The treasure of Galdan

by Andrej Andrejew

  The lady at the counter was polite but looked rather strict.

  “You have the long-term journalist visa, right?”

  “Correct madame. Are there any concerns or irregularities?”

  “There are. Journalists accredited to China are paid by their newspapers or TV-stations on a regular basis. But you are working as a free-lance cameraman on your own without having any contract with the international or local company. This type of labour is not covered by your visa. Also we have checked your bank account. It is doubtful that you can live on this money. Apparently you receive payments on some foreign account and just draw money here from the ATM. Consequently your earnings are not transparent to the tax department.”

  “I am really sorry and will for sure prepare all the documents. Actually my work permit has been extended already several times thus I was not aware about any irregularities”

  “But now you are. I give you two weeks to get it sorted out. Please submit your explanations in writing directly to me. If you fail to do so your residence permit may be revoked.”

  Thomas was stung by this turn of the events. He knew a bunch of other expatriates working in China with questionable or unclear status. This all was going well until there was a campaign. Then the offices were raided and the concerned foreigners had either to get it fixed or to leave the country. Was this sort of campaign currently rolling out? That would be the best case. But what if his suspicions about the cause of these sudden troubles being his recent research has been correct? This would make any solution more difficult if possible at all.

  On the 25th of May Mr. Thurley has attended the Independence Day reception at the Royal Embassy of Jordan and managed to talk to the deputy foreign minister. Mr. Ma remained non-committal and promised to look into the matter. This was nothing unusual with the Chinese authorities and wasn't necessarily a bad sign. Unlike in some other countries where the requests are reciprocated with emotional assurances of assistance and nothing happens thereafter, in China seeking assistance may appear frustrating but in fact the Chinese do often take the matter much more seriously than they show.

  Already four days later an editorial in China Daily has praised the cooperative demeanour of British authorities in helping to return the national heritage to China. The head of Bai Ma, the editor continued, has taken over the compensation of the current owner and will donate the collection to the Xinjiang Regional Museum in Urumqi. And three days thereafter the local Xinjiang newspaper JingJi Bao has published an interview with Mr. Wei, the chairman of Bai Ma.

  In the meantime Thomas has paid another visit to the labour department. The lady went trough his statement and said that it was sufficient. He was warned from now on to handle all payments through the local bank account and to improve his book-keeping. XiaoFang, who worked as an accountant in a telecommunications company has agreed to help him. Now he was very busy in negotiating the planned documentary with a Canadian TV-company working in parallel on his project with the Israeli TV.

  The ceremony of the first exposition in Urumqi was scheduled for the fifth of June. Unexpected by anybody Mr. Wei had invited Paul Vornov to attend and prior to the date organized a side trip to Altay, to the site where his farther Nikolay had found the objects. Also in a few days Nick's annual leave was about to start and he decided to continue from Urumqi straight to England.

  Two days prior to Nick's departure Peter Sherer has invited him and some other colleagues to his apartment for dinner. Peter has ordered dim sum catering from a restaurant nearby the Jianggouomenwai compound and it was really good. Later in the evening Nick's story became the main topic.

  “Who could imagine how exciting working in the cultural affairs section could be?” said Peter

  “Isn't it a sort of modern Count of Monte Cristo story!? And what are we doing at the consular section? Either boring stuff or fraudulent visa applications. And these demanding stranded tourists! Some of them think the embassy is an ATM where you can withdraw as much cash as you want. By the way have your heard about the “tea house scam”?”

  “No” replied the guests

  “Really? Then beware of it! Last week we had to help a tourists who lost all his cash and had his credit card being blocked. It works like this. While walking in a touristic area you are approached by attractively looking ladies who speak reasonably good English. They claim to be from another province and being not familiar with the city themselves. Thus they suggest to explore the city together. Then they skilfully lead the walking direction to a tea house or a restaurant where by chance they say it's time to have a meal. Also their guide book says that this particular place should be very good. After the dinner or tea ceremony are finished the foreigner is presented with a bill in a range of 300 – 900 Pounds. The tea was apparently a very expensive rare sort or the wine was a French vintage. If you make a fuzz two or three wrestler-looking guys are called in and they try to convince you to pay the bill. The attractive city tour companions are of course very upset and of course they had no idea that the place was so expensive. Unfortunately they are short of cash and cannot help much.

  In this case the guy had approximately an equivalent of 190 Pounds in cash which he paid but they insisted to go together to an ATM to withdraw another 210. Either it was a trick of him or he was just nervous but he entered the wrong PIN three times and the the card has been blocked. Eventually they left him go but by then he was penniless and without the credit card.”

  “So,” he continued “Be careful if somebody is too eager to join it for a walk or help you with shopping”

  “In comparison to Delhi this is still nothing” said Nancy, Peters colleague from the consular section who worked in India for 4 years. “If you ask about the location of a certain shop especially around the Connaught Place it may happen that the guy who told you how to get there will run ahead to that shop and inform the owner that the tourists who will come in a few minutes is his client. This ensures the guy a handsome commission. Or for example the so called Jaipur gems scam.”

