visa

Getting a visa in America to visit China is easy. Getting married to someone with a residence permit should be easy, but suddenly became really complicated.

I got registered at the local police station, with a "pink" slip proving I have a local address, and then got an official health check to prove I don't have any awful diseases, and the next step was to apply for a residence permit basically "adding on" to T's currently residence permit & working visa.

With 春节 (chun jie, lunar new years) next week, the Entry/Exit bureau would be closed, and my visa expired the next day- so we needed to extend it for just 5 days more, in order to get the rest of my paperwork through after the holiday. We headed 45 min. to the Entry/Exit Bureau in Pudong and then were told that there weren't any pages left in my passport, and I had to go to the American consulate(45 min. backwards, plus an appointment is needed) and have more pages added before they could extend my visa. Stargely, I had about 3 blank pages completely empty that said, "Amendments" on them- which in T's passport were full of visas! With one day left until the holiday, we were slightly panicked that it wouldn't happen, and didn't want to get hit with 500 rmb($73) per day fine for going over my 30 day Visa stay.

So Timon began speaking in Chinese to the officer (who's english was really good) after 5-10 minutes of rapid questioning and commentary, he agreed to give me a 10 day extension. They took my passport, and gave us a pick-up reciept with instructions to return friday afternoon.

So when I returned friday at 1pm to pick up m passport I suddenly noticed I had to pay.... 940 rmb.($137) What they didn't tell us, was that it cost 940 rmb (we hadn't noticed on the receipt) I had about 215 rmb on me, and I hadn't eaten lunch yet :( I was in shock, and didn't have any credit cards or ATM cards since I lost my wallet in Malaysia...and the fellow who found it cancelled all my cards before returning it... thats another story.

I had my Chinese ATM card, but when I tried to get the needed 900 rmb, it refused, since I had only 740rmb in my account. I had cleared out most of my money when I went home last spring, and left maybe $100 worth of rmb just for emergencies. So I took the 700rmb from my acct, (no bill denominations under 100) plus the 215 in my pocket, I had 915 rmb. I was a measely 25 rmb short!!! Infuriating! I began to dig through my bag- maybe some escapee bills? lots of change? Maybe I could sell my umbrella to someone. Nothing. I still had 40 rmb in my acct but coudln't recieve such a small amount unless I could find a bank branch- except you normally need yoru passport for that, which I couldn't get without having 940 rmb. Then it struck me that a deposit was paid for my metro card- I remember this from my first trip here and we met up with Daniel and he explained to us... and I remember asking, "Deposit? Doe sthat mean you get your money back, right?" So I trotted off to the Metro to sell my card, in between frantic phone calls with Timon who was looking online for bank branches or think of some way to get me 25 rmb- and so I got there and handed the official my cell phone, which she looked at rather confused, and I told her to talk into it, that my husband was on it, and she just stared at me, rather speechless.

Eventually they understood T's question and told me I had to go to another station to sell my card. I'm sweating in my 2 sweaters and wool coat and running to the train since I have an appt at the American consulate at 3pm, their LAST appointment of the week before the holiday. PHEW. I sold my metro card and all the money on it for cash, and ran back to the Exit/Entry Bureau to apy for my passport, then ran to the American consulate. They didn't allow any electronics inside, so I gave up my ipod touch and twiddled my thumbs for 30 minutes while they did their thing. I had so many things to play, read, and do on my ipod touch... and now I had to sit here and do what? Read posters about registering to vote? Doing taxes? Registering babies? Phew. I was soaked with sweat and began wondering if I'd freeze in my sweat because the wool coat was letting me ventilate, and it was windy and frigid outside.

I collected my passport with its extra pages and visa; then went home, exhausted. What a day.