An aside.

And then some middle-aged people (man and woman) start banging on my door for about 5 minutes, until I come to the door. They talk at me in Chinese for a bit, then ask for my telephone number. I give it to them, and then think, "um...what the fuck?" I start asking them who they are, etc., and they just want my name. Then they invite my neighbor to come over (all this is happening in my house, which I did not invite anyone into exactly, which is making me very uncomfortable) and sort-of translate, and they pretend to be the police? But I make the universal "show me your badge" hand sign, they laugh, and then there's some more talk between my neighbor and them, and they all leave. My neighbor tells me that he'll tell me what they were saying later. So, jesus christ this place is fucked up.

UPDATE: My neighbor told me they were from an Olympic committee, checking the "safety" of apartments or something. I'd heard about these checks before--entire buildings being turned over by military squads (squads?) in an attempt to guarantee "safety" for the Olympic games. Also, since I am white, I am clearly an obvious target for such a search since it's us silly foreigners who think for a moment that certain regions of certain countries might perhaps be granted some semblance of autonomy but ANYWAYS.