Chapter 1: Beijing, 1992 — Before the World Arrived

When I arrived in Beijing in 1992, China was not the global powerhouse we know today.

The city felt enormous, ancient, and strangely quiet. Bicycles filled the streets. Glass towers were rare. Western restaurants almost non-existent.

In a city of more than ten million people, there were so few foreigners that you began to recognise the same faces.

It didn’t feel like joining a global city.

It felt like stepping back into a different century.

The foreign community was small and tightly clustered.

Most of it revolved around a handful of international hotels—places where you could find imported food, English newspapers, and conversations that didn’t require a translator.

Step outside, and that world disappeared instantly.

Fridays often ended at Frank’s Bar.

Americans came for the food. Brits came for the information.

It functioned less like a bar and more like an informal intelligence network—news about licences, regulations, and joint ventures moving faster across those tables than through any official channel.

The Germans were different. They spent less time in the bubble and more time in the city—exploring markets, visiting suppliers, learning the language.

I drifted toward them. It was a better education.

One evening, not far from Tiananmen Square, two policemen stepped out of the shadows and stopped us.

Without explanation, they grabbed us and began questioning us aggressively. My Chinese was limited, so I pushed back in English.

Then I remembered the one rule every foreigner learned quickly: always carry your passport.

The moment I produced it, everything changed.

Their tone softened. They stepped back. They apologised.

And then they took her away.

I waited outside the station. One hour. Then another.

Nothing.

After nearly three hours, she emerged—shaken, but composed.

She had been made to stand at a blackboard and write the same sentence over and over:

I will be respectful to the police.

One thousand times.

That was Beijing in 1992.

As a foreigner, I could step in and out of the system.

She could not.

At the time, I didn’t fully understand what that meant.

I thought I was learning how China worked.

I wasn’t.

I had come to build something inside that system.

And I was about to discover how little control I really had.