"I was standing in my underwear in a supermarket in Shanghai in front of 30 or so strangers. Walkie-talkies were buzzing. I tried to act nonchalant."
By Stephen T. Asma
I went to a large Chinese supermarket to buy a watch because my fine Walgreens timepiece had finally given up the ghost. The store was an enormous hangar-sized structure with produce on the first floor and household goods on the second.
China is more accustomed to street-side markets, not centralized bureaucratic shopping. For example, when I found the watch I liked, the nearby saleswoman was not authorized to help me so she ran to get someone else. He arrived with a walkie-talkie and seemed like he would get things done. I pointed out the watch. He nodded and reported into his walkie-talkie, then turned to me and said "deng yi huar" (wait one moment).
Finally an even more official looking fellow arrived wearing a tie. He took careful note of the watch's position in the case, spoke into his walkie-talkie, and said "deng yi huar." Eventually an old woman appeared way in the distance carrying a large chain of keys. The two management guys started shouting at her "quai, quai" (hurry-up, faster). After I had secured my watch, I experienced a similar flocking of workers and managers all trying to remove the non-theft magnetic sensor from it so that I could pass through the exit sensor field.
As I passed through the airport-style security exit, I set off the alarm. A young man in a pressed white shirt and, of course, carrying a walkie-talkie stopped me and examined my bag. I showed him the receipt. Everything seemed in order. A team of security guards and bored bystanders meandered over with mild interest. Would I please go through again while security held onto the bag? Again the alarm.
I emptied my pockets and tried once more. A large crowd started to form around me. Everyone in the crowd seemed amused, some chuckling, and I retained my humor though, at this point, I was standing shoeless with all my pockets emptied and even pulled out of my pants to demonstrate my innocence. Managers were showing up now and asking me to rehearse the same parade through the security gates. Each higher-up had to witness the whole incident again from the start. I dutifully accompanied every alarm with varying facial expressions of bewilderment. The only English the guards seemed to know was "sorry" and they looked sincere. I don't think it ever occurred to them to pass me through. It was not in their power to make such a decision.
So, we just kept waiting for higher and higher level management to arrive. Ten or 15 minutes had passed and I was still setting off the alarm, wearing only a T-shirt and a pair of pants. About 30 people had gathered to watch the troublesome guelao (foreigner, literally "white ghost"). An old man seemed to be telling the main guard that I had nothing on me, isn't it obvious? I couldn't really see any resolution to the scenario. I invited them to search me and pat me down, which they tactfully refrained from doing, but they clearly had no intention of letting me go either.
The sideshow just kept getting bigger. Finally I shook my head and removed my shirt. Management looked embarrassed. Spectators smiled, laughed, studied my tattoo, and gave me an approving thumbs up.
Next went the pants. I was standing in my underwear in a supermarket in Shanghai in front of 30 or so strangers. Walkie-talkies were buzzing. I tried to act nonchalant. I walked through the gates, and finally the alarm was silent. The culprit was some mysterious manufacturer's tag inside my pants, and after a cursory search of the offending trousers by a mortified manager, I was allowed to leave.
The crowd was thoroughly amused. I felt something like amusement mixed with humiliation. It was not a new sensation.
Stephen T. Asma is a professor in the department of liberal education at Columbia College in Chicago. His books include The Gods Drink Whiskey: Philosophical Dispatches From the Tattered Land of the Buddha.
Photo from stock.xchng, and modified.
