BEIJING, Aug. 5-- I never thought in my wildest dreams I would be caught in such a quandary.

For half an hour, I found myself in a dark room that was to be raided. I could hear every word, every footstep in the room across the aisle that had been stormed and was being searched.

It felt like I was in a bomb shelter, or some Anne Frank-style attic. Only this time, I was with the"bad guys," legally speaking.

It was a police raid on pirated CDs and DVDs that I had not prepared to participate in, let alone report on.

Around 4 pm in the afternoon of July 20, I wandered into the Kemao Building in Tianhe District of Guangzhou. It's one of a dozen"computer malls" in the southern metropolis, where people swarm to pick up the latest high-tech gadgets, such as MP4s and CD-ROMs.

As it is located right next to several of the city's universities, many of its patrons are students, identifiable from their hip clothing.

The bazaar

I go to the mall about once every three months, and the last few times I was there I figured there were about a dozen stalls selling disks, mostly movie DVDs, with a few carrying music CDs or computer disks.

But that Wednesday afternoon, about two thirds of the disk booths were closed, and some even had"For Rent" signs up.

It didn't strike me as unusual as small businesses like these come and go quickly. Maybe they've found a better way to get rich, I thought to myself. After picking up a few things, I strolled into my favourite DVD booth. It was operated by a lady I had gotten to know on previous visits, who told me her surname was Cheng.

Cheng's stall was unique because it not only carried de rigueur blockbusters from around the world, but also more arty films. I knew all along these stalls were selling fakes, but I had no way of knowing how many of the disks were pirated.

To begin with, it's hard to tell from the packaging. The genuine disks that I buy from big department stores sometimes have poorer covers which feature just as many misspelled English words as the fakes.

Nor can I discern if a disk is dodgy or not from the quality of the picture. Both legal and illegal DVDs are prone to skipping and sudden stops whilst playing. And I have always sworn off"qiang die," those disks made from taking a video camera into a movie theatre.

"I will return all qiang die, plus you have to pay for my travel expenses," I warned Cheng.

I had the vague notion the second-rate action films on display were probably legal, as I had seen them in"proper" stores. So, imagine my shock when I found the complete collection of Jean Vigo as well as Bette Davis' Dark Victory among the new releases.

"This has got to be fake," I said to Cheng.

"But it's legal. I guarantee you," she vowed."I have the complete catalogue here. The distribution company's name is on the top of every disk and its contact info is in the sheets."

"Who would have known that legal importers have such good taste," I wondered, not quite convinced, but then I remembered that some old movies are already in the public domain.

"Who knows? Maybe it is authentic. Maybe the bootleg business is ruled by culture vultures now."

The browsing

If there was a shred of guilt remaining about buying counterfeits, it soon evaporated as I caught sight of Westerners among the customers.

Some looked like professors from nearby campuses, and those in suits and ties must have been expatriates from downtown office buildings.

They silently searched for their disks and displayed substantially better taste than the students milling around. I remember seeing one Western couple's joy as they came across a F W Murnau collection.

For many who buy these disks, pricing is certainly a factor, but availability often matters more. For example, a disk usually sells for 7 yuan(86 US cents) on a Beijing sidewalk and 10 yuan(US$1.2) in a"professional-looking" store.

Assuming the latter is legal, I'd go for it every time. But if you're a stickler for legality and buy DVDs in big stores, you're probably going to be stuck with Jean Claude Van Damme and be forced to wait a generation before graduating to Ingmar Bergman.

My first impression upon entering Cheng's stall on that afternoon was its sparseness. The walls of this 20-square-metre store were once plastered with DVDs. Now half of them were empty.

There were so few customers that I could, for the very first time, feel the presence of air-conditioning. On previous trips, the place was so jam-packed that everyone was sweating, even in winter.

Another difference: The doors were no longer wide open, but left ajar. There was a young man standing outside, as if screening customers.

After I was let in, Cheng apologized:"I don't have much merchandise now."

"It's OK. I'm not here to scout for new disks. I hardly have time for movies now," I said.

The hiding

As we were chatting, the light went out and the door was closed. There was a sudden silence and everybody knew it wasn't a technical glitch as lights from outside shone through the tinted glass of the doors.

"Everyone, please be quiet," Cheng implored.

In the semi-darkness, we could hear people rushing through the aisle outside.

"All these disk booths sell fakes," thundered a man's voice.

Footsteps stormed into the booth across the aisle. In the chaos there was begging and searching. Minutes later, there was the sound of cardboard boxes being dragged out.

While this was going on, Cheng and her staff threw all the disks on display into boxes and placed a chair on top of a long trunk that was used as a kind of display desk.

A young man jumped onto it and removed a tile in the ceiling. He whooshed into it. Then the women passed the boxes to him. They did not ask for any help, it seemed as though they were very practiced.

It took about five minutes, after which, someone took out disks from a box left behind and placed them on one of the walls in a neat and"professional" manner.

"Now I can tell which ones are legal," I figured.

Then came the excruciating wait.

I noticed there were six customers locked inside, all of which could have been cast by a Hollywood director. There was a professor type who was itching to leave."I have something urgent to attend," he pleaded.

"There's no way you're gonna leave this place before the bust is over," she responded sternly.

There was a mother with a toddler."We're just unlucky," she explained to her son, who was trying to complain about the absence of proper lighting.

But the mother was silenced by the store owner,"We need everyone to be absolutely quiet and stand away from the doors."

Ironically, the store phone and her mobile were ringing off the hook. Her ring tone had obviously been turned up so it could be heard in business hours, so now it was deafening. Every time it rang, one of the customers would shudder palpably.

Cheng and her relatives discussed their counter-strategy in a dialect nobody could understand.

"I thought you guys would have made some kind of arrangement and there would be a secret warning before a bust," commented a patron.

"No, we couldn't. It's totally random. And we could only take care of the security guards," Cheng explained.

"Will they search our bags? Will they put us in jail?" someone else asked. But there was no answer, as we watched the shadows moving up and down the aisle.

For a while, I thought we would be spared as the police seemed preoccupied with their current quarry.

The bust

About 25 minutes later, someone began to wrench open one of the doors. There was no knock, but we were relieved they didn't take the easy route and just smash the glass.

"You'd better open the door. They'll come in anyway. You can at least save the cost of repairing a broken door," suggested the professor.

Cheng hesitated. She moved closer to the door, trying to listen for signs of frustration or departure from the police.

No such luck. After five more minutes, she opened the door. It was 5 pm.

A few men came in, followed by someone with a video camera recording the whole process. They were not uniformed, but wore police badges. The one with the stern voice had a long stick in his hand.

He poked at the ceiling and said:"Take them down. All of them. I know you're hiding your pirated disks in the ceiling."

As Cheng fumbled for excuses, the customers were let out without a body search. A large crowd had gathered in the aisle.

I wandered by the booth 10 minutes later to see what was going on and saw the police ripping up ceiling tiles."If I find 5,000 copies, I'll put you in jail," I heard the man tell Cheng.

"How did they know where you hide your stuff?" I asked her in a hushed voice.

"They had a plainclothes guy in here," she whispered.

"What are you going to do now?"

"I guess I have to close up shop," she responded, with a tinge of sadness.

(Source: China Daily)