The Guangzhou businessman was to the point. "I'm not stealing your phone," he assured me. "I'm just not giving it back." Ah, behold the power of semantics. But still, his politician-esque assurances had a very hollow ring.
My girlfriend had discovered something was amiss when she called me earlier that day. After a few redials, she came to realize that either I'd mastered perfect Putonghua overnight, or somebody had nabbed my phone. When she told me about it and found my Chinese was as atrocious as ever, we realized what had happened.
Upon calling the phone's surrogate owner, we learned that he had retrieved my mobile from the backseat of the cab on which we'd ridden the night before.
My 300-yuan ($40) blower was the cheapest available, but its phonebook contained an invaluable list of contacts whom I had no other means of reaching. We all know the hassle of finding and punching in all those numbers again.
So, I offered this Guangzhou businessman relatively big bucks to return my forlorn phone. No dice.
What could I do? With nine-tenths of the law on his side, the guy with my mobile was definitely calling the shots - and anybody he liked with my phone. This episode wasn't the last bit of phone-related funny business I've encountered in China.
A few weeks later, I became something of a TV celebrity and poster child for what not to do when somebody begs to borrow your blower.
En route to picking up visiting friends from the airport, my girlfriend and I were accosted by a man who said he needed to make an emergency call. I lent him my new mobile, and all was fine until the guy got fidgety feet and began pacing away down the street.
I started pacing alongside him, ready to holler for help if he bolted. He wrapped up his call and asked me if I had been worried. Kind of, "but it was cheap."
A few weeks later, a slew of texts and calls came my way revealing that my mug and mobile were plastered all over CCTV. Apparently, I had been caught on candid camera! I'd been punked! My hotfooted friend was making candid movies to educate the public about how to lend assistance to emergency callers while protecting your phone.
Last week, I lost my third mobile in a taxi and the crooked cabbie rendered me a loser and a weeper once more.
Since most of my Chinese friends have fantastically flash phones, I've come to understand the virtues of a sleek mobile and why these pals of mine prefer to dial with style. So, I bought a futuristic phone - cell phone No 4 - that would make Captain Picard jealous.
But the cacophony of bells and whistles that riddle this high-tech contraption confound me to the point of feeling more Amish than I ever have - something this Michigander never expected of his life in Beijing.
Captain's log: Star date July 4, 2007. "As I continue to boldly go where few Michiganders have gone before, I have learned the value of giving my pocket the 'Have-I-got-my-mobile-phone slap test' upon disembarking hired shuttles."
(China Daily 07/04/2007 page20)
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