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The mustiness was a bit much to expect when the room cost a proverbial arm and leg in this Old District of Beijing. For the equivalent of about twenty dollars, I was expecting an embedded plasma TV, king size bed and a satanicly hot heating system.

What I got instead was an aged Samsung tube, an undersized bed and a non-working electric heater that connected to a wall outlet; the wires frayed, half-taped and hanging. I wasn't about to plug it in. Luckily, I had my -40 centigrade sleeping bag and sleep sheet.

At any rate, I didn't much care as I was in a transient state—I was only staying for two days at most: a transient soul in a transient Chinese city.

I had my Kelty Red Cloud series 60-liter backpack unzipped, unfurled and all over the small bed and wooden chair. I found some money and left to get something to eat.

I left the key—a bulky mess of a wooden handle; a bent nail wrapped in tape—with an older lady at the small window.

After an odd but mysteriously tasty meal, I returned to my room at the hotel. I opened the door and sat on the edge of the bed. My feet almost reached the bathroom floor.

I better see how much money I have left in my wallet. May have to change some money tomorrow, I said with a sigh.

“Street Vendors” give you better rates than government run banks, by the way. A risk worth taking as long as the alley isn't too dark, the backdoors not too numbered.

Oh $#!+ I thought. Where'd I put the money? I had like two hundred bucks. Literally, a couple months' wages for a lay Chinese worker, just gone.

My passport, extra photos and immunization card were all gone too. They must be somewhere among the mess. I swear I saw them on the top of my bag when I left.

I looked frantically for twenty minutes. I emptied everything and looked inside pockets and turned my pack upside down like a bully to a dweeb on the schoolyard playground the world over. No change dropped out.

I raced calmly as possible to the hotel clerk's window. She was gone. A fatter Chinese man stood behind, half-grinned behind the window covered in stickers. Some foreign money—Thai, Vietnamese, Burmese and what looked to be Laotian—placed under the counter glass.

My slow going conversation with the fat man made slower as he turned his remedial attention span to some game show: A man raced a woman on spinning foam logs across a man-made lagoon. A digital clock counted down 46 – 45 – 44 – 43… Laughing blared as the announcer talked over the commotion.

“Yeah, where is the older woman?” I asked more slowly. He had no clue either what I was saying or where the older woman was. He didn't answer me. Not even in Chinese. He just watched the game show again.

I walked back in a stifling anger to my room. I'd find her in the morning. I was too tired to worry about it.

The small window let in only so much light. It may have been dusk or dawn through the yellowish glass. I slept like a tot on codeine in spite of my money and passport situation. I unfolded my travel clock and it read 9:47 AM.

After showering in the semi-suicide shower of tankless heated water, I remembered my turn from American citizen to Arbitrary Denizen overnight. I had to find my passport. The money and health card would be nice too. This will be a mission.

It wasn't. The woman was standing behind the glass counter watching some morning game show. Lines of girls were jumping oversized hoola-hoops. Some would land on it and the audience would have the same machine-gun laugh.

She asked if I was staying one more night before I got any words out. I said I didn't know.

Do you know if anyone went to my room last night? I asked. Anger gets you nowhere in Asia.

She seemed to understand. She walked to the left of the counter. Under that counter, in the corner, she pulled up a safety box. It had a combination on it. She unlocked the combination but also inserted a key in the back of it.

She shuffled through some colorful books. They were about the size and shape of passports the world over. She pulled out a dark-blue one. It wasn't mine. She then pulled out a darker, almost midnight blue one. It was worn and bent. It looked like mine.

Out of it she pulled my money and yellow health card. She gave them to me and then waited for me to give them back to her.

She must keep these in the safe behind the counter for the guest. I think a sign even said so in the room on the back of the door. I couldn't tell what it said in its broken English, however.

I smiled and said thank you. I gave them back to her like she was the deed owner to my life. She locked up the metal box and put it back.

I walked out wondering how she had gotten the stuff. I assumed she must have went to tidy up or replace toilet paper. She saw my belongings all sprawled about and kept it safe for me. This never happened again as I kept my important papers and valuables deeply tucked into my backpack.

When I checked out the next morning, she smiled and handed me all my paperwork that would keep me safe throughout my journey and stay in China