First of all, welcome back, friends! I am fortunate enough to have the opportunity to spend the month of March, 2018 working with the fine folks at Peking University Health Science Center, Department of Pediatrics in Beijing, China. Though this blog started as a first-time-back-to-Korea/adoptee-identity-figuring-out blog, it's gradually grown into a general travel blog/thing I do when I feel I haven't written anything for while/place to paste gifs. Anyway, if I have the time, I figure that this experience might be a good opportunity to blog about some stories and interesting topics, and to my Taiwanese and Chinese friends, I apologize if I come across as ignorant or naive at any time. As usual, I'm trying my best to dive head-first into the culture and history here and I've been reading and exploring as much as I can, so hopefully this month will bring some interesting, funny, and insightful (though of course always HIPAA compliant) stories ;)
But in the meantime:
If you travel enough, crazy things will happen to you, in my case, most of which eventually end up on this blog. Well there have been a couple of gems of stories in the past couple of years, but while most of you may have heard them from me in person, I didn't write about them here because my parents may have been less than pleased to know about them because they involve some measure of danger? Luckily, I have arbitrarily decided that the statute of limitations has expired on these two stories, so, for your enjoyment, please read on!
Give Me the Money, Give Me the Money!
So let's bring this whole thing back to Korea for a hot second. East Asia is super safe--both anecdotally and statistically--as not only does Nationmaster, a fact checked statistical website, show us that South Korea had only the 122nd highest per capita murder rate at 25.32 per 100,000 in 2010 (the US is neatly at 99th at 42.01 and Honduras is 1st at 913.5), but also, scenes like this:
Photo credit: utusan.com.my
are a regular sight in Seoul--this is probably a Wednesday at 7:00AM--and no one rummages through their bags, takes their suits, T-bags them, or fucks with them in any way. Absolutely unthinkable in NYC, and some of my female Korean friends have said that they would not feel particularly unsafe walking home at night from the club alone, while intoxicated--pretty astounding stuff. Now I want to compare this to northern Europe, which, you may point out, must be at least as safe if not even safer than east Asia by this metric--the Netherlands is actually 162nd for per capita murder at only 10.83 per 100,000 (2009) according to Nationmaster. Yeah, yeah, well that's just one metric and I'll get back to you smug asses right after the story.
So anyways, after spending over five very formative and well-documented (see above: my blog from the beggining) weeks in Korea back in 2015, I got used to this tangibly safer-feeling atmosphere. Then after heading back home briefly for match day, I soon jetted back off to Europe to travel around with Brandan and spend the rest of my disappearing life savings on as much travel as I could pack into my final year of medical school. Only it wasn't always with Brandan, sometimes it was with other friends in the area, sometimes it was with hostel best-friends-for-the-weekend, sometimes it was totally by myself, and traveling alone with your guard down is not a good way to go.
While in Tubingen, Germany with Brandan in March of 2015, I found out that later that month, the annual Dutch Tulip Festival would be taking place in Keukenhof, Netherlands. Now if you know anything about anything, you know that that the only people crazier about tulips than the Dutch, are me. I remember reading about the tulip festival in some weird plant book that weird me read when I was about 6 weird years-old and I wanted soooo badly to go. Well I never had made it to Europe until this 2015 trip, my parents helped me make my own garden when I was growing up, and I all but forgot about my floriferous childhood dream; until that fateful day. The ensuing conversation went like this:
Me: "OMGOMGOMG the Dutch Tulip Festival is in TWO WEEKS--I'LL STILL BE HERE! DOYOUWANTTOGOWITHMEPLEEAASSSEEE?!"
Brandan: "I... Um. Not really, man. I'm really sorry." (For reference, for those of you that don't know Brandan, this is actually the meanest thing that Brandan has ever said to me.)
Me: "Oh, okay, no problem; I understand. You're probably just about out of money for side trips anyway, huh?"
Brandan: "Yeah, that's true too... But also... I just really don't want to go. Sorry." Then he probably cooked me dinner, gave me a treasured Walters family heirloom, and offered to pay off my medical school student loans or something like that.
