As part of my job over the course of the past couple of decades, I traveled to Hong Kong about twice a year or so.  Hong Kong is home to one of the three regional offices around the world that answered to the global corporate headquarters located in Dallas where I was employed.  These business trips usually consisted of a few days connecting and collaborating with our colleagues in the Hong Kong office and then a few days in mainland China visiting with our primary manufacturing partners in various locations across southern China.  Of course, this was well before the Covid-19 pandemic, which changed the definition of “usually” for most of us.

Driving from Hong Kong into mainland China isn’t without a heavy dose of bureaucratic red tape.  The entire undertaking must be carefully thought out, otherwise, delays, detainment, and denials are all real possibilities.  One of our key factories would arrange for a van to pick up us up at our hotel in Hong Kong and take us to the customs office on the China/Hong Kong border.  We would exit the van on the southern side of the building and, as a group, would enter the customs office.  The Chinese officials would check our visas and passports to ensure all our documents were in proper order, then we would exit the building on the northern side, load back up into the van which had been driven around from the dropoff point, then we would be on our way to the first factory.  There was always some level of anxiety wading through all the activity required to get into China.  The customs officers took their roles very seriously. and even though our team was a very jovial group, we all were on our very best behavior as we officially crossed the border.

These crossings generally go off without a hitch, however, there was one particular September visit to China a few years back that did indeed have a hitch. 

On this occasion, there were seven of us passing through customs – four of us from the Dallas corporate office and three who were colleagues from the Hong Kong office who were accompanying us on our factory visits.  Once we got into the customs office, we fell into line, awaiting our turn to present our papers and get the official welcome from the Chinese government.  I was at the end of the queue, directly behind Susan from the Hong Kong office.  I made a joke to her about the slow speed of the Chinese gentleman behind the glass checking passports.  And about how he looked like a Chinese Mick Jagger. We both laughed and caught a sharp, disapproving glare from a nearby officer dressed in gray military fatigues who made it obvious that he didn’t think we were all that funny.  We kept quiet from that point on.  After a few minutes, I could see that the first member of our group was finally handing his passport over to the man behind the glass partition.  After a short review, the officer behind the glass made a stamping motion and handed the passport back. My colleague then moved toward the exit where we knew the van would be waiting for us.  One by one, our team stepped through the process.

When it was Susan’s turn, I could see in more detail what was happening.  Susan handed her passport to the officer.  He thumbed through the small book until he found the visa information required to enter the country.  He wrote something in a book, gave the passport a big loud stamp, then handed the passport back to Susan, urging her to move forward with the wave of a pointed finger.  I was next.

I reached into my messenger bag which had been hanging on my shoulder since I left the van and pulled out my passport.  Just before the officer took the book, the man in the gray military fatigues who had given Susan and me a scolding stare earlier stepped up next to the officer and whispered into his ear.  The officer immediately looked up and locked eyes with me while the whispering continued.  Was he telling him that I was making a joke about how slow he was? Or that he looked like Mick Jagger?  He muttered something back, and the two men had a rapid-fire exchange in Chinese, all the while staring at me, making it obvious that they were not just making lunch plans. 

The gentleman in the gray military fatigues, who from here on out we will call “Lenny” just to make it easier, stepped out from behind the glass and walked over to me.    With a stern expression, Lenny motioned for me to step out of the line.  Surely this had to be about something more than my slow Mick Jagger joke.  I was just kidding.  I take it back, honest.  He then motioned again for me to follow him.  I looked back to Susan who had been heading to the exit before noticing that I was taking longer than I should.  She shrugged at me in a way that I could tell was a question. I answered with a shrug of my own.  Lenny said something to me in Chinese and waved me toward him as he turned and headed toward a door in the back of the room.  I was frozen.  Was I understanding him correctly?  Lenny stopped when he noticed that I wasn’t following him.  He stepped back toward me, said something in Chinese, only more firmly this time, and motioned again emphatically for me to follow him.  I moved my messenger bag from one shoulder to the other, then stepped out of the line and walked in Lenny’s direction.  I looked over my shoulder to make sure that Susan was still tracking with me so that the group would be aware that I had been detained.  Detained for what, I had no idea.  Nevertheless, there I was in China, leaving behind my group and stepping toward a door that would further separate me from my team.  My heart began racing.

Lenny opened the door at the end of the room and motioned me through.  He followed behind, and with a firm pull on the doorknob, ensured that the door was properly closed.  I quickly tried to recall if the door had been locked when he opened it, but things were moving too fast.  I wasn’t certain.  I’m not sure what I thought the significance might be about whether or not the door had been locked, but I still hoped that it had not been. 

We were now in a long, sterile hallway with doors all the way down on either side.  Everything was gray – the walls, the floor, the doors.  The canned lighting from the ceiling was bright white and harsh.   Lenny walked down the hall with purpose, and I followed him.  I called ahead to him, “Do you speak English?”.  He didn’t answer.

