Bad choices

"How did we get into this mess?". The words slipped out of my mouth, crept around the strange women in white masks and found their way across the closet-spaced room. My brother replied with the same urgency and uncertainty in his voice, "I don't know". We were old enough to make our own decisions, but too young to make the right ones.
It was the summer of 2004 where my family embarked once again on our almost-bi-annual trip to Beijing. My brother, a year my senior, and I decided that this would be the year where we did not need the supervision of an elder to navigate the massive city. We traversed our way around the circular city with ease, stopping occasionally to "ooh" and "aah" at the surrounding history. I traced my pointer finger along the subway route until it met with our final destination: the shopping district of Xidan.
As I held the rail on the train car crowded with black heads swaying in unison, I couldn't help but wonder how many millions of people have touched that exact spot. I made a mental note to wash my hands when we stopped.
A homogeneous stream of people poured out of the train at our stop. The first thing to greet us as we stepped outside was a damp cloth of humidity that smelled like millions of meals being cooked simultaneously, followed by countless solicitors seeking our business. The stock response was, and has always been, "wo bu yao" (I don't want). But for some reason, the words "free" and "come try" have sifted through my language screen and intrigued us enough to stop the flow of foot traffic to listen fruitlessly to what was being offered. The frustrating language barrier could not be broken, as it stood proud and mighty, laughing in our faces. This was when the lady spoke universally with a motion of her arms: follow me. I'm still uncertain as to who took the first step, both literally and figuratively, to the most questionable and sinister experience of our lives thus far...