In any case, I was out a travel partner, but I got it, I'm a weird plant person, and most other people in the world are not. So, newly Brandanless, I struck out on my own European expedition with a quick stop in Paris with Karin, a good high school friend of mine (who was/still is living in Freiburg, Germany) where we then also met up with some of my Albion friends. I then, in an amusing side story, found out very unexpectedly that my 10:00PM train from Paris to Amsterdam was not, in fact, a sleeper train, as that trip takes only about 3h20m, but actually, an unpleasant overnight layover at the Brussels, Belgium train station. Not to be made a complete fool of, I was able to book a last-minute hostel close by and even plucked up the energy to explore the city since I had a few hours there. Long side-story short, most things were closed, there's not too much to see in Brussels except an inexplicably very famous, unimpressive fountain of a cherub pissing, and WAIT A SECOND WHAT'S THAT?!
FuCk YeS, DeLiRiUm TaP hOuSe--I totally had forgotten it was in Brussels; Delirium Tremens was one of the first "craft" beers that I liked; and I was so ecstatic to have happened upon it after my geography fail, I decided to reward my self with a beer or five (they have so many more kinds there than you can get in the States).
Take that, my own stupidity and poor planning!
Okay back to the main story. So I made it back to the hostel, slept for a couple hours, and got back on the train to arrive in Amsterdam in the morning. Just like I planned--right, guys? I checked into my hostel there, dumped most of my things into a locker, and promptly headed right back off to Keukenhoff with my camera. You guys, it was so. great.
Dutch-style gardens like I'd never seen before (though which admittedly, is not my favorite style),
and obviously, the best example in the world of that style at the best possible time of the year. I spent all day there.
I got back, very nature-happy, and fell into a deep plant-and-also-not-sleeping-at-all-induced coma. The next day, my flight back to Germany wasn't until like 3:00PM or so, so I got up early, packed my things, and checked out of my hostel with the intent of trying to see as much of Amsterdam as I could possibly cram into one long morning.
Well as it turns out, that's not very much before about 10:00AM because nothing is fucking open in Europe on the weekends until people maybe feel like opening their shops. So after literally going to about ten restaurants shown on my Ulmon offline map app (super highly recommend for traveling internationally where you won't have service!), all of which were closed, I very hangrily walked down this small side street near the Red Light District looking for someone to please serve me some delicious fucking Dutch breakfast. No dice. So I turned back towards the main canal street, backpack, duffle bag, shopping bag, and camera case in tow, when this particularly homeless looking fellow walking his bike starts down the side street towards me.
We draw towards one another and it becomes clear that he's going to ask me for money, of which I have very little at this point, so I try to avoid eye contact, but instead, my eye catches the glint of something shiny and metallic. It took my brain a few beats to actually process what was happening as I saw the knife, stared at the knife, and academically mused that that was a bad thing for me, but didn't react until he growled in equal parts unidentifiable European accent and stale alcohol-scented slurring, "Give me the money, give me the money," making small symbolic, but still upsetting, stabbing gestures as he spoke the words. I believe I then said, "Oh. Fuck!"
This man was a quite disheveled-appearing European white male with a beard, dreadlocks, and a Rasta cap who looked about in his 60s, but I'd wager was in actuality decades younger--like the DJ from Zoolander:
PC: twitter.combut after about 20 years of hard drugs.
He repeated himself more impatiently, "Give me the money, give me the money!" Now I wish I could tell you that I either used my old black belt karate skills and put his tourist preying ass in the dirt or sat down with him and talked about the difficulties of homelessness and assistance programs that may be available to him and we could both get a fucking sandwich from an open cafe, but I didn't quite do either of those things. I was heavily laden with all my stuff--probably why I was targeted--so I couldn't really fight or bolt and I didn't have the wherewithal to talk the situation out, but what I did have was a shopping bag with a Rembrandt tulip-themed decorative tray for my mom in it, and my very surprised brain chose in that moment to swing that hard at this man's face. The blow connected, and I just turned and ran as fast as I could with all my things. I didn't turn around to see if he was chasing me or if I had knocked him down, I just ran and ran until I was on the other side of the canal. At that point, I didn't see him, but I kept going for blocks and blocks until I was pretty sure he couldn't have seen where I'd gone. I then did, in fact, check myself for stab wounds because I've seen enough movies to know that sometimes you don't know that they gotcha until the camera pans down and sees that you done got stuck. Well I was all right, if a little shaken, but it was still only like 10:00AM and after catching my breath, I decided that I wouldn't let this ruin my day and I'd still try to see a bit more of the city before my flight.
