Yikes…
When I was in Beijing earlier this month, I did a Hash House Harriers run with these guys. It’s always a little dicey—a bunch of raucous foreigners, many dressed outlandishly, few speaking Chinese, so this isn’t altogether surprising. The closest I ever came to something like this was once running around the Forbidden City. There’s a small police station on the East side that I hadn’t noticed, and a false trail was marked that went very close to it. I ran down it exploring it and was stopped by a guard who wanted to know what the marks were. I was explaining, and a friend came along and called me to come. I told the guard that I needed to go and join him, thanked him, took off, and he let me go. When we lived in Beijing during the SARS days, there were also some times where neighborhoods would close gates or make barriers after a run had been marked (barriers and gates were going up all over the city, anyway during those days), and the runs moved out into the suburbs.