Risk Factor

Every place has its stories of muggings and murdered hitchhikers. The difficulty when traveling is in separating hype from reality in any given place. After talking with some fellow travelers, I decided to test my feeling that China was relatively safe. I left a 1 yuan banknote conspicuously sticking out of my back pocket to see how long it would take to disappear. I walked around a market at night, the center of another town by day, and after a couple days it was still there. It stayed until a waitress pointed out I had money hanging out of my back pocket, and I should be careful because there are pickpockets everywhere. I tried to explain to her the irony of the situation but something got lost in translation. I put the yuan back in my wallet, amused in the way my theory of China being safe had been proven.

A couple nights later I bumped into what can only be called a true American character. The type of person who used the phrase "world famous in America" when describing a brand of knife he was partial to. In his 50s, he had been living in China for over 5 years and owned a restaurant which he ran with his Chinese wife. ("I used to be married to two redheads — I'm a Mormon, see — but now I go crazy for these cute little Chinese!") Just how much he did compared to his wife became less clear when he kindly offered french fries and then sent his wife to the kitchen to make them.

His experience with thieves in China proved more dangerous than mine. Of the 5 attempts pickpockets had made on him, 4 ended in spectacular failures for the would-be takers of his things. One guy had the pleasure of being upturned into the fishtank of a neighbouring restaurant, with his head held underwater until he gave up the knife he had taken. ("I'll be damned if they take my knife from me.") A second fellow had his arm broken after trying to snatch the bag he thought had been left momentarily unattended. ("I was watching him from the corner of my eye, but I waited until he grabbed the bag to be absolutely sure he was a thief before I taught him a lesson.") And when a group of thieves encircled the one-man army in Beijing and told him to get out his wallet, he surprised them by taking out the small bottle of gasoline he kept in his pocket and spraying it in their faces. ("Don't need to light it on fire — the fumes asphyxiate their lungs. Taught us that in 'Nam.")

So maybe it's possible China is dangerous and my carefree experiment proved I'm a victim of youthful ignorance. The only piece of advice I'm sure of is this: if you go to China and see a vigilante-looking type in a black cowboy hat, don't try taking his money.