Overseas Arrest

It still seems unreal that this is an experience I can say I have had overseas now...
It was time for me to do another visa run this week, so I headed to Hong Kong. Getting there was in and of itself exhausting because in spite of the fact that we thought we had everything in order with my boy's visa to HK, they wouldn't let him leave at first.

Anyways, upon our arrival late one night, we headed to the hostel I had booked online. I have never really had a problem with hostels I booked, especially through a website like hostelbookers.

I won't reveal all the details here, but let's just say this hostel ended up taking all our money and not giving us the room we had booked. We tried to resolve the situation, and the hostel managers wouldn't do a thing. While I will readily admit it wasn't a wise thing to do, I punched him in the face once in the heat of the argument. Keep in mind this was a man, and much taller than me.

I ended up in jail with assault charges. Part of this was because one of the police officers was friends with one of the hostel managers...shady eh?

It was crazy. 2 nights in jail overseas, and  I used my call to the U.S. Consulate and informed them that I was worried I would be treated too harshly because of the relationship of the police officer to the hostel manager. While at first most of the police officers treated me professionally (many of them really were nice), after that things changed...the chief of police was an asshole (pardon my French) and even sent me from the holding cell to actual prison for the night after that. None of my requests were met when I asked. They did briefly let me see my boyfriend.

I entered my plea in court, and was incredibly grateful when the judge didn't even give me a fine (which is what the lawyer thought would happen), just gave me a suspended prison sentence (meaning I don't have to serve if no other incidents happen in Hong Kong for the next year).

It was crazy...I just kept thinking, "I don't belong here....what is going on?" It was crazy. And I now understand why prison is so awful. It really messes with your head...if I had had to stay longer than two nights, I think I would have gone crazy...literally. Especially overseas...it was very difficult to get anyone to tell me what was going on.

And my poor fiance slept on the street/at the police station. He told me he was going crazy, trying to get information and praying so hard. I know that his prayers are why my sentence wasn't harsher. But the poor guy didn't understand the English when they talked about a suspended sentence...so he thought I was going to prison. When the court worker informed him I was fine and would be released, he started to cry, and then the court worker, seeing his tears, started crying too, he said. When I was released (pretty quickly after that due to the fact that there was no fine to pay), he threw his arms around me and started to sob (I have never seen my fiance cry). I was crying and shaking...a bit of a physical toll from not eating/drinking/seeing sunlight.

One interesting thing was, that of most of the other people I saw who had been arrested by the HKPD...most were foreigners. All the girls were...the poor mainland Chinese girl in the cell with me was so scared...we conversed in Mandarin (I was grateful, my Cantonese is awful).

Anyways, so there you go...an experience I don't recommend. I've been pretty lighthearted in talking about it, after all, part of it is so ridiculous. But, in actuality, it was a frightening experience that I may need to get some counseling to work through.