Bureaucracy Part II

It’s a nerve-wracking feeling to know, that if you don’t do the paperwork just right, you may be kicked out of a country.

But I’m alright now. I know you worry though, so here’s the ever-progressing story:

After my near-bust Hong Kong trip last month, where the countdown timer on my exploding passport began to tick away, I had only three months left. I proceeded to book an appointment online with the American consulate in nearby Guangzhou. Because there is no American embassy in Shenzhen, I had a choice between familiar HK, costing me one duration-of-stay stamp, or go to the new city and stay in the proper mainland People’s Republic.

Guangzhou. The third-largest city in China. For some reason it used to be called “Canton” by the old British Imperialists, though I don’t see the phonetic similarity. Or maybe that goes for the province of Guangdong, but it still doesn’t sound right. Of course, this is where “Cantonese” comes from, the English butchering of Guangdong hua. Anyways, they speak Mandarin, or rather Pudong hua, in Shenzhen. I don’t know the etymology of “Mandarin” either.

Time to explore Canton. I woke up at 6:00 AM on January 22nd hoping to make it to a 2:00 appointment in the neighboring town. Half-asleep, I took the 83 bus down to the Louhu border train station, anxious to could figure out all this travel in time. It turned out to be simple enough; the trains come every fifteen minutes and 80 kuai later I took the 45-minute above-ground railway passage. The only word I needed to know to buy the ticket: “Guangzhou.” Smoother than waiting in line in customs to get to Hong Kong.

The security guy woke me up and I found myself in a new Chinese city. East Guangzhou Station. 9:00 AM. Hours and hours to kill. Wasn’t difficult to get around. More people speak English, good English, even the cashier at McDonalds. I could get by on my Mandarin too. And a much cleaner city than Shenzhen. The taxis have rules posted on the back. Not so much litter. I guess this is an average Middle Chinese city (like Middle American), but I prefer SZ’s zaniness.

After my Egg McMuffin breakfast, I bought a tourist map and just walked about. Shopping centers are boring in the morning, until I found a big bookstore. It’s no Hong Kong here, so the best I could hope for were English-language classics for Chinese students. I bought Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities.

For lunch I met my workmate friend, who’s back in her hometown for the Spring Festival. Went to a mall. Ate Italian food. I don’t like Chinese malls, for the same reason I don’t like American malls, and here they’re even worse. Bigger, shinier, plasticyer. Why go to a mall in China, when there are so many dirty open-air market to haggle for knock-offs in?

My workmate buddy helped me get to the American Embassy, and it turned out to be right back next to the train station. Good to know for the next time. I made sure to be there an hour early, and wandered around some more, and got lost in Ikea. Finally, I filled out the paperwork fifteen minutes before my scheduled appointment. I’d been putting it off for a week, but like a college paper due in the morning, the last-minute always seems to bring a motivation I can never find anywhen else.

The fifth floor of the office building, filled with travel agencies and currency exchanges, led me to the American Consulate. Filled with white Americans, even a few black people, and Chinese-speakers with American passports, I went through the metal detector and took a number and waited in line. After all that nervousness and they rushed through my paperwork and 2 x 2 photos like a toll road booth taking your three bucks during rush hour. They were in such a hurry they barely looked at my form. Unlike waiting in line with the Chinese bureaucrats, they could have cared less what I was doing in the country. My whole rehearsed “I’m not working, just staying with a friend . . .” line was an unnecessary memorization. The Americans just want you to pay the fees and get through to the next guy, and apparently they don’t care if I’m paying my taxes or not. Hell, I’m not sneaking into their country am I? The only rule was to turn off your cell phone.

I was directed to wait in the other line at the cashier station, where they take RMB, and then waited back in line # 35 again, and then I was told to come back in a week to get my sparkling new passport. I do get to keep the battered old one in the meantime. I’ll have to somehow make the time to return soon, possibly miss work for it after holiday ends. Well, no problems, otherwise done and done, so I thought about more time to kill.

The day was still on, and I looked at the tourist map and thought about my workmate’s suggestions, and decided to do a bit more sightseeing while somewhere new. Took a metro to the Chen Ancestry Temple, and watched some of the inauguration news on the subway TVs. My only chance to see Obama on a TV screen these days. Then it was time to absorb some traditional Chinese culture. It’s so rare to see pointy buildings in modern China, always an exciting observation. The folk museum was alright, amazing art, and English translations of ancient Cantonese history. I took pictures. Bought postcards. Then it was dark, then I took the train back, went to a shitty vegetarian restaurant, read my Gibson paperback, and nodded off on the return train ride to SZ.

Back home, there was dog drama to deal with. My neighbor couldn’t take care of my girlfriend’s dog after all, something about fighting with cats and lots of pee on the floor you see, so now I get to have a dog for a week. XiaoYu (Small Rain), a cute pup, albeit very needy, and now I am to be a responsible dog owner for a week, while Mommy is off to Changshu for the Spring Fest. Such a good boyfriend, eh? I’d like to think.

