A Few Thoughts On The Chinese Police (Camp, Part II)

The Chinese (or at least their government) take crime very, very, VERY seriously. Allow me to explain.

During our two days of fun and wonderment at the magical Chinese summer camp, a girl from my program had her bag stolen. It contained her money, credit cards, underpants, etc. Shmatteris called the police. Police said, "We'll see what we can do." In the US, the previous sentence would probably be spoken to the victim in a tone that implies, "What the *** do you want me to do about it?" and that would be the end of things. Not in China.

Hong Kong police sent nothing short of a task force. I counted not one, but TWO detectives and THREE additional support officers. They reviewed security footage, conducted interviews, and even closed the "crime scene" for several hours (read: the girls couldn't go to their rooms). Then, they called the girls back to the scene of the crime for an additional search. Since she was staying with eleven other Shmatteris CNETs, this included going through everyone's personal belongings. After they finished, the police made the poor girl go through her roommate's stuff one by one to make sure that they didn't miss anything. Guess what? They didn't find the bag! Can you believe it?! The police, not nearly finished, summoned us to the ping pong area--remember, this is a summer camp--and made us line up by room.

The Lead Inspector informed us that he wanted to look through our rooms just in case someone took the purse by mistake. The way he said "mistake" made me believe that he really meant "on purpose." He asked if we had any objections. I had a few, but decided not to raise them. The Police Task Force took each room, one at a time, and repeated the process described above.*

Just a quick reminder: her purse was stolen. There wasn't a murder.

I'm not completely sure what to make of this. On the one hand, why is it a bad thing to take crime seriously? If I had been inclined to commit a crime before, my experience with the police at the camp would definitely have squelched it. After all, if they take a missing purse so seriously, imagine how they'd react to a larger crime. On the other hand, the whole affair was fairly ridiculous. It certainly seems like everyone was put through an awful lot of trouble and inconvenience for what amounts to a very small and ultimately meaningless act. Furthermore, the police response was immediate, fierce, and pretty frightening.

At the very least, my time at the camp probably presented a very strong indicator of how things work in China. I haven't quite wrapped my head around it all yet, but maybe in a few weeks or months it'll make more sense to me. Pictures are coming (internet has been too slow to upload more than one at a time), as well as school placement info.




*My room was not searched, probably due to an oversight. I was in quarantine and staying with just my mentor Adam, so we were not part of the large group room checks. This was a huge oversight on their part, considering I have one more purse now than I did two days ago...**

**In case China is reading this blog, I was joking just now.



Byeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.