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A 31-YEAR-OLD Chinese tourist recently got himself entangled in a bureaucratic snafu in Germany when he mistakenly filled out an asylum application, leaving him stuck at a migrant hostel for nearly two weeks.
German authorities only realized there may have been a mix-up when they noticed that the man, known as Mr. L, was unusually well-dressed for a refugee and was behaving differently than the other asylum-seekers.
Unfortunately, Mr. L, who comes from Beijing, could only communicate in Mandarin, forcing staff to seek help from a local Chinese restaurant to translate.
The restaurant’s staff suggested that they use a translation app to figure out what Mr. L was trying to say, which came up with phrases such as “I want to go walking in a foreign country.”
From there, Mr. L’s story, which he had been trying to tell the refugee center’s staff during the course of this 12-day stay, was slowly uncovered.
It turns out that he was in Europe to travel, and had planned to visit Italy and France, but had to put his plans on hold when his wallet was stolen in the southwestern city of Heidelberg.
Rather than going to a police station, however, Mr. L ended up at a town hall, and instead of filing a police report for the theft, he signed a form requesting for asylum.
After that, much to his confusion, he had his passport taken away, his fingerprints registered, and had to undergo a medical exam, before being sent to a refugee center in the city of Dülmen near the Dutch border.
Christoph Schlütermann, head of a Red Cross refugee center in the city, explained to Reuters: “He spent 12 days trapped in our bureaucratic jungle because we couldn’t communicate.
“Germany is unfortunately an extremely bureaucratic country. Especially during the refugee crisis I’ve seen how much red tape we have.”
According to Schlütermann, more than one million refugees have arrived in Germany in the last year alone, mostly coming from Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan – though there have been a tiny number of Chinese asylum seekers over the years.
Once the misunderstanding had been resolved and Mr. L was free to continue his trip, he had appeared happy to leave, but not angry, commenting that he had imagined Europe to be “quite different”.
“What would you expect if you had come to Europe as a tourist and spent 12 days sleeping on a camping bed in a refugee center?” said Schlütermann.
The post China tourist mistaken for asylum seeker in Germany appeared first on Travel Wire Asia.
Source: travelwireasia.com