It turns out that I had fled myself right near this open air market that I wanted to check out for a gift for my sister, so I took my unpunctured self right over there and had a walk around. Tourist trap for sure, but I was able to pick up this very Dutch-, but what I hoped was also Stephanie-approved fashionable-(clothes are always a risky go with her), looking sweater for a good price, so I stuffed it into one of my bags and started heading out when, sonofabitch, the same would-be thief was angrily walking his bicycle, knife in hand, towards me, leering much more menacingly and cursing in Italian this time.
Now I think that there were other people in the alley from before, but there were DEFINITELY tons of people in this market at 10:30 in the morning. I almost couldn't believe it this time, but was reassured that other people would not allow me to get stabbed and robbed before their very eyes. I walked over to one of the vendors and said, "That man has a knife and is trying to rob me, can you please call the police?" This spooked the thief a bit and he turned around. The vendor seemed disappointingly unconcerned, but said that the thief wouldn't bother me while I was standing next to him and that police regularly patrol the market and should be around soon.
A few minutes later, another man, this one only slightly less homeless appearing than the thief, walked up to the two of us and said something to the effect of, "Was that other guy bothering you? I am an undercover police officer and if you come with me now, we will go find that bad man and arrest him together!"
My reaction:
https://giphy.com/gifs/3o7btYetccbRYL4WVW/html5
Now, I'm already kicking myself for being naive and letting myself slip into a Mad-Eye Moody-disappointing state of not constant vigilance alone with all of my valuables on me due to my time in Seoul, but I'm not that dumb. I bluntly declined this man's offer and stayed right where I was, thinking that maybe this guy was even in the alley with the thief earlier, though I can't remember for sure; all the while, Mr. Stabby himself was circling around the market, giving me a very unnerving stink eye.
Well soon enough, a real police officer showed up, looking decidedly not homeless in her uniform and on her Eurocop police bike (bicycle, not motorcycle, it's Amsterdam after all). I explained the situation to her and she very coolly then questioned the other man that walked up, who notably changes his I-am-an-undercover-cop story to an I-saw-that-other-guy-bothering-this-Chinese-boy-and-wanted-to-help one. I then pointed over to the thief, who saw me with a real police officer and finally scurried off in the other direction. The police officer then offered to escort me safely back to the police station and asked me if I would file a formal report so they could follow up on the case. I felt a fleeting twinge of disappointment since my precious few hours in Amsterdam were being whittled away by this brazen thief's tenacity, but I quickly obliged.
We made our way about a mile to the police station and I met with the detective, who is a very kindly older Dutch man, and after he interviews me about what happened, he hands me a copy of the police report, a flyer on tourist safety, and wishes me well, saying partingly, "Ve've been geyting a loot moore robberiesh lately, loot loot moore. Aynd de teeng eesh, dey seym to toarget Chinayse toarists een peyrticoolar becoash dey cahrry loots of caysh oon dem."
On my way out of the station, I have a few thoughts:
1.) Why does everyone here think I'm Chinese?
2.) That's really messed up that they target Asians. Also, I have like maybe 50 Euro on me right now, so...
3.) What time is it? Mmm 1:00--I don't know when the next time I'll be in Amsterdam is, I could probably still go see a few things before...
4.) No. Actually, fuck this. Fuck Amsterdam. I'm going to go sit in the airport and play Pokemon until my flight.
Well, that's my almost mugged in Europe story, but like any good story, it actually has a neat little epilogue to it as well, but first, a little more learning.
