I Went To Beijing And Nearly Became A Criminal

China’s well known for their many strict laws but what I thought would be a fun holiday for my best friend and I turned out to be one full of mishaps that we would never stop bringing up to each other

We only wanted a place to sleep with just about enough privacy

Being millennials but also students on a budget, we decided on a room in an Airbnb for our stay in Beijing. We were only there for a week, so we didn’t mind living with the owner in a small house; we valued convenience more. So, we picked a place near The Forbidden Palace, where most areas were easily accessible with plenty of shops.

We came home on the second day and were told that a policeman came by asking about us

Wen Zhen, our Airbnb owner was a lady in the late 20s. “He came by asking if there were foreigners living here,” she said, “I thought you guys met with some trouble outside, so I said yes”. She then proceeded to explain that the policeman had said what we had done was illegal because we needed to register our accommodation details. This is especially so because the area we were living in was also where plenty of government officials lived. She was close to tears because the policeman made it sound like a serious offence and she was afraid that we would all be criminals.

Deciding to drop by the police station first thing in the morning to get our personal details into their system, we ended the conversation. When morning came and we made our way to the station, we were told that Wen Zhen needed her housing lease but they were going for their lunch break soon so we wouldn’t be able to make it back in time. Back at our place however, Wen Zhen had a sudden revelation:

If we did register under her apartment, it would be confirmation that she housed us under Airbnb, and that is, like the policeman said, an illegal offence.

So, she might get in trouble if we did that. But we’d be in trouble if we didn’t. Being very considerate that this was still a vacation for us, she told us that she’d ring up Airbnb and see if there were anything they could do while we continued with our itinerary for the day. Airbnb, as it turns out, had no clue about the laws but Wen Zhen did devise a plan, that is to register us under a backpacking hostel nearby. And so, we spent the remainder of our trip flitting between the two places.

It wasn’t before long that the week was up and we had to return home. Our flight was at dawn so we got her to call us a cab at 2am. However, we couldn’t exactly leave her place in the middle of the night and risk disturbing her neighbours, who we suspect were the ones who alerted the authorities in the first place. Our other option was the hostel, which we were thankful for – at least something came out from us paying for two accommodations without actually sleeping there (the hostel).

We ended up on the streets in the sub-zero temperatures of winter

Because at 12am, the receptionist of the hostel said they were closing, chased us out and promptly turned out all the lights. We couldn’t change the pick-up location for our cab because Wen Zhen had booked it for us and we had no way of contacting her at this hour.

After a painful hour wait in the cold – we found a massage parlour that was still open so we killed one hour of waiting time – we finally made it to warmth, in the cab. By this time, I was exhausted. We had gone skiing the entire day, travelling out of the city and being dealt with these issues the past few days, I thought it was finally over.

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When we reached the airport, we couldn’t see any planes

During our ride to the airport, we passed out in the backseats from the late night and hadn’t noticed that the infamous Beijing smog had gotten so serious in that past hour we were making our way over. We were hoping that our plane wouldn’t be affected since it isn’t till a few hours and the smog can be pretty unpredictable.

Keeping an eye out for any flight delays and intensely listening to every announcement made, we got through customs and almost made it to our boarding gate when we heard that our flight got cancelled. There were no signs of any delays prior, we were 20 minutes to the boarding gate opening when it got cancelled – I couldn’t believe our luck. We queued through customs again, getting our passports’ chops cancelled since we aren’t leaving anymore and went all the way back to the check-in counters, having to retrieve our luggage.

We didn’t know when we could catch the next flight out

There were less than 10 seats in the flight a few hours later, and the one after would be in the late evening. We weren’t compensated at all– no meal vouchers, nowhere to wash up, no hotel stays. I was livid. I tried speaking with the counter staff but to no avail. Finding other alternatives, I went down to the airline offices to find someone to speak to. Eventually, I argued my way through to get a free hotel stay because we were “students” that couldn’t possibly afford an airport hotel at the end of our trip with no extra cash to spare. We agreed to keep mum about it because they can’t afford compensating the entire flight’s passengers.

Everything was still really tedious after. There were still long hours between our connecting flights, but we got back safe eventually. The experience only sealed the deal on my transitioning into adulthood where I dealt with matters on my own and felt the need to work on voicing my demands more because I learned first-hand that only the crying baby gets the milk.

Have you had any bad travel experiences? Tell us in the comments below!

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