Saturday, I spent my day down at the police station in some southern district trying to help out a foreign friend who got ‘semi-arrested’ for driving without a license. In the end we got the best out of a bad situation… which is now the 2nd time that has happened… but basically just spent 5 hours sitting there, for which a really nice Chinese guy working with the Kawasaki club negotiated the ‘terms of my friend’s release’ and then we were good to go.
40 guys got caught on the 4th ring road (motorbikes aren’t meant to be on the ring roads) all but 2 people had their license…one of them being my foreign friend, so the idea was…so the Kawasaki Chinese guy told me was that I would say that I was riding…and that my friend was riding pillion (behind me), and so 3 points would come off my license, and he’d pay the 100 kuai (20 dollar) fine. and then we’d be released…. (happy to do that for a friend…to make sure he’s not going to jail or anything)
Of course it was never going to be that easy. and eventually we got told…”David, you and Louis go and wait outside…have lunch across the road or something, and we’ll call you when we’re done… I think its best if we handle this amongst Chinese.”
(You’ll find that sometimes this is the best way to handle things here. For example meetings with government officials, even if a foreigner was involved in coming up with the direction of future business etc or could have provided help in the meeting, the actual meeting will be handled between the top Chinese guys. I’ve had a few dinners with the driver because of that exact thing)
So basically, 3 hours later…we got a call, and the bikes were waiting for us outside, with a group of Chinese guys taking pictures… and then I was told ‘David you drive, don’t go on the ring roads, make sure you’re outside of the 4th ring road, and do NOT let Louis drive, be careful and we’ll see you both at the next Kawasaki meet’.
ok cool, thank you.
As it turns out, when I handed over my Chinese license…they for some reason said that they wanted to see my foreign license… which I forgot to bring, but for which I told them… ‘I used my Australian one to get my Chinese one…its in the police/ traffic management system, just check that’
And then was told….’mmm we really wanted to see your foreign one.’
Which is strange because… a foreign driving license doesn’t mean anything here… you need your Chinese license.
Basically the situation was that 40 guys from the Kawasaki owners club were going just South of Beijing for a ride in the mountains and decided to take the 4th ring road, there was a tip off…and there was a massive police road block blocking the entire 4th ring road… and there were cars behind them that prevented them from even attempting to back track… (plain clothes police)… apparently there were also firemen filming… I don’t know why the firemen were there… but I guess it was some propaganda show of force. My friend was the only foreigner riding.
After an initial hey, hey we’ve got a foreigner.. and after a lot of the Kawasaki guys told the police ‘ no, no, this isn’t just some Laowai’ – (a discriminatory word Chinese people often use for foreigners), ‘this guy is really nice, he’s a friend of china, he helps out a lot’ …blah de blah, apparently the police were really civil…and didn’t make him the point of focus. so they asked him…
‘do you have a Chinese license?’ – No.
‘Do you have a Chinese car license? – No. ,
‘errr…ook…do you have a foreign license?’ to which he said ‘yes, but not here’.
And so on that one, I guess that’s what they were looking for.
(He doesn’t even have a foreign drivers license actually)
So anyway, the Kawasaki guy invited one of his Chinese friends down…to basically take the hit (of 3 points off his license) and then that’s how it worked.
I told my friend that we need (we= he) needs to make sure we can somehow repay these guys.. because they didn’t need to be that helpful, and it was my friend that was in the wrong
There’s just been 2 big weeks of meetings for the top gov. here, so everything is being enforced for once. …so I think essentially they had to make a big show of it. Luckily it wasn’t that big and my friend‘s part was kept out of the news. So…. in the end.. best of a bad situation.
But anyway because of that event… I’ve been invited for a ride in the mountains with another group of Chinese riders… because I have my license, and was seen to be helping out those that got into this situation..
Which is pretty cool.
But I don’t have a bike,…. I think though I might be able to borrow my friends bike because he seems like he will be too nervous to ride it for a couple of weeks.
Also one of the guys, says he has a Benelli 600 that he’s likely to sell.. and even though it looks a bit dusty, it also still looks pretty decent. 
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