Back to work and Police man Ping Pong....

Today was one of the strangest days we have had in China so far- it started with a day at work and ended with being detained by the Police! Mmmm…. Where to begin?
Last night we were invited to visit Reyhans place of work to meet her friends and see what she does. We planned to meet at 7am Urigur time. Perhaps because we knew we were going back to work, maybe because of our previous late night we had great difficulty in waking up and snoozed the alarm over ten times before finally dragging our lazy butts out of bed. We dressed quickly, best trousers on for Sam and Sarahs only set of clean clothes then splashed cold water on our faces in preparation for the heat blast we would receive after opening the door. After surviving the heat blast we sat on the curb outside and watched the world go by whilst waiting for Reyhan to arrive. During this time we watched a policeman crash into a motorcyclist knocking him and the old woman off, the accident was caused by a pedestrian who ran into the road – the policeman then had his hands full trying to organize the accident whilst trying to stop the pedestrian from legging it! Luckily people were not too injured and once again everyone seemed to stand up and walk off without too much of a problem.
Reyhan arrived with one minute to spare before needing to be at work. Once again we were going to be late for work, this was becoming more and more like going to work at home! It was a ten minute walk to the office or a two minute journey by bus so we decided to take the bus, or try to. The bus had a red arm band wearing communist party official (Chinese person) searching all passengers bags before they boarded and for some strange reason only known to the backwards xenophobic official who created the rule, I was not allowed aboard because my bag contained a camera – a lethal weapon in the hands of an photographer, perhaps a party official misunderstood the meaning of photo shoot. Sarah stopped me before I was able to point it at them and make machine gun sounds. Our Urigur friend was very apologetic and blamed the increased security on Chinese paranoia concerning the Olympics’ – whilst Sarah and I understood the reasons behind a search (guns, bombs, free Tibet banners, Mao stinks posters etc) we are really vexed as to what reasons could be given for no cameras on the bus.
Neither Sarah or I had any idea what to expect when we arrived, what we would be doing there or what sort of work place it was (our friend did not know the English name of her job or company type) but it turned out to be the Turpan branch for Ping An China, a Chinese life insurance and savings company. After quickly apologizing to the boss for our lateness we were hurried rather reluctantly into the Urigur morning team brief meeting room with the 40 or so employees applauding our arrival! We then sat and listened to their morning talk from their managers, lots of Hu Rahh sort of shouting’s and clapping at certain points, everyone stood up to belt out the company policy followed by various people talking at the front – probably giving a run down of yesterdays performance and what jobs need to be done today, same crap different language. In amongst this Sarah and I were asked to stand up and introduce ourselves, we managed to say hello my name is Sam in Urigur which they loved, followed by where we were from and how long we have been here for etc resulting in lots of clapping, lots of telling us how welcome we are here and how glad we were here etc. After various jokes and laughter – all of which we had no idea what was going on we sat back down and they resumed their morning brief! All very surreal and very much like something from a Michael Palin travel program.
When the meeting was over we were then taken into the Chinese employees meeting room to be introduced where we were not given such a warm reception and were generally met with the same open mouth blank face expression all over china. We are not sure why but the teams in the office were divided by nationality, Urgirs and Chinese had separate offices, workspaces and team meetings. The reason was not language as all Urgirs can speak Chinese and learn it in school at the same time as Urgir.
After this we felt very much like a puppy bought into work with people wanting to come and check us our, feel our hair and say ahhh how cute etc. We spent some time being shown about whilst being followed by a man with a camera. In very broken English we were shown posters and rooms, introduced to people and sat down with cups of warm water. All in all it was a strange experience but interesting to see how a Chinese company functions and a good opportunity to help Reyhan practice her English.
This slightly traumatic trip was rewarded by a hearty lunch in a great Urgir restaurant that although has an expensive look is amazingly cheap for a great big portion of food. I enjoyed ‘Polo’ which is similar to Plov or byrianni, chunks of meat in rice with rasens, bits of veg and spices – amazingly tasty. Sarah feasted on ‘Soman’ a really good dish of fat noodles chopped into 1cm square chunks mixed up with spicy tomato sauce, big chunks of garlic, onions and beans…Mmmm. All this with an endless free supply of Urigur chai, green tea with nutmeg and rose petals – we must have drunk a gallon each its such good tea. The meal price for the three of us was less than two pounds.
Turpan is situated in a desert and a deep depression so the daytime temperature is very high, today was no exception with highs of 44 degrees. By two o’clock we were both struggling so decided to sleep off the worst of the daytime heat and have a siesta. We arranged to meet reyhan again in a few hours.
We had met Reyhan two days before in the market, she lived in Turpan and had spent some time learning English in a local school so was quite keen to practice with us. We had no objection to this and enjoyed being shown around town by someone local who could also teach us some Urigur. During one conversation (about the olympics or sports) we had expressed an interest in playing some table tennis and it turned out that Reyhan had been some kind of instructor at school so was keen to play with us. Yesterday we had tried to play at a local school but because the schools are on holiday at the moment the guard would not let us all onto the grounds, Reyhan being a bit disappointed spoke to the caretaker of another school near where she lived, about a five minutes walk from the towns Bazaar who said no problem we could come and play tomorrow. So today in the evening when the temperature lowered a little we went to Reyhans house and had some melon and tea before heading off to the school. The people responsible for looking after the school were a family of five living in a small house by the back entrance who as they lived opposite Reyhan must have known her well (everyone knows everyone in this part of the world ‘yes this is my fathers brothers cousin’ ‘oh that was my mothers brothers son’ etc etc). So we said hello to the family who opened the gates then walked across the running track to the ping pong tables about 100 meters from the gate – we were in full view of the family, clearly playing table tennis and not near the school buildings.
