email correspondence on 4/16
"hi all - quite a week over here as well. As we speak I am waiting for a
> seems I have been "red flagged" by the local police, and kindly asked to get
> the hell out of Ningxia, ASAP. My beijing institute booked me a flight
> back to beijing this afternoon, Hoping the red flag does not travel
> with me back to the capital. There is a popular phrase here now,
> "don't be like CNN". I swear I have been laying low, but the blondie
> thing does it everytime. I am a bit nervous, but in not
> scared for my safety. I backed up my computer and am just looking
> forward to getting on that damn flight. its a 1 1/2 trip from where I
> am now (Qingtongxia) to the Yinchuan Airport. Sadly, this is becoming
> my typical china experience!!!!"
4/19/2008 - Abridged Reflection
Perhaps the stress I keep going through in my 20’s, ending up in polluted remote Chinese places, where I clearly don’t belong, and being chased out by local police, is become a longer life pattern. Of course, being chased out is an overstatement.
On the way to the Yinchuan Airport I had a good time chatting with the Ningxia Province officials. To keep things interesting however, there was a police barricade along the highway. SHIT – so scary, they were totally unrelated to “catching the foreigner!”
