Suddenness Happened, April 2

---

Or: CSI Nanjing

Hi all. Sorry for the lateness of this post, but we’re getting pooped. Pam and Becky are the bloggers this time. We apologize for the lack of pictures, but then, as you will see, that is the whole point of this post!

I think the gods were mildly displeased that we decided not to visit Changzhou on Wednesday. Changzhou is the city where Lucas was found in a fourth floor maternity ward when he was about 1 year old. In our defense, the drive is about 2 hours long, and since the Changzhou orphanage is currently a temporary facility located in an old apartment building, you aren’t allowed to visit there.

Were I not an arrogant westerner, I would have better interpreted the warnings of the morning. We are finally adjusting to the time change (just in time for Pam to fly back home), and we slept in till a lazy 6 a.m., then just played around in the hotel room before sauntering down to a buffet breakfast at 8 a.m. The dining rooms were almost completely empty. There were no forks. There were no walfs (read waffles). The poached (read scrambled) eggs were down to a few bits stuck to the soggy bed of bread on the bottom of the server.

No problem; we hearty travelers are not dispirited by such minor inconveniences. We met our tour guide, Tang (family name) at 9ish, and climbed into the taxi at about 10ish (we’re still working out the logistics of having 2 kids…). Quick, scary drive to the paleontology museum, which turned out to be closed to visitors during the week. Then a quick, scary drive 2 blocks up to the Jiming temple, where we all piled out. Ian didn’t like the temple (the incense stung his eyes). Lucas didn’t like the knock-off baby Bjorn carrier. The gods were grumbling more loudly.

No matter. It was a lovely temple, and the first time any of us have been allowed to visit such a place in person. We cut our visit a little short and moved on to a park adjacent to part of the Nanjing city wall. I (Becky) love old architecture, and this wall is over six hundred years old. I think the fact that the brick makers and overseeing city officials had to sign every stone, and that the penalty for 5 poor quality bricks was death, served to ensure that the wall was very well built indeed.

Next stop - Confucious Temple. Honey, can I have the camera? What do you mean, you don’t have it - I don’t have it. Are you sure? Uh-oh…

Yes, friends, I did leave the camera case, with the camcorder containing the videos of the Great Wall climb and our first meeting with Lucas, as well as my digital camera and Anthony’s blackberry (it’s a big case, ok?!) in the trunk of the cab. And that brings us to our story of our meeting with the Nanjing police. You can be sure it was not our idea to report this to the police; who goes to the police to report that they are ditzy enough to leave their camera case in the trunk of a cab, and to further confess that they put all of their cameras and a PDA in the same bag??!! But the tour guide and hotel information personnel strongly recommended it, so off Pam and I went, while Anthony stayed at the hotel to watch Ian and Lucas (chicken).

It turns out that the police department is right next door to the hotel - a 30 second walk. And we should call it an “express” police station since it is about the size of a small hotel room (let’s say a very small hotel room). But there were four officers there, and all were quite interested in our case. The prisoner handcuffed to the bunk in the back was interested, too. After much back and forth between an officer and our guide, which seemed to include some scolding on her part, they decided that we should place a formal complaint at the police department nearest the scene of the crime - the Jiming temple. And so our friendly officer ushered us out to his squad car and personally delivered us to the above mentioned locale. Whereupon our guide repeated the story to the two officers behind the counter (sans scolding). The case immediately escalated, and 4 more of Nanjing’s finest joined the party. I obediently handed over my passport and the cab receipt. Now, I am happy to say, the Nanjing police department, known as one of the finest police departments in China, has my home address and telephone number, my email address, and many photographs of both Pam and I (taken discretely by the female officer with a camera that was certainly more expensive than the squad car we rode in). Spirits were running high, as there appeared to be an early break in the case. Somehow the police knew there were three telephone workers at the cab drop off point, and for some reason this was meaningful to them. We are not sure how they knew this (big brother in action?), but there may be a high incidence of crimes propagated by telephone workers, making them prime suspects and worthy of constant surveillance.

Step number one in the investigation was to bring in and interrogate the primary suspect: the cab driver. Several phone calls to the cab company (by the tour guide, the hotel concierge, and the police dept.) did not result in the appearance of the camera bag, so there was no alternative but to haul the cabbie in and put him in a small room under bright lights and intense questioning. We have since received word that the cabbie did not break… uh, I mean was cleared after polite questioning, but the investigation continues. So far no word on the telephone repairmen, but they could be tough, so we’ll just have to be patient. Should the cameras be recovered and returned, I’m really tempted to send a nice gift to Nanjing’s finest. But I don’t think I’ll start shopping yet…

---

Comments

[Jaime]

Well, I hope this all turns out well for you guys and that you recover everything. I have to say that my jaw kept dropping with each paragraph that I read. It sounded like an episode of Law and Order at the police station! To be fair, I think that two American women descending on the tiny Nanjing police station is far more effective than sending Anthony. They probably would have scoffed at him for being Asian but not speaking the language. Two angry white women is much scarier!