So Close

An accomplishment worthy of praise in Beijing is the ability to hold onto a single bicycle over the course of one year. With only weeks away from reaching this extraordinary achievement, I discover that my bike had been stolen.

The weeks leading up to the Chinese Festival, many workers try to make that extra bonus to surprise their families with when they return home for the holidays. Some of the more unfortunate, however, do not have much to show for their year of laboring spent on the coast. Petty theft escalates during the month of January, and bikes disappear in the thousands.

What upsets me the most is that my bike was parked near one of the gates of my apartment complex where security guards stand 24-7. The bikes in this makeshift parking lot seemed to have been recently reorganized by someone (obviously a worker, or a resident with obsessive compulsive disorder). My theory was that the baoan (security guards) had stolen my bike – a very common occurrence all across the city. A Chinese woman and Korean man came to my side to help solve the crime by questioning them followed by harsh accusations against these punk teenage baoan.

In the heat of the moment, I made the mistake of calling the local police who did nothing but harass me and accuse me of not locking my bike. When I realized the baoan and the jingcha (cops) were both against me and wanted me to give them my passport information and head down to the station to file a report, I quickly turned of my Chinese and said “So sorry, I must go home now, Bye.”

Later that day, the cab driver, my sagacious daily advisor, told me that there was an 80% chance the baoan stole my bike, and advised me to keep it parked in my building from now on. He comforted me with his portrayal of a developing but incomplete society and said this is just the way things are in China …. Mei Banfa.