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me a tax that surpassed the value of the package’s contents.
    I took a deep breath and risked all by asking the woman toexplain the tax. Her face turned white and her nostrils flared. “Import tax for Foreign Friends! Hurry up!” I began to get annoyed, because I had been told repeatedly by the Foreign Affairs Bureau that this tax was waived for foreigners living and working in China. It was supposed to be levied only on foreign travelers, who presumably are all rich and don’t mind being exploited. When I explained this to the young woman, she yelled, “Then let the Foreign Affairs Bureau pay the tax!” shoved my box to the far side of the counter, and refused to pay attention to me anymore.
    I stalked over to the Foreign Affairs Bureau office, calming myself by anticipating the satisfaction of thrusting an official document bristling with angry red seals under that woman’s nose. She would have to surrender my box or be sent to a labor camp. But when I told Comrade Hu at the bureau about the problem, instead of giving me an official document he told me not to worry, that the Foreign Affairs Bureau would “research the matter” for me. In Chinese bureaucratic language, “researching a matter” means putting it aside until it solves itself or just goes away, so I pressed him for a better answer. He said he understood the need for expediency and smilingly agreed to “look into the matter,” which is usually better than “researching the matter.”
    A few days later I visited the Foreign Affairs Bureau again to see if my medicine had been released.
    “Oh yes,” Comrade Hu said, smiling, “it is a very simple problem. You see, this tax is imposed on foreigners who import things into China that China already has. China is a developing country, but nevertheless has medicine and food of its own. For someone to import medicine and food insults our country and the government assumes that foreigners wish to exploit Chinese people by selling foreign goods to them at high prices, saying that their foreign goods are better thanChinese goods. Of course, we know that you wouldn’t do anything like that! You are a friend of China! But, unfortunately, we don’t control the regulations!”
    “Yes, Comrade Hu, I understand that, but I was told that this import tax applied only to foreigners traveling in China, not to those living and working in China.”
    After a pause and a few words with Group Leader Chen, Comrade Hu smiled again.
    “Yes, exactly. But the Postal Customs officials in Canton get confused. Apparently they don’t have your name on their list of foreign residents. So why don’t you just pay the tax. We will examine the matter for you, and Canton will reimburse you in no time.”
    Not wishing to let responsibility for the matter shift to Canton, I tried something else.
    “Since this is an internal matter, Comrade Hu, why doesn’t your office pay the tax, and then have Canton reimburse you?”
    After another pause, and a few more words with Group Leader Chen, Comrade Hu smiled and answered, “Our office, I am sorry to say, is not authorized to disburse funds. If you like, though, we can look into the possibility of having the Health Office of the medical college pay the tax for you. It might take some time for us to determine exactly which channels to go through, however.”
    Knowing that I had been defeated, I said I would think about it and let them know later. They smiled, and Comrade Hu told me that anytime anything came up I should feel free to come see them. That way, even if we couldn’t solve a problem right away, we could come to understand it.
    I felt I had had enough of the matter for the time being, and decided to pay the tax the next day. At dinner that night the wife of an American doctor doing research at our hospital mentioned to me that she had a package of mine. She broughtit out and indeed it was my medicine and chocolates—she had seen it on the counter at the post office in the