I felt certain that Susan had had time to tell the crew in the van what had happened.  I wondered if they were back in the building yet trying to find out where I had been taken.  At least I hoped that was the case.

Lenny stopped just short of the end of the hall and opened one of the unremarkable gray doors and stood there facing me, but not looking at me.  Assuming the expected action was for me to enter this room, I did so reluctantly.  Once I was inside, Lenny closed the door, and I was left alone.  I wondered if the room had been set up to be intentionally intimidating, or if its starkness was just a result of bare bones efficiency.  The room was a small square with no windows.  The only furniture in the room was a metal table and two metal chairs.  A single lightbulb hung from a cord in the center of the ceiling.  I knew that if I were able to swing the lightbulb just a bit, it would certainly cast light and shadow movement throughout the room just like some old film noir crime-drama classic movie.  I fought the urge to turn on my best Cagney accent, “You dirty coppers are never going to take me alive!”, but no one was there to really appreciate my humor, and I wasn’t in the mood.

After a few minutes of taking in my surroundings in this, what I assumed to be, an interrogation room, Lenny opened the door and came in, followed by two men. One of the men was dressed similarly to Lenny with gray military fatigues, and the other man was older, wearing glasses and a white laboratory coat.  He was also wearing a mask, although this was well before Covid-19 was a concern.  They were speaking over each other, all the while staring at me as if they were unaware that I could see them.  The man in the lab coat mumbled something to the new guy behind a cupped hand.  Lenny just stood there. The new guy looked at me and said, “Remove clothes”. 

English!  I was so relieved to hear words that I understood, I barely noticed how alarming the words spoken actually were.

“Do you speak English?”, I desperately asked of the new guy.  He muttered something back that may have been an attempt at English, but I didn’t understand.  I asked again, “English?”  He repeated his direction a little more sternly than before, “Remove clothes”.

It was only then that it fully registered with me what was happening.  I was alone with what appeared to be Chinese militia, separated from my group, thousands of miles away from home, in the bowels of some Chinese government building, being asked to strip.  What was going on? I know how sideways these types of situations can go (or at least movies have told me how sideways they can go).  After all, I saw Midnight Express.  I kept going over and over in my mind what this could possibly be about.  I wanted to apologize to the new guy about the Mick Jagger joke since he possibly was able to understand some English.  But it had to be something more than that.  I tried to remember what I had put into my messenger bag.  Anything prohibited?  I had chewing gum.  Surely gum was okay.  Did they think I was a drug mule?  Was I about to have my orifices probed?

I set my messenger bag down on the floor and unbuttoned my shirt.  I removed my shirt and laid it over the back of one of the metal chairs.  I kicked off my shoes and began unbuckling my belt.  That’s when the man in the lab coat began shaking his head and telling me something in Chinese.  The new guy stepped in. “Only shirt”.  I still had no idea what was going on, but I was so relieved that I was only being asked to strip to the waist, I almost smiled.  I could have hugged the new guy, but I was already in enough trouble. 

The door to the tiny room opened again, and a younger man in a lab coat walked in carrying a small medical bag and a clipboard.  He was also wearing a mask.  I noticed my hands were shaking.  After some banter, the younger masked gentleman walked up to me.  He pulled something out of his bag while grabbing my arm and raising it out to my side.  He slid something into my arm pit and then lowered my arm.  After several seconds, there was a beep.  I suddenly realized that he was checking my temperature.  He said something to other three men standing there and wrote something down on the clipboard.  Then he repeated the procedure and again wrote something down on the clipboard.  After some discussion, the new guy and the two men in lab coats exited the room, leaving just Lenny and me.

Lenny motioned for me to put my shirt back on, which I did.  He then led me out of the room, back down the hall and into the main customs area where all the fun had started.  Lenny asked for my passport.  He took it to the front of the line and handed it to the man behind the glass.  After the stamp of approval was applied, Lenny handed the passport to me and motioned for me to be on my way. 

Susan was there waiting for me, Thank God.  My head was spinning.  What had just happened?  Susan had the explanation for me.

Now, if you are trying to be Encyclopedia Brown and figure this out for yourself, there is one very important piece of information that you do not yet have.  And here it is – I am very red.  I don’t have high blood pressure.  I don’t have allergies.  I’m not in a constant state of embarrassment.  I’m just redder than average – always have been.  And it can be especially bad at the end of summer after a lot of time in the sun.  I always know that on every beach vacation, at least one person will stop me out of concern to alert me about my “sunburn”.  Also worth noting, China has had a history of some serious epidemics – mostly notably in recent history (but prior to Covid-19) are SARS and the Bird Flu.  They are very sensitive to foreigners bringing diseases into their country, so when they saw this red-faced individual crossing over, they just assumed this guy has got to have a fever and needs to be checked out. 

I just wish that I had known all that before some strange military dude in a backroom told me to strip.  I still wouldn’t have liked it, but with a little context, maybe I wouldn’t have had scenes from Midnight Express playing in my mind quite so vividly.