Eileen Song

July 14 2014, it was late at night, I was sitting on a high stool in the police station, holding a pen and some papers in my hands. Yunghan Juan had been watching the security footage over and over again for an hour. “This guy in red pants is quite suspicious,” said the policeman, who was visibly younger than me. He was the third person to arrive at the crime scene. I got a little excited. More precisely, a mixture of anger and excitement rushed through my veins, warming up the whole body.

He broke into my apartment at 3:56 in the afternoon, and for the next 40 minutes, he went in and out 5 or 6 times. At 4:40, he left through the front door of the building. It was pouring rain outside, so he opened an umbrella which was clearly taken from my home. Then, with my DV (which was in a dark blue bag) hanging on his right shoulder and a fir green cloth bag on his left, he headed towards Chengde road. The police determined that he was a professional thief. In the end, I lost a door lock, a Canon G9 camera, a Panasonic DV and a small pack of foreign cash. Yunghan Juan lost a Sony T1 camera and a box of green tea flavor pineapple cakes from Wang Mama’s. We were especially sad for those stolen cakes.

The young cop said, according to the law, we couldn’t get a copy of the footage and we “better” not took any pictures.

The next day, after I posted this “robber wanted” announcement on Facebook, everyone kept saying that the thief bore a striking resemblance to our friend, Hong Anderson. I created a photo album for him on Facebook, and as of today, the album has been shared 23 times.