On my last trip to China, I had two friends with me, and they have both been to China multiple times. They are both truly world travelers, one is even a flight attendant. All of that is to say that even if you think you know “the system” for packing, you can be surprised.
As we checked in at the airline’s counter at Terminal 2 in Beijing, we were stopped. Apparently something in our luggage had caused a problem, and we had to wait for a person with more authority to come and tell us what was wrong. When you have a connecting flight to catch, have already had to go through customs, get your luggage, exchange money, take a shuttle to another terminal, and get checked in for your flight, you don’t want any problems. Oh and did I mention the 14 hour flight we had already taken just to get to Beijing? So, you might say my state of mind wasn’t the best it could be, and now we had to wait for the security guy to approve their luggage.
The issue was the battery charging sticks in their checked luggage. They are frowned upon by the security people in China. Here is a picture of my friends going through their luggage at the check in counter trying to find what was causing the problem within their luggage.
We were told that the battery charging sticks should not be in the checked luggage. It was necessary for them to be in our carry on luggage. So, on the return trip home at the airport, my friends had their battery charging sticks in their carry on luggage, and they were stopped again! This time we almost missed our flight because it took so long to get through all of the issues the security personnel had in relation to the battery charging sticks. My advice is don’t travel with any battery charging sticks if you are traveling within China!