Tourism is a great thing, but there are a lot of tourist that are not fluent in languages other than their own. When it's English it can be ok, but if it is Mandarin? This is what happened to a 31-year-old Chinese man, known as Mr L.

The early statements claimed the Chinese man had been robbed in Heidelberg, where he then erroneously signed an asylum application at the town hall. The city council of Heidelberg has since issued a statement clarifying that there is no record with the police of the man having been robbed in the city. It is also impossible to apply for asylum at Heidelberg town hall.

But the facts are Mr L, who spoke only Mandarin, unwittingly signed an application that got him stranded as a refugee for two weeks in the country’s burgeoning asylum bureaucracy. The man said he had been robbed upon arriving in Stuttgart, but they gave him an asylum application. He then travelled 220 miles (360km) to a refugee shelter in Dülmen, where he was given food and spending money like other refugees. The man was fingerprinted and given a medical exam, but drew the attention of staff partly because he was well dressed. “But he [also] acted so differently to other refugees,” said n official with the German Red Cross. “He kept trying to talk to people to tell his story but no one could understand him. He kept asking to get his passport back, which is the opposite of what most refugees do.”

With help from a translation app and then from a translator at a Chinese restaurant, it became clear that the man wanted to travel on to France and Italy, not seek asylum. It took German officials 12 days to put the story together and send Mr L on his way. “It was an extraordinary moment for us all. He said Europe was not what he had expected,” said Christoph Schlütermann, an official with the German Red Cross, which runs the refugee home, adding that the man was happy to leave but not upset. “What would you expect if you had come to Europe as a tourist and spent 12 days sleeping on a camping bed in a refugee center?”