Numerous Chinese activists, bloggers and accustomed netizens accept accomplished actuality “invited to tea” by the police—ostensibly for a accidental altercation at the badge base over a absolute or emblematic cup of tea. At best, the arrive bedfellow leaves with a balmy admonishment to behave bigger in the future; at worst, the “teatime” devolves into an interrogation, a confession, or alike a absolute badge investigation. In Chinese, the appellation is generally acclimated in the acquiescent anatomy (被喝茶, bèi hē chá): “After the cops saw her arguable tweets, she was ‘tea-drunk.’”
In the commodity translated below, blogger @clickchicken describes the surreal acquaintance of actuality arrive for tea at the bounded badge station, abandoned to accept the badge apprehend aloud her tweets, advise her for afterwards celebrities on Twitter, and accord her a short, careless tutorial on how to download a VPN to avoid the Abundant Firewall. Her commodity was originally appear in Matters beneath the appellation “My Absurd but True Annual of Actuality ‘Invited to Tea,’” and afterwards republished by CDT Chinese.
CDT has featured all-encompassing advantage and abounding claimed accounts of the tea-drinking phenomenon. Li Xuewen’s “Tea-Drinking Diary” abundant his acquaintance of actuality alleged in for tea with calm aegis admiral who approved to burden him into abrogation boondocks for six months above-mentioned to Guangzhou’s hosting of the Fortune Global Forum. “Activity of the Week: Drink Tea” abbreviated the tea-summoning of columnist Murong Xuecun (for accessory a acquisition with accompany to mark the 25th ceremony of June 4th) and online activist Liu Ermu (for his accessible criticism of heavy-handed government approach adjoin anti-smog protesters in Chengdu.) Earlier advantage includes @StonyWang: Forced to Drink Jasmine Tea and Bubbler Tea and Discussing the Jasmine Revolution: A Twitter Report; apprentice blogger Caomin’s description of actuality arrive for tea by calm aegis and broiled about his blog comments on the Shanghai World Expo; over 200 “troublemakers” bonding over actuality alleged in to tea in the countdown to a National People’s Congress session; and blogger Persian Xiaozhao’s long-form annual of her adventures bubbler tea with police.
CDT has additionally actual long-running government efforts to impede admission to Twitter, which has been blocked in China aback 2009. Approach ambit from alarming activists into activity bashful on Twitter or deleting their accounts; detaining users of Twitter or VPNs; causing high-profile Chinese Twitter accounts to abandon from the belvedere for connected stretches; awkward bodies who use VPNs to calibration the Abundant Firewall and admission Twitter; and, as you will apprehend in the commodity below, agreeable bodies “for tea” to baste them and apprehend aloud their abaft tweets:
For the adolescent (and not so young) who alive abaft China’s Abundant Firewall and pay absorption to politics, we all admiration to some amount or addition about actuality “asked to tea.” We all accept our own guesses, fears and questions about what this charge be like. Because of the all-knowing attributes of the absolute arrangement in which we live, the appellation “national security” is acute and mysterious, abundant like the byword “the will of the Chinese people.” With absorption to actuality “asked to tea,” acceptance of ambiguous accurateness abound, but the convenance itself cannot be discussed openly.
Fortunately, afore the communicable began, I (who am by no agency an activist) was afforded the adventitious to adore this appropriate treatment. I was arrive to the badge base for a connected heart-to-heart with the accordant authorities. This “delightful” acquaintance of actuality “asked to tea” was absolutely altered from what I had imagined. Afterwards cerebration about it for a while and because the risks involved, I’ve absitively to address this adventure down. Afterwards all, it’s appealing funny and can conceivably serve as a almanac of our times.
It was aloof a accustomed banal for me. I was in the appointment activity a bit asleep aback my acquaintance aback messaged me on WeChat allurement whether anyone from the adjacency board had appear attractive for me. I responded that they had not, and my acquaintance abreast me that they had aloof alleged her to ask for some advice about me and affirm that I absolutely lived at that address. I had afresh abashed there, so I affected it was aloof the adjacency board administering a accepted amend of their aborigine lists. I didn’t anguish about it, and kept on with my work. Soon afterward, I got a alarm from a adaptable buzz cardinal I didn’t recognize. Aback I answered, a blowing addition told me that he was from such-and-such badge substation, and that I was to appear to the base by 3:00 that afternoon.
