When the Chinese police take a formal witness statement they condense out the information which they thought was important from the interview or interrogation. They then type it up in a Question and Answer dialogue format. The person whose statement is being taken then reads over the dialogue and signs off on it to confirm that even though the content provided is not the entire content of the conversation—however long—they've been having with the police, it is still a true representation of that conversation. 

I've lived in China for 16 years. I've been a translator for 12 of those years. If you include the times I've been called to come to the police station and help out with someone else's issue, I've easily given twenty formal witness statements and one thing I've noticed is that, just like End User Agreements or Liability Waivers, many people are content to just assume that everything which is written down was written correctly and will simply sign the paper without reading it first. 

Mostly I've caught typos. Twice I've caught the foreigner in the dialogue 'answering' the rote question "What ethnicity are you?" with "I am Han." because 92% of China's population are Han and, if they actually asked that question, that's the standard answer which would be given by most of the people they are questioning.

During the Incident, the dialogue had them 'asking': "Have you been in legal trouble in China?" and me 'answering' "No, I have never been in trouble with the police." I've given (or helped facilitate someone else giving) enough of these statements over the years that I didn't have any problem with a question being 'asked' that hadn't actually been asked. However, I wasn't going to lie to them and I certainly wasn't going to formally sign off on my having said something that I didn't say when what I didn't say could eventually be cross checked.

"Does getting a traffic ticket count?"
"No."
"What about a warning for failing to register my residence promptly?"
"No."
"What about a fine for failing to register my residence promptly?"
"No."
"What about my taking a client to court for breach of contract?"
"No."
"What about getting into a loud argument with the local police?"
"Everyone gets into arguments with the local police. That doesn't count."
"What about ...."
"NO. This is the first time you have been in trouble with the police."
"Oh. Okay."

As I've been particularly argumentative with the local police this trip, I keep thinking back to the officer saying "Everyone gets into arguments with the local police." I mean, granted, it was past 10 o'clock at night, I'd been in custody already for twelve hours, and they were fairly sure by that point that I'm not (nor have ever been) a drug dealer, so he probably just wanted to finish things enough that he could go home and go to sleep but, yeah, everyone gets into arguments with the local police. That's part of why firmly standing my ground works. Because the local police are the equivalent of Tier One Tech Support. Everyone gives them shit and arguing with them is normal.

Trying to go to the local police first was ultimately more difficult than trying a hotel first. Probably because I got to the police station early enough that if I'd been inclined to make today a 100 kilometer day I could have made it to the next closest city and been their problem instead. Cities have seen foreigners before. They know how to handle this. Besides which, they were pretty sure it was their higher ups at the city level who had said something about foreigners needing to stay in specifically approved locations.

Talking to someone on the phone he managed to find the right menu item on the Public Security Intranet that should have allowed him to register me but the password user name combo he was trying to enter wouldn't work and the old fashioned method of photocopying the relevant pages of my passport had to be done. As barely fifteen minutes had passed since the peeved statement "I'm not photocopying anything and you can't tell me what to do," I was a wee little bit smug about this.

Only a wee bit smug though. Mostly I kind of felt bad for bullying them. Not super bad because ultimately it with their lack of knowledge as first line government employees of their own government's legal procedures and rules that was inconveniencing me. However, given the pattern that I'm seeing in Ningxia,  someone higher up almost certainly had told them "you absolutely can't do this," and that person might even have been the one they had on the phone while they were working out how to do this.

The ride today was pleasant albeit uneventful. Lots of road works as the road gets upgraded from a provincial route to a national one. Mostly the road was paved. Mostly it went downhill. Mostly there wasn't much traffic. The little temples have almost entirely been replaced by little mosques which, for reasons I find hard to articulate, I feel uncomfortable going and photographing. 

The landscape went from dry and sere brown scrubland dotted with windmills through desert scrub to prairie to farmland. Green reappeared and disappeared and reappeared again. My brain tells me there were purples and reds but the yellow tint to my sunglasses is regularly causing me to misinterpret colors. There were a number of salt lakes and even one salt marsh. It's beautiful country and I wouldn't mind coming to visit again when things are full of life. It's just that with this damn issue with being allowed to stay places, I might have to bring a tent.