Passing counterfeit money in China ¥¥¥

I was recently asked what was one of the most unusual things that's ever happened to me… maybe a fun fact?
 
I thought about it for a minute and then I realized maybe the best story I could tell was about the time I was detained by the Chinese police in Beijing, China for passing counterfeit money!

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It was the summer of 2016. I was scheduled to go to China that year to visit some of my Harding students that were home for the summer. I was also going to go by and visit some of my former American students who were now teaching in China. On one visit I had gone by to visit Renee, my former student who had moved to the Hunan province, to teach at the at one of the many the universities in that area. This was a familiar place to me because I had spent four summers between 2010 and 2013 teaching there myself. We were walking across the campus when we ran into a fellow professor of marketing communication, a Chinese man that I had known when I used to teach there. As we exchanged pleasantries, he realized that I was in town, and asked me if I would come and speak to one of their classes, a combined group of marketing classes that he wanted to pull together to let them be exposed to an American professor.
 
Of course, liking that idea, I gladly accepted, and a week or so later I went back to the campus to fulfill that speaking engagement. As the class closed it was nearing dinner time the professor invited me and Renee go out to dinner with him and some of the other Chinese professors. But before going to the restaurant he wanted me to come by his office.  He said that he said he had something for me. We went by his campus office where he had his secretary get into the cash box and give me a speaking fee for speaking that day!
 
Even though the amount of money they gave me was very much appreciated, because I wasn't expecting anything at all, I would have gladly done it for free. They paid me ¥1,000 YUAN, which is equal to about $150 American dollars. $150.00 USD for speaking for about an hour and then taking some questions. That was pretty good money for what I could have done in my sleep.  (The secretary’s name), put 10 ¥100 bills in an envelope and handed it to me thanking me for my service of speaking that day. I put that envelope in my pocket and didn't think that I would be needing it very quickly at all.
 
When I travel in China, I acquired cash and covered other expenses by using my credit card in one of their local ATM’S to draw out money from my American account in Chinese currency. There was a relatively small international transaction fee, but it was well worth not having to carry a lot of local cash, and ATMs were everywhere!
 
A few days later I made my way to Beijing, and I was getting low on money and instead of going to the ATM to get more money I realized I had ¥1,000 in an envelope that was given to me at the university. So instead of going to the ATM I reached in and grabbed that envelope and went on about my way spending to pay for the things for which I was doing.
 
I took a taxi to the Pearl Market, and the taxi driver wouldn't accept my money. I had no idea what he was yelling at me about, but he would not let me get out of the car until I paid him with other money, but everything I handed him was the same story. He was very angry, and I didn’t know why! When I started yelling back at him to let me out, he unlocked the door and told me to get out!
 
I had not gotten very far into that spending excursion and shopping a bit when one of my transactions was denied again, because the counter person told me that the money that I was handing him was a fake. I wasn't sure what he meant by, “it was a fake,” until it dawned on me, because of my poor Chinese, and his poor English, that he was telling me that my money was counterfeit! Apparently, the people that took a lot of that kind of money could hold it, feel it, look at it, and determine that it wasn't normal, but I couldn’t see that difference.
 
I thought, how can that be counterfeit money? It was given to me by the university, which is in all practical purposes, was a government agency. I didn't know however, counterfeit money was a rampant issue in China. Not having the ability to complete that transaction, I just put the money back in my pocket and left the store.
 
I thought maybe I should go to a bank and get some more money on my own. I went to a local bank and I thought well they should be able to tell me whether this is counterfeit money or not. I went up to the teller, told her that I had gotten some money and I wanted to find out if it was counterfeit or not. She took the money, looked at it, she marked on it, then she got on the phone and called somebody. In about two minutes a young man came out from an office in the back and said, (in very poor English but mostly in Chinese, “my name is Mr. something or other, I'm the bank manager here, would you come with me please. I was happy to do so thinking he was helping me. But he put me in his office and closed the door and then called the police. The police were there in about 10 minutes and through our poor language skills, of his bad English, and my even worse Chinese, they told me that I was passing counterfeit money and that was an illegal activity in China.

I was mortified to say the least! I didn't know what was ahead of me I didn't know what was going to happen next. I do know that they talked a lot in Chinese, and I had no idea what they were saying. I kept trying to tell them I was paid this money by the university,  for speaking and that's where I got that money! All I could tell from their questions was, “where did you get this money from?”
 
When I realized that they thought that I was passing counterfeit money and knew that I could be in real trouble, I knew where I got that money, and I started singing like a canary! I pointed my finger down the road and said, “that woman at the university is the one that gave it to me, it's her that was passing fake money. Then I remembered I had her business card in my pocket. I reached into my wallet pulled out her card and handed it to the police and said, “this is the woman who gave me that fake money.” 
 
Again, they mumbled among themselves. Not knowing what they were saying, they finally left. Apparently, they made that phone call to the university employee. They came back in the room with a cell phone and asked me to speak to her. It was the woman who handed me that money and she replied, “I didn't know that was fake money, are you sure it's the money that I gave you?” She kept asking question to act like it wasn't her. I was certain however it was she that gave me the money. I handed the phone back to the police, they talked to her again, and they handed the phone back to me. She got on the phone and said would make sure that I got the money that we owe you for speaking that day and we left it at that
 
The police and the bank manager then walked me over to the counter window and I had to fill out these papers about where I got that money to take pictures and things like that. I still needed $150 just like when I started this fiasco, so I pulled out my ATM card. When I couldn't get it to work in their machine the same people that detained me came over and helped me use the ATM machine because it was all written in Chinese. I got ¥1,000 from their bank, extracted from my bank account in America, minus the transaction fee. I shook hands with them, they all smiled, and I left the bank and the detainment.
 
As I left, I thought they didn't really treat me like a criminal, they treated me like a victim, and they were all  laughing at this poor American white guy, who had been snookered by somebody else handing me fake money. In the end, and the more I thought about it, I really do believe that woman at the university that paid me, knew that it was bad money. I believe she took the good money from the deposit box, reached into her purse pulled out the fake money and put the good money back in her purse.
 
When I got to my hotel room, I called my wife, then my son, and relayed the entire episode to them.  They were a lot more fearful than I was.  They made feel and understand how dangerous that whole event could have been, and the gravity of the situation… then I gasped and got scared!
 
Now that's an adventure that very few people will ever have.
 
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