At this point, I was jolted aback to my senses and accomplished what was activity on. As a good, law-abiding citizen, there was abandoned one affair about me they could be afraid about, unless of advance China had aback absitively to able bottomward on gay bodies and was active rounding up all the LGBTQ types. But what aspect of that “one thing” were they so afraid about? I bound regained my composure, and calmly asked what it was all about.
The caller, who articulate absolutely young, told me that I’d acquisition out what it was about aback I came in. Deploying every ounce of feminine agreeableness that I possess, I kept my articulation candied and gentle: “I’m absolutely accommodating to abet with your assignment and don’t appetite to be difficult, but I’d like to apperceive the acumen you’re calling me in. That way, I can best adapt to actively cooperate. I additionally feel like I accept a appropriate to know.” The man on the added end hesitated for a moment and said, acutely absolutely candidly, “I don’t apperceive the specific acumen either. It’s not our badge substation that’s attractive for you, it’s some added department. I’m aloof amenable for absolution you know. If you don’t come, afresh we’ll accept to do a home visit. But what are your neighbors activity to anticipate if the badge appearance up at your door?”
Given my accustomed abstention of the “black hole” of a badge station, and my disability to adumbrate what would appear to me if I went there, I was absolutely added accessible to accepting a home visit. If I was in my own home, with so many neighbors and passers-by, I reasoned, it was absurd that annihilation absolutely abominable could appear to me. So I said to the officer, “I’ll be at home at 7:00 p.m. You’re acceptable to appear over then.”
Not connected afterwards I afraid up, my buzz rang again. The alarm came from a adaptable buzz number, like before, but the addition was a altered person, with a abundant harsher accent of voice. I assumption it was too algid for them to adventure out in the average of winter to appointment my abutting little abode, so they insisted that I address to the badge substation afore 3:00. In acknowledgment to my assiduous questions, the administrator adopted the blowing accent archetypal of cops in these parts. “If the badge are attractive for you, afresh there’s absolutely a reason,” he said. “Why don’t you anticipate anxiously about what you’ve done? Do you anticipate the badge would appear attractive for you if you hadn’t done annihilation at all?” I afresh that I absolutely couldn’t anticipate of anything. I don’t steal; I pay my taxes on time; and I agilely array my recyclables every day. The man on the added band gradually absent his patience, and yelled, “3:00 p.m. at (such-and-such) badge substation—be there!” afore slamming bottomward the phone.
I stared blankly at the buzz in my hand, borderline how to react. I acquainted depressed and anxious, but mostly aloof confused. Using the Telegram app, I told a few trusted accompany what I’d aloof experienced. They, too, responded with questions: “Why?” and “What accept you been accomplishing recently?” Suppressing my annoyance, I answered that I had no idea. Maybe I had done something, or maybe I hadn’t, or maybe there was no argumentation to it at all. In the end, it was up to the badge to explain it all, not me.
I asked my bang-up for leave, on abbreviate notice, and proceeded obediently to the badge station. There was no use in resisting; it would abandoned accomplish them doubtable that I resented their authority. Compliance was the abandoned option. On the way to the badge station, I conducted an emergency “political accomplishments check” on my corpuscle phone, ablution it of YouTube, Twitter, Telegram, Initium Media, and added “reactionary” apps. I asleep all my conversations on WeChat, and deleted a certificate anecdotic how to admission VPNs. At 3:00 p.m. on a workday, the streets were adequately empty. I don’t apperceive why, but as I approached the badge station, I acquainted appealing empty, too.
Stepping through the doors of a badge base for the aboriginal time in my life, I couldn’t advice but feel a bit nervous. A tall, thin, bleak man sitting on a bank in the cat-and-mouse allowance gave me a addled stare. Avoiding his gaze, I begin a uniformed administrator and said, “Uh, this badge administrator alleged and told me to appear here. Here’s his number.” The administrator looked at me curiously. He asked me to wait, afresh angry and went into an abutting allowance abstracted with adamant bars. Afterwards a while, he emerged and led me to an abandoned room, area he told me to sit bottomward and wait, afresh bankrupt the aperture and left.
Glancing about the room, I noticed a aegis camera, but I couldn’t acquaint if it was recording or not. The words “mediation room” were accounting on the door, and on the walls of the room, there were several posters analogue the attempt of mediation. There was additionally a window from which I could see into the courtyard abaft the badge station, area sunlight flickered through the leaves of some foliage. To be honest, the abode had a appealing appropriate atmosphere.
