in the hallway. I called a friend of mine to translate, and apparently someone had thrown stuff out of their apartment window. Apparently, the cops wanted to bring me in for questioning.
The cops insisted that there were two people in the apartment and that we both had to go, I refused, saying I was alone. (What’s the point of getting Stacy involved?) I thought they must have been interviewing everyone but actually they had singled me out because I was a foreigner.
There is a big apartment building on each of the four corners of my intersection, which meant there were lots of possible suspects. Again, these cops insisted that I was the culprit: I had no idea why. As I was getting ready, putting on my shoes and getting my passport, they told me there was a translator waiting at the police station, so I felt pretty confident that it wouldn’t be a big problem, especially since I didn’t do anything. But as I was going down the elevator with cops and getting into their less-than-attractive police car, my confidence started to wane.
This is China, and to my knowledge, there were no laws to protect the citizens. Also, as far as I was concerned, the Canadian embassy couldn’t have been able to help much either except to arrange a lawyer and contact my family. I thought the worst, but then I remembered I was only being brought in for throwing stuff out of an apartment window (which was a fabrication anyway). I remember my friend Angela saying that most Chinese people are scared of the cops because they are all crooked.
“They are criminals with protection because they are police officers,” she said. “They extort money from lots of people and there is nothing you can do about it unless you are well connected so Chinese people avoid the cops as much as possible.”
It was pretty hot in the cop car so I rolled down the window–all the way. I could have fit through the window if I wanted to, but what’s the point, the doors were not locked and there weren’t even any bars to keep me caged in the back. It’s funny though because most of the old vehicles that are on the road in Shanghai are more than likely cop cars.
We got to the cop shop and guess what–no translator–just a guy that spoke really broken English. He wasn’t much of a translator. This clown insisted I call someone to come in and be my translator. I was going nuts saying stuff like:
“Do you mean to say there is not one translator in all of Shanghai that the police could use?”
There was nothing I could do, if I wanted to go home, I had to call someone. I called my Chinese teacher who also happens to be my neighbor, Angela.
I had just been sitting and waiting for over an hour, nothing was said or done until my translator arrived. Apparently someone had dropped a plastic bag with water onto the hood of someone’s car, and there was a small dent. How could a bag of water make a dent? Anyways, I guess it was at about the time Stacy and I were looking at the traffic outside. They must have seen us at the window and regardless of if it was us or not, blamed us.
This is when I found out that if there are two witnesses saying that you did something, regardless of proof, you are guilty?! That’s pretty messed up!
No proof at all, only 2 people saying it was you. It would be so easy to give someone 10 dollars to say they saw something so that you can get what you want, but in this instance they were a married couple, about 40 years old. I think if they are related it should count as one person. Of course, they are going to back each other up. This makes me feel very unsafe being in China.
Regardless of if I had actually done something wrong or not, I only had 2 options.
#1 To admit I dropped a bag of water on their car and dented it, apologize, and pay for the damages OR
#2 Go to jail for up to 15 days until it got sorted out and maybe get deported and never be allowed to return to China. ( I realize the cops probably made it sound harsher, so that i would just pay and get out of there)
Not much of a choice there. Talk about forced confessions. I wrote a letter apologizing, and paid 1000 RMB for damages (147$ CAN or 4100 NT). Apparently some other guy also got hit with a bag of water? Who throws bags of water out their windows? Anyways, my friend Angela had to call on my behalf to apologize, since I had admitted my guilt and can’t speak Chinese well enough to explain and apologize.
Let’s hope nothing more comes of this. But what if whoever is throwing crap out their window continues and I get blamed again?I’m going to move into a new place in a month. Let’s hope nothing happens again until then. All is well and fine now. iT!
Canadian Alain Chartrand is another contributor who has been with TWW since the first issue. He is living in Taiwan with his wife Jasmine traveling every chance he gets, contributing articles to TWW whenever he gets the chance.
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