6
PARANOIA

A coworker and I were in Shanghai and travelled via speed train to a nearby city for a client meeting the next morning. We met up with a local colleague and agreed to have dinner at one of the hotel restaurants at 7pm, so we all went our separate ways to check in and unpack before dinner.

When 7pm rolled around, my local colleague and I met at the agreed restaurant and awaited our other teammate. After 15 minutes went by, he still hasn’t shown up, so we called him to make sure everything was okay. He texted us back to tell us he would be there in 5 minutes. 10 minutes after that, he finally emerged from the elevator, visibly flustered and sweating. 

Taken aback at his exasperated appearance, we asked if he was okay, to which he replied that he had been checking the windows. We were very confused and he went on to explain that his room had a wall of 20 small windows that he had checked individually to make sure they were sealed properly. He was so late to dinner because there were a couple that he was still concerned about and gave up on sealing adequately in order to meet us. 

Naturally, we imagined that he must have been on a low floor to cause such concern, so we asked what floor his room was on. We were not in a dangerous area at all, and our hotel backed on to an expansive pond, so it would be highly unlikely that anyone would have broken into his hotel room regardless of the floor. His room was on the 5th floor overlooking a massive pond. My local colleague reassured him that China was safe for travellers and that in the unlikely event any crime occurred, there was a functioning rule of law to catch the perpetrators.

He ate very quickly, tried to switch rooms (they all had the same windows) and finally made his way back to his room to keep checking the windows. Thankfully there wasn’t a hardware store nearby  for him to get supplies to barricade the windows or replace the locking mechanisms. 

To this very day, I’m unclear what he was afraid of but I can’t help thinking about checking the windows in any hotel room I visit!