Fuzhou, China

Well, I have NOTHING good to say about Fuzhou, China.  Our first "experience" occurred in the airport as we were going through security.  Carlton apparently looked like Alcadia with his blonde hair and child in tow.  They detained him, took away his passport and treated me like an idiot woman.  They lead him off to a separate area where I could barely see him and we were not able to speak to one another.  We waited and waited.  The whole immigration area completely emptied of its human cargo.  I stood there on the other side of the immigration counter thinking, "holy cow, they have his passport.. and what the sam hell is going on."  We did silent eye looks with one another for the very long 30 minutes while he was detained.  Nothing like a communist detention to make one feel right at home.

As I believe I previously mentioned, my "go with the flow" attitude left at minute 20.  I went up to the immigration official who had told Carlton he was being detained and asked "why are you detaining us?  Where is his passport?"  I was again informed of NOTHING.  I got a smirk in return.

Minute 25 I rummaged around and found our Fuzhou guide's phone number in my paperwork.  I called Penny told her the situation and she told me to find someone that spoke Chinese and give them my phone.  Oh, okay.... I'm in immigration, Mia is screaming her head off at this point, and I'm supposed to find someone that speaks Chinese.  Mr. Personality would not take the phone.  I go up to several people with screaming daughter in tow, I'm about there myself, looking like a crazed American asking various people waiting in line for yet another security check point, to talk to my guide on the phone.  Oh yah, that was easy peezy.

I finally find a woman, I hand her my phone, she's looking at me fairly quizzingly, and she speaks to Penny.  The woman goes to the immigration desk with me speaks to Mr. Personality, hands the phone back to me, and walks away.

Forty-five minutes later, the other immigration officials come back with their lunch pails in hand. They hand back Carlton's passport, and still refuse to tell us why he was detained.

Flexing of Muscles in Fuzhou. Welcome!