So though the Netherlands is a very good country for not getting murdered, it does in fact turn out to be a very bad one for not getting robbed. According to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime in 2014, where South Korea was 39th of 74 evaluated countries (532 reported thefts per 100,000 people) and the USA was 13th (1,834; last was Burundi at 8), the fucking Netherlands was 2nd(!) at 3,480 reported thefts per 100,000 people. And pretty shockingly to me, Sweden was 1st at 3,972! Now the public health and policy sides of me would love to unpack why the Scandinavian nations, which rate so highly in most other quality of life metrics, including overall crime, have among the highest theft rates, but I realize this already is a loooot longer than any of us bargained for, so we'll pass on that one for now; I am guessing most of those thefts are against tourists of all kinds though. However, I did look a bit into the somewhat haunting words of the detective, and it seems to be robustly, though anecdotally, a thing that European thieves are targeting Chinese (and probably therefore all Asian) tourists because they believe that they tend to be wealthy and carry a lot of cash with them. You can read more about that in the article I linked above, but in general, whenever I travel anywhere (except east Asia, the child-safe, soft plastic ball pit of the tourist world), I keep my valuables in my front pockets with my hands on them almost constantly, divide up my cash into three or more envelopes distributed among my bags/person, try to look as little like a tourist as possible, and have
But back to the epilogue.
So about a month later, I get the following email:
Mr. M.A.
My name is Adri Verkerk and I'm a police-officer who is investigating your report of robbery. At your report you said somebody came to you on the Waterlooplein who said he was a policeman but showed ni ID. You thought you'de seen him earlier with the robber. Could you give me a further prescription of that man?
And could you give me a prescription of the bike the robber used? For example was it a mensbike or a womensbike, color and had it bags?
For your information: we have arrested a man in a other case who looks almost the same as your robber.
I hope you can answer my questions a quick as possible.
Met vriendelijke groet
Adri Verkerk
Brigadier coördinator
Bureau Districtsrecherche District 1
team HIC-A
Initial thoughts:
1.) Cool.
2.) Waterlooplein heh.
3.) That's really impressive that they not only maybe caught the guy, but they actually followed up with me about it, too--well done, Amsterdam Nieuwezijds Voorburgwal!
I thought that would be the end of it--a nice bit of closure knowing that they'd hopefully caught this man and that he wouldn't be able to rob any more Chinese tourists, but wait, there's more!
So I was super pumped to tell this story to my friends, and I told it to my sister too, but almost the moment I finished the story for her, she said, "You can never tell mom and dad about this, or they'll freak out." This I knew, and I resolved to probably never tell them. Now I know I wrote that whole thing in the intro to this story, but at the time of this writing, they actually already knew about this incident.
How, you ask? Well, this shit comes FULL. CIRCLE.
Over a year later, Brandan and I are traveling together from Ann Arbor to Albion to meet with the new Albion College president as representatives of recent alumni, and I ask that we stop in Jackson briefly to say hi to my parents. We do so and after a brief visit, we get ready to continue on to Albion, and the rest of the scene plays out like this:
Mom: "Oh, before you go, we got this letter for you from the Amsterdam Police Department--do you have any idea what it could be?"
Me: https://giphy.com/gifs/140lcuYKYpVWGA/html5
[Mom hands me the letter, which they opened. They always open my mail -_-]
Me: (looking so puzzled, but knowing exactly what it is probably--it was a court summary saying they had tried the man they apprehended and released him since there wasn't enough evidence) "Oh. Weird! I have no idea why this was sent to me. So weird."
Brandan: (with a look of dawning comprehension) "OHHH!"
Me: [fuck, Brandan, no] "What?" ::attempts to make pointed eye contact with Brandan to indicate that I do not want to talk about Mr. Stabby today::
Brandan: "IT'S FROM WHEN YOU WERE IN AMSTERDAM LAST YEAR!"
Mark: [come on, help me out here, man] ::slowly, subtly steps on Brandan's foot. hard::
Brandan: "ow. YEAH, YOU KNOW, IN AMSTERDAM WHEN THAT GUY TRIED TO MUG YOU."
Mark: [god damn it, Brandan, I swear to god...] ::elbows Brandan in the ribs admittedly less subtly::
Mark: ::WRESTLES BRANDAN TO THE GROUND AND STABS HIM REPEATEDLY IN THE LEFT CALF WITH A RUSTY FORK WHILE MY PARENTS LOOK ON IN HORROR. YEAH, THAT'S FOR NOT GOING TO THE TULIP FESTIVAL WITH ME, MOTHERFUCKER!::
Anyway, I will write about another pretty ludicrous travel story in the next few days, hopefully, but this late night writing is more consequential on trips where I'm working full time, so goodnight, everyone; hope you enjoyed!
Mark
