“What? Me? Break the law?! Little Mister Goody Two-Shoes, me? No, Your Honour. Not guilty.”

What? You expect me to own up, just like that? I have friends in the Police who may read this. I’m not daft, you know.

OK – so I’ll give you something I don’t reckon I can be ‘done’ for now, seeing as it happened around eighteen years ago:

I had arrived in Hong Kong the previous evening with a supposed friend (long story – maybe some other time … the ba****d!) 😉 and co-director of the small company I found myself working with.

Our hosts met us at the hotel the following morning and were to take us over the administrative border into Shenzen, China, where we’d visit a couple of factories that supplied the light bulbs we sold. We would then spend the next week or so travelling around the Pearl River Delta, calling in on other light-bulb and LED light manufacturers.

(Ironically, importing and selling light bulbs to the UK is a frightfully dull industry to get involved with in the first place, but – hey ho.)

Anyway, we arrived at the border and joined the appropriate queue for non-nationals or whatever, and waited patiently for our turn to be invited into China ‘proper.’

I could see it would be a bit of a tedious wait. There were hundreds, if not thousands of citizens waiting to make their daily commute between the two centres.

I wandered slightly from my ‘friend’ (spit!) and our hosts and took a few photos. Hey, I was excited by this new adventure – I’d never before felt compelled to take a photograph of Palma Airport in Majorca, or César Manrique Airport in Lanzarote when visiting on holiday. But this was a whole new experience. It was China, for goodness sake.

” What are you doing, Colin?! COLIN!”
You know that urgent, shouted yet hushed tone? Yup, that was it.
“COLIN! Put that away! Quick! Let me see the photos! Delete them! Now! Immediately.”

The air was suffocated by exclamation marks. Our three hosts, all taller than me despite the pre-conception of people from China being small, quickly surrounded and shielded me from the gaze of any possibly interested armed guard or Secret Service observer.

Well – how was I to know photographs should not be taken at Immigration / Passport control?

I was a fast learner, though. And you know, to this day, I consciously check every airport I pass through. True enough, there are indeed signs all over the place saying no photography is allowed.

“Have you deleted them, now?” The question was delivered in a more relaxed tone.
“Erm … yes,” I replied rather sheepishly.

Actually, it turns out I lied – when I checked that day’s photos later in the evening, I discovered I had missed one.

I still have it somewhere, in old-fashioned physical format. But even though he-who-shall-not-be-mentioned’s face has been burned out with a *cigarette, re-visiting those pictures still evokes a pathological anger, so I don’t care to even think where they are!

So there you have it. I reckon Xi Jinping has enough on his plate these days to keep him occupied (oops … apologies Taiwan – unintentional and unfortunate turn of phrase there) without worrying about my little indiscretion all these years ago.

In fact, two indiscretions, as it turned out. One unintentional break of the law and another … let’s just say ‘intentionally unintentional.’ 😉 😀

_____

* I made this bit up, before anyone thinks I’m a complete psycho. 😀