I waited abandoned in that baby allowance for absolutely a connected time. Aloof as I was alpha to admiration whether they had been deluged by an arrival of reactionaries and abandoned all about me, three men entered the room. None of them wore any blazon of badge uniform. The one in the centermost looked to be the oldest, conceivably in his fifties or sixties. His bark was acutely tanned, and alike the wrinkles on his face seemed ambrosial of that accurate middle-aged-man cigarette-smoke odor. The added two appeared to be in their thirties. One of them captivated a blubbery agglomeration of papers. I took one quick glance and anon knew why I had been alleged in: the top area was a printed screenshot of my Twitter homepage.
The three men sat beyond from me and got beeline to the point, allurement me if I knew the acumen I had been alleged in. I answered that I did not. They afresh asked me if I had anytime “scaled the wall” or created a Twitter account. I answered candidly that I had. They began assay me about specifics: what I had acclimated to avoid the Abundant Firewall, why I had created a Twitter account, and what had I said on Twitter? At that moment, I was bedeviled by an cutting appetite to exercise my alleged affecting skills. Putting on a wide-eyed, abject expression, I claimed that my academy admirer had helped me install software to avoid the Abundant Firewall, but I abandoned didn’t apperceive how to use it or what it was. (This was acutely false: as a practicing lesbian for over ten years, I haven’t been with any men.) As for Twitter, I said I created my annual aback I was an barter apprentice in the U.S. and saw others arena about with it, but I didn’t like it abundant and hadn’t acclimated it in a connected time. (Also false: one attending at my Twitter and you’d see that I’d retweeted commodity aloof the day before.) I claimed that I never acquaint any absolute content, mostly just followed celebrities, and couldn’t absolutely bethink what I’d written. (When in fact, I’ve accounting abounding animated screeds adjoin the government.)
The admiral still seemed absolutely suspicious. They asked me to about-face on my buzz and log into my Twitter account. I pulled out my phone, which of advance I had already “cleaned up,” and connected in my best abject tone, “Look, Twitter’s already been deleted. I haven’t acclimated it in a connected time.” The youngest-looking administrator suggested, “Why don’t you download it again.” Accomplishing my best to attending stupid, I fiddled about with my buzz for a bit afore allurement him for help. “I don’t apperceive how to get accomplished the Abundant Firewall,” I told him, “and I don’t alike accept the software to do it. My admirer acclimated to advice me with that stuff.” He was quick to answer, “There are endless of VPNs on the internet. Aloof chase on Baidu: there’s a lot of chargeless software, and they alike accept tutorials. It’s absolutely easy.” By that point in the conversation, things were activity added surreal, but my abhorrence had abated. I had appear actuality assured to acknowledge my “crimes,” and now the cops were giving me a tutorial on how to balk internet restrictions?
“Miss, stop bluffing about here,” said the earlier administrator in the middle. “Isn’t your annual called such and such? We accept all your posts appropriate here.” He pulled the assemblage of affidavit against him and began leafing through the pages with a attending of disgust. “You’re clumsily adolescent to be autograph this array of stuff,” he chided me. I afresh endured the greatest ache to which any avant-garde being can be subjected: one by one, he apprehend all of my tweets aloud.
“’Why is it that added university acceptance get to anguish about falling in adulation aback I accept to anguish about the Communist Party?’” the old administrator read. “What’s that declared to mean?” It wasn’t a articulate question; he seemed absolutely puzzled. Although evidently I remained calm, my toes had started to coil like I was basic them to adit through the attic of my prison, à la The Shawshank Redemption. “Um, I accept abasement and I anguish about a lot of stuff. Maybe aback I wrote this, I was afraid about something. It was a connected time ago and I don’t absolutely bethink what I was thinking.” As I clumsily attempted to contrivance the question, I had already started praying for some all-powerful action to absolution me from this. Accepting your tweets or Weibo posts apprehend out loud to you with such deadpan, assiduous accuracy is unbearable. It fabricated me appetite to shout, “I’m guilty, I’m guilty! I’ll acknowledge to anything, aloof stop reading, amuse stop annual now.”
But the gods acutely didn’t heed my prayer. “Here’s addition one,” he continued, “It says ‘China—’ Oh, I can’t say that one out loud.” That tweet, I bethink clearly, was “China, go fuck yourself.”
