Chinese law is not always written - 98 kilometers
Xin Yang -- Mon, Jul 11, 2005
Biking wise, it was a quick day and the sun finally came out again.

Today I learned a lesson in photography and "Chinese law". I just got back from a 2 hour ordeal, with the police and a moderately angry crowd of people. Here's the background -- there was this large fire in the middle of the side walk with people wearing white bandanas standing around it. I thought it would make an interesting photo... they did not. I later found out that they were mourning someone who died and taking a photo may take the person's soul into the camera, not a good place for a soul to be.

They quickly told me to delete it, which I did, and the apprehended Wen Ray -- although I'm not really sure what they wanted. As I told Wen Ray and his brother to run for it -- Wen Ray and the group mutually decided to let the police solve this. I was a bit nervous but more afraid of the guy with a big stick to my left...

Long story short, I didn't break a law, but Wen Ray put it well saying that "not all laws are written in China". They praised the group for being kind and not starting a fight. The police were satisified by seeing my passport -- which Wen Ray had to go back to the hotel to get. We were wearing our shirts and I had met some of the police officers biking into town -- which made our pitch a little easier. We had crowds reaching 50 people throughout the ordeal watching (they love any entertainment that has a white face included).

No USB cord so the photos will have to wait for tomorrow -- as long as the soul didn't get in there and delete everything...