Job Discussion Forums

[Bertrand]

It's also illegal to spend the night with a woman you are not married to; even if it a girlfriend you came with.

[phillipl]

Roger

I can only say "Different courses for different horses!"

The authorities here (the 4th largest city in China) go out of their way to protect (welcome) us "humble" foreigners! I guess it's like the difference between living in New York and Las Vegas!

It is the LEASURE capital of China!

[noodles]

[Hamish]

I had a discussion with some Chinese here at our school regarding the right of police to enter one�s home. They all said that the police must have a warrant to do so and that this was a �Constitutional� provision.

Searching the Chinese Constitution I found the following section that protects �citizens of the People's Republic of China� and says nothing of foreign residents rights. I have a few more books to read before I finish my LLD but I believe the language here creates a substantial loophole to assist police should officers want to enter one of our homes or hotel room, sans sino citizenship as most of us are.

http://product.chinawe.com/cgi-bin/lawdetail.pl?LawID=114

CONSTITUTION OF THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA


Article 39 The residences of citizens of the People's Republic of China are inviolable. Unlawful search of, or intrusion into, a citizen's residence is prohibited.

Regards,

[Roger]

Noodles asks what might happen if someone was caught sharing a bed with a member of the opposite sex without being married to that person. Well, the Chinese law is pretty straitforward on this although it is not being observed so strictly anymore!
In fact, by law premarital or extramarital sexual gratification is likened to prostitution (hear, hear, Chris in Henan!).
A Singaporean told me that his company was in a cooperative venture with a CHinese nationalised oil company in XInjiang. That was in the early 1980's. Xinjiang was not yet really open to foreign travellers (the Karakorum Highway was opened in 1986). The expat workers were rather more lonely than they are these days. One of them was drawn into a liaison with a Chinese girl. A PSB man became suspicious and raided the expat's room. He locked the bewildered expat out. Then a shot rang out. The woman was shot by the police officer!
Don't know if this is true or not. MIght very well be though!
When I lived in Shenzhen, I had a Yunnan girlfriend. We lived together in a relatively clean and new neighbourhood. It took the neighbourhood police station only two days to be in the know. They came, but, to my amazement, asked merely to see "ni laopode shenfenzhen!" I answered I had no wife. They smiled amiably but insisted she was my laopo! So I showed them her ID card (she was gone). That was the last I saw of these guys!
But in downtown Shenzhen, I had a scary encounter with the police! One day, I carried the suitcase of another girl to her hotel room. We knew each other, but we were not romantically involved. The hotel had no lift, so I had to carry it up 6 floors! As soon as we stood inside her room, the telephone rang.
The receptionist warned us that the police were coming after us!
We waited for them.
They knocked, we opened. They wanted to see both our ID's. We obliged. The policeman told us I was not allowed to stay in the same room with a Chinese lady!
Nevertheless, they departed without taking me in their tow!

[ESL Guru]

Hamish -

It is all in the interpretation....

According to at least one Shanghai Court the search warrant is to look for evidence of a prior crime but is not required if it is believed a crime is in progress. Now doesn't that just throw the door wide open?

Isn't hiding evidence of a prior crime also a crime in progress? Obstructing?

[Hamish]

[ESL Guru]

Hamish -

If I am not mistaken, in the US they have something like "probable cause" to believe that a crime is in progress.

In China it is a "suspicion."

BIG - BIG Difference!

[xiaoyu]

i never really had a problem with the police... maybe it was because i am a woman or maybe it was because my chinese boyfriend for a time was the son of a PSB chief in shenyang..... don't know though.... they were all very very pleasant to me (meaning that i think they got bribed well enough to turn the other way when things weren't supposed to be happening)

i stayed in hotels many different times with my then chinese boyfriend and never had a problem at any point during my stay. it probably is worse for the men though..... figure that the cops (if they didn't know who i was) thought i was just another russian working girl.....

just goes to show though why you want to have international legal counsel on hand if possible and really watch yourself everywhere... you never know who is going to get a hair up their crack and come after you!

xiaoyu

[noodles]

Roger,
Thanks for that information, i never realised i had to be so careful. My girlfriend always gets a little scared when we see the police together but i just thought she was being paranoid.
I just hope my relationship with the guards that patrol my estate is good enough to help, geuss i'd better buy them a few cartons of cigarettes

[China Pete]

Dude, All he did is ask you what are you doing. If you politely reply 'Mei Shi' (nothin) that is an adequate answer. If they want to get you for something, they will come to your house or to your place of work to nabb you.
Stop being so suspicious, bro. I knew a guy that would regularly swear there were people on top of buildings keeping an eye on him, or people were following him. He would sometimes at random switch direction mid stride cause he swore the 2 high school students were ' on to us'. ((On to us for what!? Eating icecream? or throwing the wrapper on the side of the road?)) Naw, maybe 10 years ago, but not now.
The other day i was walking down the road, hoping to catch a bus soon. When a cop in uniform in an official police car stopped in front of me and called to me over the loudspeaker -WHERE ARE YOU GOING- in chinese of course. I could have acted dumb and then had a good story for the forum.
Instead, I walked up to his car and humored him. Told him where i was headed, and grabbed inside his car for the microphone and said 'hello everyone' over his loudspeaker. He then told me to get in. I got in and he sped down the street til he caught up with the bus. He pulled the bus over and told the guy where I was going. No joke. I couldnt believe it.

Big deal. No prob Bob. Mei Wen Ti! No problemo.
I have other true stories too. a very short one is that every now and then the cops in the little sub police station beside a big intersection like to ask me to come in the station for awhile to have a talk. At first this sounds intimidating, but really, they just want a foreign friend. Ive been invited to go with a group of 10 or more cops in uniform. Go where? Just go with us, you'll see. Uhh (yes i was nervous). To Dinner. at a really nice hotel. Ok that was fun, and no problems. They wanted to meet that handsome foreigner. Tried to get me drunk, but Im just too tough for them.

[Tong Dawei]

Hmmm, I don't know what to think about all of the back and forth on these issues other than to surmise that the DOCUMENTS thing and the CHINESE OTHER in the same room thing can turn into debacles depending upon locality, personality of requesting official, intensity of the midday sun, alignment of the orbs... So, I guess we should all be on guard by having documents at the ready. Carrying documents for inspection upon request is not a problem. Documents are documents are documents. Chinese other is a powderkeg waiting to explode as it seems to me. I've been in ZhangJiaGang a little more than a week. I've received the attentions of more than one chinese woman in the form of invitations to go places and do things. More than once a chinese woman (same person) has entered my domicile. I hope that im not setting myself up for a fall.