ROBBED!
Kunming, Yunnan Province, China
University bud Jim's apartment, Christmas morning

This Christmas, I decided not to give many physical manifestations of my love. Instead, I unwittingly "gave" just what I could spare--to some Chinese street thief.

The 23-hour train ride from Guilin to Kunming was pleasant and enlivening. I met two baijiu (rice wine) drinking Tibetan monks living in what the Chinese gov't now calls Shangri-La. We exchanged fruit and prayer beads. They knotted me string for good luck and safety to adorn my backpack and person. I gave them my pocketknife and sunflower seeds. The older monk kept asking to trade things, so I traded my watch for his massive silver and turquoise ring adorned with Chinese dragons. I felt insulated and safe with my berth mates. The woman in the bed above me bought us all turkey legs and corn on the cob at one train stop and we ate and laughed and chanted to our hearts' content.

I arrived in spring-like Kunming with one big green backpack full of my largest stock of books and clothes and most of my toiletries. I also had the small backpack I used in Yangshuo as an overnight bag. This backpack contained most of my valuables.

I was meeting friend Jim at the train station. For nearly two hours, Jim did not show, but kept saying in our short mobile phone conversations that he would be there shortly. I just waited outside the station straddling my bags and talking to the pedicab drivers, whose dialect confused me, thinking "this is what I get for standing Jim up last year at the democracy monument in Bangkok." The sun was hot and I drank a big bottle of water to wash down the taste of some nasty dumplings I had at a whole in the wall shop where the staff insulted the bandana I wear to keep my hair out of my eyes. One moment I was looking at my bag, the next I was saying I didn’t understand the driver’s dialect, and the next thing I knew, my safety string adorned backpack was vanished, right out from under me!

I beat back panic, scanned the streets. Nothing. This was not happening. Jim was due to arrive any moment. My mobile phone battery had just died. I lugged my big pack to the nearest shopkeep and told her my bag had been snatched--"caught" was the closest verb I could come up with. She just smiled. Then I scanned for Jim again. Not yet arrived. Some Chinese tourists came up to me asking where I was from. I was not interested in this oh-so-typical Chinese conversation and told them my situation. This caught the ear of some helpful young lads who called the police on a public phone.

Jim arrived a moment later, thanked me for drawing a crowd, gave me a hug. Five minutes later, a Public Security Bureau officer strolled in and took the initial report, scattering the pedicab drivers. I thought this was suspicious. Had the pedicab drivers been in cahoots with the robber(s)? Jim pointed out that these pedicabs themselves were illegal, not a sign of their guilt.

The officer told us we'd have to go to the station and fill out a report. I picked up my backpack and he waved it down. No, we were not walking. We were being hauled off in a paddy wagon! Jim and I waved goodbye to the crowd of forty or so onlookers and found out what it might be like to be on the other side of the Chinese law.

I gave the police officers at the station a brief rundown of what was stolen. The chief offered me a cigarette and I declined. Jim told me to just take it. "And then what?," I asked. "Then you thank him profusely and just hold it." Jim was quickly involved in a political discussion about "President Small Bush", whom this policeman admired probably for the same reason so many Chinese like Hitler. They like strong, authoritarian types. I said nothing, let Jim hadle his own little mess.

While giving the report, I had to pee so bad I felt like my bladder would burst, but the precinct’s only WC was overflowing into a small river into the hallway and I could not pee there. I wanted to just pee in the alley under the developing world scene unfolding around us, but I instead just told the officers what happened.

Here's a more complete catalog of my involuntary Christmas giving than I gave the police:

Money:
-credit card
-bank card
-$100 traveler's cheque
-$5 cash

Paper-based non-monetary items:
-dog-eared copy of James Joyce's "Finnegans Wake" (with more of my own explanatory notes than a Mormon's bible--irreplaceable)
-"The Story of Lao Tze" (almost finished, thanks the heavens, so I could react as a sage would to my loss of property)
-"Elementary Chinese," volumes 2 and 3
-"2001: A Space Odyssey" (a gift I was planning to pass this along)
-new Chinese journal with the front cover quote: "so nice you will feel like writing with it at all times."
-postcards and letter writing supplies
-Lonely Planet China (1998 edition)
-New Chinese notebook and character book
-Row-causing Toyota ad that I ripped out of an in-flight magazine depicting a Land Cruiser hauling a Chinese Sino-Japanese war era truck by chain.
-sexy CK “urge” or “lunge” or some kind of crazy hot commercialized cologne ad
-stickers, stamps, glue, scissors, notecards

Toiletries:
-contact lens solution
-western deodorant
-hotel shampoo and toilet paper
-honey bear bottle full of Castile soap from the Ann Arbor People's Food Co-op
-primary pair of glasses
-traveler's towel.

