Every wonder what a day spent cutting through bureaucratic tape in Chengdu is like? Take your worst experience at the DMV, multiply it by NYC traffic during rush hour, add a language barrier and then subtract all hours of your day, with nothing to show for it. Awesome!
9:30 a.m: Leave apartment bound for the public hospital to get my heart monitor (more about that later). Find a taxi after 20 minutes of arm flailing. Sit in traffic in taxi for at least 25 minutes.
10:45 a.m: Navigate my way through the public hospital (actually the most crowded in-door space I’ve ever been in my life – more about that later) to the room where nurses apply stickies to my bare chest, with little regard for privacy. They tell me to avoid standing in front of the microwave.
11:15 a.m: A 7 year old steals the taxi I hail. I resist the urge to push him over because I myself am a push-over. Eventually I steal a taxi from someone else and direct my driver to the Public Security Bureau Exit & Entry Administration Division. Our visas expire Monday and Jeff spent the morning getting our documents from the University to bring to the PSB where we’ll submit them be on our merry way. Fate has other plans.
11:30 a.m: My taxi driver stops for a bathroom break; a first for me, even in China. Apparently the spicy noodles took him by surprise. I wait 10 minutes but I can’t be mad because he is so jolly and says “Thank You!” in English.
11:40 a.m: Arrive at PSB where I am supposed to meet Jeff, who doesn’t show because he’s held up at the community police shakedown. The place to get our pictures taken for the visa is closed for lunch, despite it not yet being noon. Go inside the PSB to find they also are ready for an early lunch break. “Come back around 2!”
11:45 a.m: Sit in traffic in taxi at least 25 minutes.
12:15 p.m: Tear apart my living room in search of our rental agreement, which Jeff says the local police say they need to make sure we paid a tax back in September that at the time sounded sketchy, and now just sounds ridiculous.
12:30 p.m: Find rental agreement. Sit in local police “office” with Jeff for a half hour trying to convince the sole “officer” we paid the crazy foreigner tax. Eventually he either finds proof himself or gets tired of arguing with us and signs our forms.
1:00 p.m: Collect Ourselves.
1:45 p.m: Find a taxi. Sit in traffic for 25 minutes getting BACK to the PSB, which is across the city from our apartment.
2:15 p.m: Fill out visa forms; glue on our shameful mug shots. Then the lady behind the desk informs us no, she can’t take our forms because we need an additional form from a different local police station, AND a “home check” because we are staying in China more than 6 months. Directs us to PSB official behind another desk.
2:30 p.m: Relieved to be informed it’s a “health” check not “home” check (aren’t they watching us anyways?). But not relieved, because the official tells us it takes 2-3 days to process health checks, and again, our visas expire Monday. But the clinic is open until 6 – we still have a chance!
3:00 p.m: Look for a taxi for a full half hour.
3:30 p.m: Sit in taxi for 45 traffic filled minutes to the clinic, located entirely across the city.
4:15 p.m: Facing deportation, hurry into the clinic where finally we find someone who speaks English. She tells us the doctors are only there in the mornings for health checks. “You’ll have to come back Monday morning.” We tell her our visas expire monday. “Many foreigners face this time problem,” she tells us.
5:30 p.m: Dropped off at the apartment after 45 minutes of walking and another 20 traffic-filled minutes in a cab. I’m trying to console myself with how beautiful the weather was today, but we officially spent the entire day getting nothing accomplished and somehow have to get our health checked, police form signed, and submit our visas all before 3 p.m. on Monday (barring traffic hold-ups, taxi-driver bathroom breaks, chengdu-wide lunch breaks, bureaucratic mumbo-jumbo, and me losing my mind).
what makes me smile after days like today : )
