There's a hotel in China called the Chilbasaan. It's in one of the country's biggest cities,

Shenyang in the northeast. From the outside it just looks like your classic Asian business

establishment, complete with a couple of stone tigers flanking the front door.

I've seen the reviews and the photos and they're not bad. The hotel is centrally located

and the rooms are bright and clean.

The Wi-Fi, it's got a mini bar, overall, pretty reasonable option for, say, an American

businessman who needs a place for the night. Like this man we're calling Mark. He's

operated for years in China, where talking to the foreign press is frowned upon so he's

asked us not to use his real name.

During one of his business trips to China, Mark ends up in Shenyang for a few meetings.

He's had a long day. A Chinese colleague has booked him into a hotel for the night, the

Chilbasaan Hotel.

It was a beautiful lobby and all the staff was dressed well, very attentive to people's

needs coming in to check in.

But as he checks in, he can't help but notice some furtive glances from the staff and it

gets even worse when he steps into the elevator.

And we stopped on kind of an intermediate floor. The door opened. Some of the other hotel

visitors kind of looked very surprised. Wow, who's this guy kind of taking a step back

literally and looked at me completely shocked and I thought, well, that's kind of strange.

They got in the elevator and they kind of separated themselves a little bit off the side

but it was just dead silence.

At this point, Mark starts to get nervous and takes out his phone to do a bit of research

...