Here is a warning that everyone coming to China should read. It applies to any traveller and any destination but more so in some. Most Chinese people are law abiding people who will call out if you drop your wallet and run after you down the street to return something you left in their shop. I’ve had both those experiences more than once. China also has opportunistic and organized thieves who can be anywhere. Give them a chance and they will take your valuables. I’ll tell you my strategies to avoid theft in a moment but first, the latest excitement at my place.
My friend has seen another bad thing! Yesterday she was going to a Chinese medicine hospital, courtesy of our young friend from the train. On the way she used a footbridge to get across a busy road. She stopped on the bridge to make a phone call. Call completed she went to put the phone back in her bag and saw a hand rapidly withdraw. As she turned around a young man ran away and she began to shout. Another man moved into view and gestured to her to be quiet, shaking his head and showing her a knife half withdrawn from his pocket. She turned and hurried away, half afraid the man would follow her. Nothing more happened and nothing had been taken but it is another warning that China is not a safe place, either for locals or for travellers. The thieves usually work in pairs with one as guard. Knives are common. I wonder if the young man at the bus stop was a victim of one of these pairs.
A couple of years ago another friend saw a thief at work on a footbridge. That one was using tongs to pick a purse out of a woman’s bag when she was buying something from one of the many vendors who choose the footbridges to lay their goods out for sale squares of cloth. My friend, being a strong young Aussie bush boy stood and caught the eye of the thief, who slipped his tongs up his jacket sleeve and went away.
If you come to China think carefully about how you can keep your stuff safe from being stolen and how you can keep yourself safe from being robbed. There are no specific locations that are safe areas. It’s true that there are certain places that are more likely to have pickpockets at work, like crowded railway stations and crowded buses, but they can be anywhere. They rely on the general apathy and reluctance of Chinese people to get involved, and the fear they have spread with their two person knife wielding method, to allow them to get away.
I always carry two lots of cash, in my wallet and in a zipped up pocket. This saved my bacon in Beijing when a Western woman stole my wallet. At least I had enough money to get back to where I lived, a thousand kilometres away. I made the mistake of discounting the danger because she was a westerner, but I should have remembered the stories I have heard of gangs of Russian thieves in Beijing, targeting passports. In a crowded place I am always maintain awareness of my body. I’ve trained myself to feel the lightest touch, even on a crowded bus, and at the lightest pressure I will be looking at the spot instantly, and remembering that a bump can be the distraction from the real theft, which is being carried out with a light touch at the other side of the victim. Another part of my strategy is to continually look around me as I walk, shifting my gaze to be aware of people. It becomes a habit and is no effort to me any more. Even as I look at an interesting site or object I keep my gaze shifting about to the sides and even glance behind myself occasionally. I have read that robbers keep away from people who seem aware of their surroundings. Whenever I use my phone or camera I am conscious that someone will think they could make a fortune if they took them from me. Whenever I leave a bank building I very deliberately stop after a few steps and look behind me and around. I am ostentatiously watchful.
Read some John le Carré spy novels and try to cultivate the sort of awareness his characters had. See if you can spot the baddies. Out bluff them psychologically if you see a suspect. Stand tall and strong and smile just a little and don’t let your eyes flick away nervously from them. Don’t stare either, it might provoke them.