*** Two steps outside the security checkpoint of the Beijing Police Museum, Kyle realized he still had his brass knuckles in the pocket of his coat. “Are you kidding me? You brought a weapon to the cop museum? There’s a fucking metal detector.” “They’ve been in here for weeks, I just forgot!” My fault, really. I’d bought him a pair at Vampire in Beijing after some late-night chuckle about what real men keep in their jackets and they hadn’t been mentioned since. We played it off like kids ditching a pack of cigarettes, walking past the front gate all “stupid lost foreigner” until we stepped behind the cover of a parked car long enough to toss the contraband into the street. “It’s done,” he said, showing me his empty hands, and in we went. The Beijing Police Museum is buried smack in the middle of the Legation Quarter, near some of modern Beijing’s oldest foreign settlements. You know the area: wide streets, cameras everywhere, nameless government buildings, nothing to eat. Just on the other side of security, we snagged our tickets (5rmb / adult) at the entry window. “Uh oh.” Kyle points to the museum rules inscribed on metal plaques outside the door. “No pictures allowed.” I turn to the door guy. “Serious?” “You may photograph the "Column of Souls" in the lobby and the "Wall of Martyrs" on the third floor. Other than that, sorry.” "Column of Souls" "Wall of Martyrs" There goes my whole article, I groan-think. I gotta figure out a way to do this. I look at Kyle conspiratorially and he nods. He knows what to do. I nod. We understand each other. Inside, the place is crawling with guards, two to a floor at least, and the ceiling is a rocky topography of security cameras and motion detectors. Nearly every corner is covered by infrared or line-of-sight. Four stories of historical documents, retro fingerprinting tools and legal detritus rise around a central open atrium that houses a monument to the nobility of the badge. “Details of the private weapons confiscated by the Outer First Substation in 1949.” “Long thin piece of silk with the signatures of the followers of the reactionary superstitious sects and secret societies.” Undercover. “Psychology testing system” Pirated dictionaries. Evil plans. Examples of the documentation from the early Hukou system. Murder investigation. Early uniform design sketches. Oh man, there’s such good stuff in here. I’m casually trying to get a shoot-from-the-hip picture of the early Republic-era medals when we hear a quiet shutter snap from an adjacent exhibit. We look over to see some guy half-pretending to yawn while he takes a super-obvious shot of a 1949 PSB procedural manual. Another dude furtively points his phone at a diorama of the Olympic Park, cringes as the flash goes off. A guard walks past them both, intentionally oblivious. “Look, they’re doing it,” said Kyle, feeling a little braver. He turns his back, hiding his iPhone from the ceiling with his body, takes a blurry photo. “No one’s saying anything.” By God, I realized, the genius. I am staggered by brilliance, undone. O, art most high! We’re not standing in a museum. The exhibits themselves are props, meaningless. We’re standing in a working, breathing representation of criminality in this country, a wry and poignant piece of participatory performance art on the state of Chinese justice system and the slow inevitable, creeping escalation of corruption. You see it all the time here: in the great pie grab, the lawful feel left behind. And why shouldn’t they? The law-breakers, the pickers-and-choosers, the surreptitious photographers climb farther and faster, fat, happy and unpunished. The feds don’t wanna screw up the wa, either, man, they don’t wanna come after you. They just want you to preserve a state of plausible deniability, have some tact, don’t go waving anything around. Don’t go too far, dude. Don’t get too greedy, too violent, too nosy, or something -- grudgingly -- will have to be done. The next two hours shake out like the stealth levels from Castle Wolfenstein as Kyle and I join the forty or so other visitors in a low-stakes game of cat and mouse, pitting our wits against the long arm of the law, while the long arm of the law did its best to ignore us. Don’t make me say anything, the guards plead silently, theatrically reading newspapers on duty, don’t fuck this up for everyone. They help us along as much as they can without getting themselves fired, walking loudly and slowly, checking phones. “Get the 1960’s crime scene suitcase,” I motioned urgently to Kyle as the second floor baoan turned to -- I shit you not – watch a movie while on duty. “Get the prison torture implements.” Foreground: Qing Dynasty Palace Guard chainmail. Background: Willful ignorance. Conspicuously absent: my last 5 bicycles. Enclave on the architecture and management of prisons and jails. There’s a picture in here of a guy with his chest cut off. Kids love that stuff, man, it’s family-friendly. “Yesterday, Sanlitun.” Can’t tell if real or part of exhibit. Third floor. Breathalyzers from the 80s. By the time we hit the fourth floor where they keep the guns, things had reached a brazen fever pitch. Visitors had dropped all but the thinnest pretense of decorum as the thunderous click of camera fire sounded from every cardinal direction. Punters shuffled just out of baoan view long enough to get a shot of the 19th century pistols, or the SWAT gear, or the guns shaped like pens, and they’d reappear, scrolling through their camera reels. The guards stood directly in the middle of the room, heads down, staring intensely into a glass case that’s probably had the same London Police hats in it since 1994. What? I always stand like this. I hide behind some mannequins and flip through my SD card. “I think we got enough.” We hit the souvenirs at reception on the way out and I score a stack of friendly-cop stickers for 4RMB. No one stops us. I feel euphoric, like I got away with something. Like I back-flipped through an air-net of laser tripwires and got out with the Krupp Diamond. “Welcome to return to the PSB Museum. We are honor for your safety.” The honor is all mine. *** The Beijing Police Museum is at 36 Dongjiao Min Xiang.