I am the Luckiest Loser in the World.

I was really looking forward to my last day in Kunming. A day to relax, recharge, and prepare for my first foray in Southeast Asia the following day.

We ate a leisurely breakfast, caught up on emails, and prepped info for the next legs of our respective trips over creamy cups of coffee. Yep, it was shaping up to be a good day. When we finally headed out on the town around 11:30am, I was feeling good.

Hm. Go to the Yunnan Museum, or take a little stroll in the Muslim Neighborhood?

Wait. Better check to make sure my wallet and phone are still in my pocket. Yep. Both still present. Very good.

Okay. Here’s the game plan: Lunch in the Muslim Neighborhood, then a trip to the Museum. Perf.

Better check the pockets again, just to make sure. Yep, phone’s here, and here’s my….

Wait.

Where’s my wallet?

I dig a little more vigorously around my cavernous North Face pockets. It’s got to be in here somewhere. I just had it. Nope. Not there. It must be in my backpack then. More frantic scrambling. Nothing.

Oh no.

Panic-stricken, but trying to maintain calm, I turn around and start retracing my steps. It must have slipped out
of my pocket. I must have dropped it just now. It must still be there.

No wallet in sight. We ask street cleaners and passersby if they’ve seen a little green wallet with a ID of a goofy-looking brown-haired foreigner in it. Nobody’s seen anything.

Hope is slipping away. All my money…I’m supposed to go to Laos tomorrow….

We finally ask a street vendor if he has any info. He advises me to call the police, and very helpfully does it for me. Within three minutes, a Chinese cop car pulls up to the street, blue lights flashing.

“Are you the foreigner who’s lost the wallet?” they ask me very official-like in Chinese.

“That’s me, unfortunately.” I reply.

“Come with us.” They turn and head back into the cop car.

So, one minute I’m contemplating what yummy Muslim meal to enjoy; the next minute, I’m in the back seat of a cop car. Lights still flashing.

I’d be kind of intimidated. Except that these cops are legit.

“So, you guys have any friends in Kunming?” they ask Tae and me casually.

“Nope”

The cop points to a shady looking bar. “Go there. You can find friends there.”

Hahaha. Awesome. Nightlife recommendations from China’s police force.

Right after, one cop points to a pedestrian sporting a scarf on his head, then turns to his partner, and says,
“Taliban.”

So much for political correctness from China’s finest. This day was getting more and more interesting by the second.

At the police station, I registered the loss/theft of my wallet. The cops were all jovial, and highly interested in learning more about the wide-eyed foreigner who was silly enough to lose all of her money. We left after 15 minutes with their reassurances that they’d try their best to recover my qianbao.

But, with every passing minute, I was feeling more and more hopeless.

It’s okay, I told myself. I’ll just go to the Kunming branch of my Chinese bank, cancel my old card, open a new one, and use that money to get around SE Asia until I can get the replacement cards for my American bank accounts.
Nooo problem.

Only, there was a huge problem.

The nice lady at the bank told me that the only way for me to get a new card would be to go the exact same bank branch from which I originally opened the account. Yep. That means I have to go all the way back to Hangzhou just to get a new card. All the way across the country. And, to make matters worse, I may not be able to get the card until 5 business days after I registered for a replacement card.

This is a nightmare. My own personal hell.

I called my boss back in Hangzhou, almost in tears, hoping that he could use his Chinese to persuade the Kunming bank to give me a card.

Nope. “You must cancel all of your travel plans, and come back to Hangzhou,” he said.

Bleak. All hope lost.

So, I go back to the hostel, completely defeated, and cancel my flight to Laos for the next day, book a flight to Hangzhou, and go through the painful process of freezing my bank accounts and applying for new ones—all over the staticky Skype phone connections.

What if I can’t go to Southeast Asia at all? What if I have to stay in Hangzhou allllll winter break?

I go to bed that night super depressed. I wake up the next morning, still depressed, although I was trying my hardest to stay positive. I wanted to enjoy my last few hours in Kunming.

At 1:30pm, five hours before my flight to Hangzhou, my whole world changed.

As I sat lounging in the hostel café, recounting my woes to Nick, a fellow PiAer, Tae comes rushing over to the table, all excited.

“Chandler, was this in your wallet?” He holds up a piece of printer paper with photocopies of my UGA Student ID and Georgia Driver’s License on it.

Oh. My. God.

“………..Yes.”

“Someone found your wallet! They’re on the phone with the hostel right now.”

Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god.

I rush over to the reception desk. The staff-person tells me that the person who found my wallet was coming to the
hostel at 3:30pm to return it to me.

“Did they say what was in it?”

“No. They just sent me this photocopy.”

Don’t get too excited. Your IDs could be the only things in there. Someone could have easily taken everything else, and you’ll still be stuck in the same boat as you in are now. Don't get excited yet.

So, I spend the next hour and a half in nervous anticipation.

At 3:15pm—four hours before my flight to Hangzhou—two men enter the hostel, and ask me to come outside with them and sit down.

At the table, one of the men ceremoniously places his fanny-pack on the table, and pulls out my beloved Vera Bradley wallet.

It looks fat and full. It looks like still has stuff in it.

It does. Everything. Even the cash I’d kept in it. It was all there.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you!”

“Now wait a minute, we want to tell you that we’ve been looking for you since noon yesterday,” the man says. “We work at a TV station, and a student in our audience found your wallet on the ground outside the studio. She gave it to us, and we’ve been looking for you ever since. We searched for you on the internet, tried to find an address or phone number for you, but couldn’t. Finally, we called the police station to see if you’d reported it missing. You had, and they gave us the number of this hostel. We are so happy to have found you.”

Oh my god. So much effort, for someone they didn’t know at alllllll.

“I don’t know what to say. Thank you so much.”

“Don’t thank us. Thank the woman who gave us the wallet. If it weren’t for her, you would not have it. I can give her a phone call, so that you can thank her.”

Touched by their humility and kindness, I graciously took the phone and thanked her myself.

Would this have happened in the States? Would someone have gone through that much trouble and effort to return a wallet to a stranger? I really don’t know.

I was in a state of euphoria. For the next two hours, I reactivated my cards, canceled my flight to Hangzhou, and booked a morning flight to Laos. Right now, its Wednesday night, January 13. I’m going to Southeast Asia tomorrowwwwww.

What a whirlwind 24 hours. All is right in the world. And I have renewed faith in the kindness of people. Wow.