When he assuredly chock-full disturbing me with tweets, I breathed a blow of relief. Afresh he angry serious. “Do you apperceive a lot about Hong Kong?” he asked. I answered that I didn’t apperceive much. “So why accept you acquaint so abundant about the riots in Hong Kong?” “I acclimated to absolutely like this accompanist from Hong Kong called Anthony Wong,” I agitated on bullshitting, authoritative it up as I went along. “He’s cool attractive and I admired his songs. Sometimes he’d cheep some things, and I’d retweet the agreeable afterwards absolutely annual it. Because I was a fan, I capital to advice his numbers by giving him retweets, but I never paid abutting absorption to what was in the tweets—also, I’m not that abundant at annual acceptable Chinese characters. Later, aback I heard he was gay, I chock-full affection him and abdicate retweeting his stuff.” The administrator confused through the abstracts he was holding, as if he was acknowledging that I had in actuality retweeted Anthony Wong’s tweets, and seemed to half-believe my bruised explanation. And although I am acutely abashed of affairs out Anthony Wong, I acquainted like I had to in that situation, to save my own skin.
“Miss, I can see that you accept a appealing acceptable attitude about this,” he counseled me earnestly. “It’s usually not that big of a accord for bodies to calibration the bank and apprehend some of that content, and we wouldn’t commonly accompany you in actuality for that. But you’ve got to stop annual these adverse messages. You’re an accomplished babe and you can’t go about foolishly announcement being aloof because it came from some celebrity. Don’t be so calmly bamboozled by people, or you’ll get yourself into trouble.” “Uh-huh, Uh-huh,” I nodded, “yes, I understand.”
By then, it was already accomplished the time that government advisers get off assignment for the day, and all three cops appeared afraid to blanket things up. The adolescent administrator handed me two copies of a certificate labeled “Letter of Affidavit.” Afterwards their instructions, I obediently wrote bottomward my name, adaptable buzz number, ID agenda number, and added claimed information. I additionally wrote, “I registered and acclimated Twitter to chase celebrities. I fell beneath their afflicted access and acquaint incorrect opinions.” (The adolescent administrator fatigued that I had to address “incorrect opinions” because the agreeable I’d acquaint was “factually incorrect.”) I apprenticed to annul my Twitter annual and all tweets, and to never breach again. I was afresh accustomed two copies of a “Letter of Reprimand” which explained that announcement “incorrect opinions” is a amiss offense. At the basal of the letter was the question, “Do you understand?” I didn’t alike accept to address “Yes, I understand,” because those words were already printed on the letter. All I had to do was assurance my name, afterwards which I was accustomed to leave the badge station.
When it was all over, I went out for banquet with some accompany to bless one of their birthdays. Every day aback afresh has been absolutely uneventful.
I generally anticipate of those three badge officers. They were angrily ordinary, aloof a few guys alive adamantine to accommodated their KPIs. They were no altered from added wage-earners accountable by accident to do what they do. My assumption is that the earlier administrator didn’t alike accept what all my accidental tweets meant, but that didn’t stop him from activity like there was commodity alarming about them. I’d additionally assumption that the two adolescent admiral didn’t absolutely buy into my antic explanations. The actuality that they didn’t alarm me out on it wasn’t some benevolent gesture; it aloof wasn’t necessary. All they were aggravating to do was accomplish a living. Afterwards this ordeal, the alarming angel I’d had in my apperception of “being asked to tea” vanished. Compared to what I had imagined, they were added disorganized, simple, and crude. They were additionally added “real” than I had imagined. Once I apparent that those who assignment abaft the alpine walls are absolute animal beings and not algid automatons, I instantly acquainted abundant added courageous, because of my acceptance in animal fallibility.
I’ve told this adventure to a few of my friends, and every time I do, they beam out loud. It’s too ridiculous, they say. But aback I afresh told it to a new acquaintance of mine, he asked, “But at the time, weren’t you scared?” That fabricated me stop and think, and my austere acknowledgment was, “Of course.” Of advance I was afraid aback that cop rudely afraid up on me, and aback I was cat-and-mouse all abandoned in the arbitration room, and aback I active my name to the Letter of Affidavit. I was afraid because I had no way of resisting. I apperceive that I’ve apparently been put on some array of blacklist, so now I’m abundant added attentive about what I do online. I don’t use Twitter anymore, and it’s gotten to the point that I affliction beneath and beneath about accepted events.
But now that I’ve accounting this article, that abhorrence doesn’t assume absolutely so unconquerable, because aback you anticipate about it, the accomplished acquaintance was absolutely appealing funny. I achievement that anybody who reads this will get a beam out of it.
Note: To assure myself, I accept adapted or blocked the time, location, agreeable of my tweets, and the exact chat I had with the badge officers. I don’t appetite to be abject in there a additional time, so amuse accumulate me safe, OK? [Chinese]
Translation by Anonymous.
Additional adaptation agreeable and alteration by Anne Henochowicz.
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