Beijing Adventures: Lost Passport

I am currently illegal in China.

Two Thursdays ago, I got my passport stolen in the Beijing subway. In a matter of five minutes, between one subway stop and one line transfer, I transformed from being unnoticed in a sea of black hair to a bawling, red-faced mess screaming at the masses.

On this particular journey, I was en route to London for a competition-cum-conference. The premise was ridiculous enough – just the kind of expat justification for an impromptu four-day trip from Beijing to London. My mother had wanted me to bring some snacks from Guangzhou for her friend back in the UK, so I was hauling a black rolling suitcase filled to the brim with unwieldy boxes of sesame cookies and chestnuts. I had more luggage for four days than the wee 40L backpack I had for almost a month in Thailand.

The night before the trip, I made the intelligent decision to organise all the crumpled yuan in my coat pocket. I put all my ID cards, all my credit cards, and my passport, into one large sensible wallet. I placed this wallet securely into the right pocket of my coat, fastening it shut with a big, secure button.

That night, I even remember discussing the safety of the Beijing subway at dinner, scoffing in disbelief when my friend told me she had been mugged one night. Karma’s a bitch when you’re a bitch.

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The next morning, I woke up unready for my long flight and especially unready to face the rush hour traffic of the Beijing subway while carrying a suitcase. I was annoyed. Really annoyed. I stormed down the street, the broken wheel on my suitcase clattering a warning signal to anybody in my way. Once in the subway, I missed the first two trains because I got beat out by the hordes of people trying to get to work without any baggage. Finally, I made it onto a subway car. By this point, not even the soothing sounds of Sam Cooke crooning a sweet tune on my iPod could calm me down.

Once I made it down to the platform from Wudaokou to Zhichunlu, I felt my pocket and thought it was impossible that the pocket could be unbuttoned, with only my phone left in it. I ran after the first policeman I saw, who to my surprise, helped drag me through the rush hour crowds upstairs. However, he quickly left me with another policeman who listened to my sob story and answered with a, but what do you expect me to do about it?

Publicly crying and forced to retrace my steps, I kept wishing, please, please somebody have found it, please somebody have brought it in, this can’t be real. There is something about losing your passport that makes you feel more hopeless and alone in a foreign country than anything else shy of physical harm. It is the feeling of complete desolation: no papers to show, no proof of your existence.

As everyone stared at me, I hilariously screamed back in Chinese, Don’t look at me! What is wrong with you? Don’t look at me! In the policeman’s office, he told me that it would take weeks to get a passport from the embassy and I lectured him that the next time there was a crying girl in his office to not take away her only hope.

I was lucky, though. My aunt, a Beijing native, picked me up from the station. We fought our way through the sandstorm to go through the bureaucratic niceties: pick up a police report from the police station, go to the American Embassy, get lost, arrive during lunch time when every office in China is closed, be told you need to get your picture taken, go take a picture, get told to go to the other police station, argue in disbelief, realise even if you get an emergency passport today you won’t be able to get a visa indefinitely, and run in and around Embassy until you decide you won’t make it to London and you should stay in Beijing.

So now, here I am. No passport, no visa, no IDs, no credit cards, and no debit cards. Can’t get a new Bank of China card without my passport, can’t get a new visa without my passport, can’t register my temporary residence, and can’t book planes, trains, or buses without my passport. At least WU Club down the street is all you can drink free for ladies on Thursdays.