Some background info - Life in China is dominated by ‘officials’ (read complete jobs-worths) wearing red arm bands who exist to tell Chinese people (who we are convinced have problems thinking for themselves) what to do. No escalator could possibly function without a red armband wearing official. People would get themselves killed on the roads unless a red armband official tells them when to cross (the green and red men are not sufficient, nor are five lanes of buses heading straight for you). Supermarkets would collapse into chaos without an army of red armband robots dictating which direction you have to walk. If it wasn’t for the red arm band wearing officials then the crowds trying to get off the bus would hit the crowds trying to get on the bus resulting in some kind of fusion reaction. We could list examples all day but we are sure you get the point, in short life in china is dominated by little people with high and mighty attitudes protected by the infamous red armband, last sported in history we might add by the Nazi party.
So, with Sarah and I loosing badly to someone who could somehow spin a ping pong ball almost 90 degrees (she didn’t really get the point of a knock about so it was quite boring having to pick the ball up every time it was hit in our direction) we spotted in the corner of our eye two red armed busy-bodies heading our way. As we had permission to be there and we were clearly playing ping pong we thought nothing was wrong as they approached. Upon arrival, without acknowledging our existence they told Reyhan that we had to leave and why were foreigners here, talking directly to her and being quite rude to us. Thinking nothing more of this we walked back to the gate and spent some playing football with the children while Reyhan filled in the family about the pointlessness of the Chinese officials, many faces were pulled and saying how stupid they were. Back on the other side of the field we could see the two officials with a third higher member of the communist party walking back over, this man was some kind of big wig and had a real attitude problem. He was here to rebuke the family for letting us through, have a go at Reyhan for hanging about with foreigners and generally be very rude to us – now he was talking about fining the family and was calling the police to take us to the police station for questioning. We had said nothing to this man to justify a trip to the police station, Reyhan had tried to convince him that ping pong was our game but for some reason he was really pissed off and was yelling to various people on the phone and having a right go at the family.
After 10 minutes of waiting four policemen turned up to take us to the station, at first they would not let Reyhan come with us but eventually after her protests they did. We were put into the back of a clapped out police van and driven (no sirens unfortunately) all of about 600 m to the nearest police station. With no doughnut or coffee offered, no one phone call allowed we had to sit in a room for ages whilst policemen of various ranks turned up. It seemed the higher the policeman the wider the waistband, so each time the next level was called a cop with a bigger belly and more pips turned up. After what felt like ages the biggest cop and presumably the highest ranking started to ask us questions – what were you doing in the school grounds- it seemed like a stupid thing to ask when we were sat there with nothing but ping pong bats in our hand. After finding out where we were staying they dispatched two people to check our hotel, have a look at our passports, check our details and presumably look in our room. After being asked various questions we were then given a short speech about not entering school grounds again, if we want to we have to apply in advance from either the headmaster or the police. As we had not asked someone official (read; Chinese) for permission we could be accused of stealing things (despite the fact we were clearly caught playing table tennis in full view of the caretakers).
All in all it was a complete waste of our time and made us feel even more unwelcome in China. Reyhan was very apologetic and blamed everything on increased security because of the Olympics – this was the third time in two days she had to apologize for red arm band wearing people actions (not allowed to use internet café as we were foreign, not allowed on the bus due to camera and finally ping pong policing). All over china we have come across people who are complete robots, absolute jobsworths who are fully unable to think outside the box. They have been brainwashed into thinking that as a foreigner we are going to unravel a free Tibet banner at every possible opportunity, that we are thieves and not to trust what we say. The reason given for not being able to stay in cheap guest houses in Tibet was that westerners will set up arms deals with the locals (that was really what we were told). It has been interesting to see the recent report from Amnesty international on how the Olympics are being used as an excuse for cracking down on peoples rights, china has of course denied this. We see evidence of this all around from much tighter visa and travel restrictions to the silent and swift removal of homeless people from tourist cities. The BBC is frequently blocked depending on what they are saying that day. We have learnt that in this western Muslim province china has killed a number of people its accused of being terrorists and arrested and forcibly moved hundred more all in the name of Olympic security. We have seen this first hand when our bus pulled over for a stop on the journey between Turpan and Urumqi. Taking up a large part of the small car park were two police buses ringed by heavily armed soldiers. One bus contained Urigur women the other smaller bus containing many Urigur men crammed in. Whilst we cannot judge a book by its cover the military guarding the buses seemed heavily out of proportion to the threat, these soldiers were not laughing or joking whilst their officer yelled at our bus driver to stay away and yelled at anyone who came near the soldiers (difficult when they were right in front of the toilets), the soldiers did not look relaxed at all and the situation was a tense and sketchy one with the weapons pointed less to the ground and more at us people walking past. It seemed intimidation and threats were the name of the game. As all eyes from inside the prisoner buses were on us I took great pleasure in making them all laugh and smile by pointing at the Chinese soldiers and giving the thumbs down sign. After beginning to attract some unwanted attention from the guards we quickly re-alighted our bus where we were waved to lots and as we drove off gave/we given lots of thumbs up signs (from the men only – the women looked quite distraught). Who knows what they had done or where they off to but we both hoped it was not one of the ‘re-education through labour’ camps the country has (which you can be put in for up to four years without a trial). We cannot imagine that these people were dangerous enough to warrant the level of military personnel and weaponry present.