Stuff:
-Bubbaloo Gum container I won at a Mexican dance competition containing colored pens, pencils, Sharpies
-items of emotional significance from friends and relatives like a bouncy ball, leather pouch, name-engraved key chain, mantras, hand-knit scarf, etc.
-a laser-cut gold "safety" card with my Chinese zodiac and a Buddha that the monks urged me to buy on the train.
-leather gloves
-300+ hand-made Chinese flash cards
-wallet, with driver’s license, library memberships, Subway sandwich card, etc, etc.

Technology:
-mobile phone recharger
-Tape player/recorder with new headphones
-Chinese pop music cassette tapes, Buddhist Chants, a Chinese tape I'd made with friends.
-two gyroscopes I planned to give as gifts to my hosts in Kunming (probably better they were stolen, as they played a sorry rendition of "Happy Birthday" and lit up when you spun them)
-camera and film

In all, I took a hit, but my passport was not stolen. Neither were any of the books I need for the next leg of my journey. I was not harmed. I still have my birth certificate. Visa is couriering a new temporary credit card from Singapore. If I need to, I can extend my visa in China, but I'm going to try to press on to Vietnam before that expires on the third of January. Getting the University of Michigan Credit Union to send a new bankcard some time around Christmas probably won't happen, but I can get by. I have the comfort of familiar faces here in Kunming (Jim, plus some former colleagues from South Ocean School) and can understand at least some of the local tongue.

Jim and I took full advantage of the holiday to just chill last night. He's got a spacious (if at night very freezing) Kunming apartment and I got a better understanding of where he works--it's on the 30th floor and no one in the office was too busy to greet me and chat. He volunteers with an organization that tries to educate farmers about pesticides. They're into writing reports right now. He said he'd save explanations of what he does until I arrived so I could make my own observations, but I still don't have a very clear idea of what occupies the staff's or Jim's time!

Last night, on Christmas Eve, we ate a big Chinese meal with a girl our age who also lives in Kunming. Judy was her name and she volunteers at a drop-in shelter for recovering Chinese heroin addicts, focused on HIV/AIDS harm reduction. After dinner, we capped the evening in a Chinese bar. The santa hat clad staff let us pull up a bench next to their fireplace ("you’re right, we do need marshmallows," Judy agreed at my suggestion). But despite the comforting Christmas music they played, we did not forget where we were. I sipped my ginger tea and counted my blessings.

I wondered at first if those monks hadn't put a curse on me. But if they had given me any safety or luck at all, it is in the fact that I was carrying too much stuff to begin with. I'm a sucker for cheap Chinese books and was feeling the strain of so many tomes. I have a curvature in my spine that borders on scoliosis, so I must be cautious not to overstress my taxed monkey body. I also take this as yet another indication that I should just put everything online, free myself from paper-based journaling. This is the second journal I've lost in three weeks. Or, as I told Jim, maybe having my bag stolen prevented us from getting into a cab that would have crashed into an egg cart, or worse...

Then again, I may get a nice Christmas surprise if the thief or thieves discover nothing of much monetary value in my overstuffed pack. They were probably looking to score some quick cash, and there are lots of foreigners who get wallets returned with only the cash missing. The police said they would call me when they catch the thief. Such confidence.

I cannot be thankful enough for my circumstances. I lost only stuff, and--at most, a hundred dollars. Jim has a real coffee machine with beans from Dunkin' Donuts, such luxury. We're meeting up with Judy again tonight for a Christmas party at the shelter. Life is giving me a lesson in non-attachment. I shed my skin, but remain within myself unharmed--and better for it. I am one lucky moneky.

Peace to you and to all beings,
~josh(away)