Travel Series
You’ll Never Believe the Weirdest Thing That Happened to Me in China
It was so bizarre that I can remember it to this day
“Hey, you!”
The strange-looking Chinese man walked up to us like a ghost out of nowhere.
I was confused. “Me?” I pointed at myself.
He closed in on us like a hungry lion. It seemed like he had something to say to us.
“Are you a foreign friend?”
Not sure what to do, I complied and answered that we were visiting from Singapore, if only out of my desire to be polite.
As we listened to him half-cautiously, he started to speak in remarkably fluent English. I was amazed and impressed that this man, who looked to be in his 50s or 60s, could speak excellent English.
“Yes. I am ethnically Chinese, but I am from Singapore,” I answered. I don’t remember whether I said it in English or Chinese.
The man looked visibly pleased and relieved.
“I have a message for foreign friends,” he began to say.
Things were about to get very strange.
It was the early autumn of 2015. I was visiting Shanghai with two friends. One of my American friends from graduate school had just moved to China, and we were visiting him. We were in the People’s Park — 人民公园 (Ren Ming Gong Yuan).
This park is unique for being the site of Shanghai’s Marriage Market. Every weekend, parents gather here to “marry off” their children. They hawk the credentials of their children as one would at a flea market. Sometimes, they have a photo, sometimes they don’t.
Their children’s income? Very important information as well.
Driven by anthropological curiosity, my friends and I had decided to see what it was about.
Here’s a video if you’re interested to see what it looks like:
Seeing the Marriage Market turned out to be the most mundane experience of the day.
When the Strange Man beckoned us, I was with my French friend.
There were four of us in total, and two other friends were looking from a safe spot about 10 meters away, out of harm’s way.
Even though I am ethnically Chinese and would probably have blended in, standing next to my French friend — who looked visibly white — made us stand out like a sore thumb.
He must have targeted the two of us knowing we were tourists.
He started again. “I need you to bring this important message back to your countries so that we can tell foreign friends about what is happening in China!”
I glanced at my friend with an “uh-oh” look.
“The authorities are watching me, so I have to be very careful.”
We took a deep breath as we prepared to listen to his Very Important Message.
He began to speak in English.
“All the people you see around us — they are all robots!”
My friend and I glanced at each other again. Uh-oh. This is bad.
“You see, the government is using artificial intelligence and mind control technology to control people. Do you know mind control? They are using radio waves to control the thoughts of people. Everyone and anyone you see around you could be a robot!
“Teacher, banker, policeman — it doesn’t matter! They are all robots!
“Because I found out their secret, that’s why they want to capture me. I have to be careful because these robots could capture me and turn me into one as well!”
The story was incredulous. My brain was screaming at me to run as far as possible, yet, I was fascinated with his story, and his command of difficult words in English continued to impress me.
“Will you tell foreign friends back home?”
“Of — of course!” We were going to tell our foreign friends. We were moved by his dedication to the pursuit of truth and justice. We promised him that we would go back to our countries and spread his message.
He thanked us and bid us farewell.
As we walked away, not quite sure what had happened, we saw the man approach another group of unsuspecting tourists.
This incident happened in the autumn of 2015. It’s been more than six years ago, so some of the details are a bit fuzzy. I’ve done my best to reconstruct it.
But that’s not the end of the story.
A few weeks ago, in 2022, I was talking to another French friend (they all happen to be French, for some reason) when I brought up the topic of Shanghai.
“Have you ever been to Shanghai?” I asked him randomly.
“Yea, it’s a nice city.”
“You know, you won’t believe me, but when I went to Shanghai, I met a man in a park who approached us and told us that everyone in China is a robot.”
He looked at me, surprised — “Oh, me too! I think we met the same guy!”
What an incredible coincidence, I thought. “When did you go?”
“Oh, I went in 2018.”
It was three years apart, and we had met the same man. How strange!
If the man is still around in 2022, I can say for sure that he must be suffering and struggling with all the lockdowns from the COVID-19 pandemic.
The COVID-19 lockdowns in Shanghai have been brutal as the Chinese government still tries to cling to a zero-COVID policy that seems to fly in the face of global practices.
It’s not an understatement to say that the anger at the Chinese government is at an all-time high. The social media companies in China must be working all around the clock to remove videos of protests.
Worse, he has no foreign friends to help him to spread his word.
I wonder if he will still be there on my next visit to Shanghai?
To this day, I still don’t know what happened. Was the man a little mentally unwell? Had he been ill-treated by the Chinese government in ways that cannot be fathomed?
I don’t know, and I don’t want to speculate. I just know that it was the weirdest thing to have ever happened to me.
But, in writing this story, I think I fulfilled his promise to pass on his message.
Still, I think the man was wrong.
The protests that are going on right now in the city prove that the people of China are not robots.
© Alvin T. 2022
Enough of weird travel stories? To read about a more magical travel experience, please check out Diane Neill Tincher’s Shukubō — Temple-stay on Mount Kōya.
The author is an editor of Japonica and also writes on a wide variety of topics. His key topics are society, culture, modern work, and cryptocurrency, with the occasional fictional story, creative piece, or reflective essay. Discover his most-read stories here.
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