Getting booted out of a hotel by Beijing's finest

BEIJING - I had the luxury of attending Beijing's Pine Valley golf course last weekend, and it's definitely impressive. The course holds the Pine Valley Beijing Open, and was designed by none-other than Jack Nicklaus himself.

We were there to tape an episode of Tianjin Business Traveler focusing on golf. We visited the Yangliuqing Golf Course in Tianjin (which, for my money, beats the stodginess and pretension of Pine Valley any day) and wanted to showcase what a real members-only luxury club looked like.

Pine Valley charges USD $150,000 for membership, and only 400 members are admitted to the club (making it China's answer to Augusta National). As the club is situated in Changping County, a good 90 minute drive out of town, plans were made to sleep in the club's luxury hotel for the night as we needed to continue shooting in the morning.

Somewhere along the way, however, our crew seemed to anger the management at Pine Valley. While my Chinese is passable at times, whatever it was that caused such an uproar was beyond my limited listening scope. Of course, my crew didn't notify me that we had a problem. Once we wrapped up shooting around midnight, I asked my producer if we were staying in the hotel. Only then did he let me know "there might be a problem."

Sure enough, there was. We were being sent out to fend for ourselves in the dusty suburb of Changping County. The PR advisor at the course was helpful, and took us to "the best" hotel in the area. It was about a 15 minute drive away. By now, it was approaching 12:30am.

She checked us into the hotel. Our crew of 5 people took three rooms (with me, the lucky laowai, getting his own private room). They asked for my passport. Not anticipating this situation, I hadn't brought it (yes, I know, it is law for foreigners to carry passports at all times... but who really does that?!?).

Whatever, they seemed to let me stay anyway, because the golf course PR manager passed me the room key and we all went upstairs. I walked into my room and saw a hand-print on the wall, above the bedframe, that I hope was done in chocolate -- but I couldn't really tell. Whatever, I was exhausted, closed the door, cleaned up, and crashed on the bed.

That's when I got a knock on the door. It was my producer. He said the PR manager booked my room under her name, and when she tried to leave downstairs the front desk asked where she was going. It turns out my failure to bring a passport wasn't the problem at all, it was this: this particular hotel had not received approval from the local Public Security Bureau to allow foreigners to stay.

The PR manager and my visibly tired producer told me to try and sleep while they went out and searched for another hotel. I indeed did fall asleep, until there was another knock on my door. This time it was two fully-uniformed police officers, who wanted me out - now. It was 2am.

To their credit, the police officers weren't rude about it. I told them where I live, how long I've been in China, my passport number, and the fact I was with an entire crew from the TV station. Still, it wasn't good enough. I argued that I had stayed half the night there anyway, there was nowhere else to go, and couldn't they just let me sleep? Nope. I had to leave.

My producer and the PR manager returned empty-handed... there was no other hotel they could find in Changping, let alone one that would accept a foreigner. With no options, I had no choice but to head back to Beijing. It was about 2:30am.

I've spoken to a person who works at a law firm in Beijing who claims that a law requiring hotels to receive approval before admitting foreigners was struck from the books back in 2003. She argues that foreigners should legally be allowed to stay anywhere now, but that some hotels may not be aware of the change.

Oddly, this isn't the first time this has happened. I once had a reservation (made through my girlfriend) at a Home Inn south of Guomao in Beijing. When we walked in the front door and tried to check in, they bluntly asked if I would stay. I said yes. And they said I couldn't because I was a foreigner.

I did a quick search online to see if I could gather any information about this apparent regulation, but turned up nothing. If anybody knows, I would love to hear how this works. I only hope that Olympic visitors don't get caught in this mess.

That night in Changping County certainly wasn't one of my best times in China. There were no taxis in Changping to take me home, so the producer and driver decided to take me to North 5th Ring. One the way there, we got into a car accident with one of those giant rigs.

It was sure nice to hit the pillow... albeit sometime after 5am.