  “What is that?” asked Nick

  “A jeweller asks you to take some precious gems to your home country. A friend of him will pick the parcel up at the airport on arrival he says. The tourist will even get about 2000$ for the service. The rationale, the shopkeeper says is that the export tax on gems is very high. So if the tourist takes them with him then he can earn something and the shopkeeper saves the money. Of course, to make sure that the tourist will not run away with the precious stones they ask to swipe his credit through the reader. Just to be on the safe side. Needless to say when the poor guy arrives at his home country nobody shows up at the airport and his credit card is debited with something around 3000 Pounds. The precious stones then erupt as something cheap and being worth of maximum 100 Pounds.”

  “By the way have you heard the story of Tomkins, that time the head of economic co-operation section in Prague?” said Peter

  “No” said everybody

  “It was in 1991. In the evening while walking through the centre he was approach by a young attractive girl who wanted to show him the old city and in in exchange to practice her English. After about three hours of city tour including a short visit to a bar they ended in a dark empty lane. There a few heavy built guys surrounded him and asked to settle the bill for the escort service. When he started to protest one of the guys told him: “You cannot seriously believe that this young attractive lady will waste three hours of her time for an old geezer like you just for free! If you don't pay I will test if your old bones are still hard enough.” So poor Tomkins had to surrender all his cash.

  The evening continued in a cheerful atmosphere exchanging funny stories from the previous deployment places of the guests.

  Urumqi, June 2013

  Wednesday the 5th of June was a hot day in Urumqi. Apart of Nick, the Embassy was represented by Robert Atkins the Deputy Head of Mission. The main hall of the Xinjiang Regional Museum was full of guests and a lot of police. Apart of some huge sloga
n-posters in Chinese which Nick could not read he has seen two from Bai Ma recognized by a big white horse in the background. The first person to speak was the regional party secretary. His speech was simultaneously translated into English. He was speaking about the paramount importance of peaceful coexistence and the Communist Party's incessant work to promote it. The returning of Galdan's treasure to Xinjiang, he continued is an additional proof of this policy and strengthens cultural ties between the UK and China. Then he gave the word to the director of museum who expressed his gratitude to the great care of the Communist party for preserving the national cultural heritage and to the British government for their co-operation. After a brief speech by the Deputy Head of Mission who said that British government is very happy being able to assist in this matter the floor was given to Mr. Wei. Mr. Wei's speech was very eloquent. He said that according to his company's motto “To make families happy” Bai Ma takes it's responsibility contributing to countries cultural development very seriously. Therefore for him it went without words that he was only too happy to donate the objects to the museum. He said that now the treasure has returned where it started it's journey and this was a real happy end of the story. Also in view of co-incidental opening of Bai Ma office in Urumqi the same month.

  The dinner which the regional government has thrown after the ceremony was very generous. The basement restaurant of the Southern Airlines Pearl International Hotel was completely reserved for the event. Short before the dinner, in the lobby Nick bumped into Thomas accompanied by two Chinese. Thomas told him that he has received an advanced payment of 6.000 $ to start the documentary and will receive another 8.000 after it is completed. He will also receive royalties, should other TV-companies show interest.. Also he told Nick that Paul Vornov has attended the ceremony but excused himself from the dinner because he was not feeling well.

  Now the exciting but complicated story was approaching it's end. On the one hand Nick was glad that this all was over on the other hand he felt a sort of feeling of emptiness. He shared his thoughts with Thomas.

  “I know it only too well!” exclaimed Thomas. “It is not unusual when you complete a strenuous but interesting task. This does not happen when you have completed doing something boring. I even have my own term for that – post accomplishment mood disorder. How do you like it?”

  “Sounds really great! I will not be surprised if in a few years we will have some pill to treat it. For the social anxiety and attention deficit syndrome there are already some, isn't it?”

  “Not only that. Seasonal affective disorder is also waiting for it's cure.”

  “Which would be to abolish the winter season?”

  “No, just to start taking some pills already in autumn. Anyway, in case they market some drug for the post accomplishment mood disorder I would expect some royalties.”

  Nick had another drink with Thomas and went to bed.

  His Air Astana flight was scheduled to leave at 04:15 in the morning. Then he would spend about two hours in Almaty and then 5 hours in Astana before he could board his flight to London in the afternoon.

  As a guest of Xinjiang authorities he has been picked up at 01:30 with a black Lexus limousine and dropped at the airport. The take off was nearly on time. It suddenly came to Nick's mind that Novikov, the friend of Nikolay Voronov used the same route for his flights in 1937. And indeed the route was nearly the same. With the exception that it was following a more straight line approximately 60 kilometres to the south, bypassing Yining to the North. Approximately 35 minutes after the take off Nick could see Borohoro Mountains to his left.Was it just a coincidence that his way to London was following this route? Who knows, but does this really matter?

  “Would you like tee or coffee?” asked the blond stewardess disrupting his thoughts.

  “Coffee please. By the way do you know if the location of the airport in Almaty is the same as it was 1937?”

  “Sorry, I don't know.”

  “Never mind, I am just curious”

  The Borohoro mountains were disappearing from the sight. Nick was thinking about the Buddhist missionaries who came all the long way from Afghanistan to what is today's Xinjiang more than two millennia ago. They had to cross the mountain chains which were even more challenging than Borohoro. From there they continued their journey to China.

  The “fasten seat belts” signal went on and the maître de cabine announced the landing in 20 minutes. On the left the silhouettes of the Ala Too Mountains started to appear illuminated in the turquoise-bluish and golden colours of the early sunrise. It reminded Nick of the colour of the gems on the sapphire Buddha statue.