I certainly believe the story.

I am not in Xi'an. I am in Luoyang which is in a neighbouring province and this happened to us last Saturday morning. We all live in school apartments, we got a call shortly after 8am from our FAO saying the local police are in school and need to come and speak with all the foreigners and check the apartments.

I was actually just awake at the time and said words to the effect of when, we were given 10 minutes to get ready. My colleague who had been suffering from a bad cold was still in bed and didn't want to get up but they did come into our apartments and take photos of us in the apartments and then called us all (including my colleague still in her dressing gown) into my neighbours apartment for a photograph all together and then checked our passports and gave the school some forms in Chinese to fill out.

These forms asked for our intended travel for the new year.

The police have been to the school before but never to our apartments. When we quizzed the FAO about this he just shrugged his shoulders and said 'they are entitled to check'. I am going home to Canada anyway and the school already know this so don't really care about them asking. The others were and still are pissed about this invasion of privacy with no notice but what can we do about it?, nothing....

I would not be so quick to dismiss others comments.