So now I wait for the last few steps in my visa-bureaucracy adventures. As noted: it’s back to Guangzhou in the coming weeks for a passport that doesn’t expire this year, and then finally to Hong Kong for that treasure-at-the-end-of-the-rainbow (or light-at-the-end-of-tunnel, just pick your clichés) . . . to my promised six-month multiple-entry visa.

I’ll actually be able to relax for the next half-year, and know assuredly that I get to stay here. And meanwhile, I’m also going to Thailand next week, because I have to leave the country once a month anyways, and it only right there. Tickets are cheap and work is off and the sirens of travel sing to me. It’s the last chance of a new stamp in a proud old passport, you do see, soon to be put to the rest, but deserving of one more foreign ink blot. Like the New Year’s killing of the Mouse and coming of the Cow, all things must end, and there comes the time to build on the new. I’ll miss the old girl, but such is this life game, and I’m ever-anxious for the new.

the album should have been called “Chinese Bureaucracy"

Do the Chinese visa hustle. It's the latest craze. And when you live in the nightclub that is Shenzhen, you got to learn the steps quick. Lately I've become an expert in this dance . . .

First you go to Hong Kong to get a Category L permission slip, then you stand in line at the LouHu port and fill out arrival/departure cards, and it helps if you memorize your passport number.

When I first arrived here in the People's Republic I mailed my passport to the travel agency in San Francisco via my company sponsorship, and they did all the work. But thirty days later I was unfortunately informed that my time was already up. So I had to start shuffling my feet. My Canadian neighbor hooked me up with the agency she prefers, down in nearby pseudo-sovereign Hong Kong, and since then I've done it all myself. The school didn't do a thing but reimburse me the 1500 HK Dollars weeks later on payday. Such are the hazards unlicensed English teaching.

I got a six month, two entry, thirty day duration of stay. With the bureaucratic ripples of the Beijing Olympics still trickling, it's hard to stay in the country indefinitely. Though the rules change every few months, unpredictably but hopefully more lax each time. But for me and my lack of a work visa - being paid under the table without declaration to the mainland Chinese government - the overnight visas us Americans can get wasn't the best of deals. It says six months, but if I wish to stay in the mainland the entire time it's really only two, because a six-month pass only works in thirty day durations, and two entries was the maximum at the time.

I must stay overnight, take the train back, wait in customs lines, and two months later do it all over again. Cut to last week, my sixty days up: I learned the rules had been slightly changed. Americans can now get six months with multiple entries, meaning that although I have entertain the hassle of bouncing from the mainland to pseudo-abroad Hong Kong every thirty days, I can purchase just this one visa for the whole six months.

But there was another option, a new dance riff to jump to. One can also go to the local immigration office to apply for an extension on one's duration of stay. Best to stretch this out, and apply for another twenty days. And this too first requires registration at the DongXiao police station as a foreign resident before applying elsewhere. Armed with paperwork procured by a kind Chinese friend, I took off work on Monday the 29th to hitch a taxi up to my district's police station. Filled out more paperwork, mercifully the forms in English, lied about my employment, and they stamped my 2 X 2 photo. I was now officially in the system.

Step eighteen: at the government office near the iconic Di Wang Da Sha building - Shenzhen's tallest structure - I took a number and waited. And waited. And when they finally called up "F08" the English-speaking office worker told me . . . presently they will not do extensions for Americans. The rules might change in the future, but they just don't do that right now. You'll have to go to Hong Kong tomorrow and get a new visa.

At least I planned for this contingency. Pushing this to the ultimate last minute, the HK travel agency would be open on the 30th and 31st but closed on New Years day. So I called off work once again and made the old tourist trek to busy Nathan Road in touristy Kowloon. With little sleep and lots of waiting, RNB Travels took my money for the urgent one-day clearance, and all that was left was to wait for the next afternoon. I made sure to take a receipt.

New Year's Eve, the day representing the closing of the year of 2008 by way of Gregorian A.D., not the Chinese New Year yet though. And in what I hope is not prescient of next year's patterns, this day was defined by further bureaucratic fumbling. It turned out that my passport expires in five-and-one-half months. Therefore I couldn't get the six month multiple-entry. I could only get a three month two-entry.

I recall ten years back when I was sixteen, and I ordered this passport from the Post Office in the suburbs of Cincinnati. In the years since I've earned stamps from Ben Gurion, Kansai, London Gatwick, and Hong Kong International. These decorated pages will be gone soon. A more sentimental man might be nostalgic. But I have more cynical things to worry about, because just my luck, the passport had to expire while I was already living abroad.

So while I'm safely in my SZ apartment today, having arrived just in time to party at midnight last Wednesday, I know I have to get this taken care of in the next few weeks. The American consulate was closed in Hong Kong that New Year's Eve, and while there isn't one in Shenzhen the next town over of Guangzhou has an American flag raised somewhere high. The sixty day counter is ticking.

I can only hope the school will reimburse me this many times over. While other foreigners with teaching degrees get to relax comfortably, as their schools take care of the work visas - Category Fs I believe - I'll still have to do this all myself. It's not very professional. But it's all worth it to continue the experience life here in China; and the bureaucratic dance is just another part of the culture to study. Hope I can keep up the pace.