The visa renewal hysteria that has clutched the Jing’s expat community has taken the micro issues off the table. There’s been a lot less bitching about squat toilets or windy days, because the questions everyone wants answered are: “how do I get a Z-visa?” and “what will happen to my life if I’m expelled from China?”
Feeling that an end to my semi-illegal, F-L-X-C visa-running lifestyle was drawing near, I decided to go straight in for the Z. Unfortunately, the Z came with a whole plethora of painful clauses: the full-time job, the company contract, the visa-run, the Foreign Expert Certificate, the ‘6-month-too-late’ Registry of Residence, the health check, and the endless gathering of fapiaos. In a neat list it all looks so manageable, but the reality was a labyrinth of dead-ends, delays, grey areas, suspicious-looking papers, negotiations with police officers and bureaucrats, and various attempts to elicit cooperation from my less-than-stable landlord.
The first step to the Z was rising above the quagmire of hysteria-filled forums that overflow with visa rejection cases, and accepting that the ease of the HK visa-run was gone for a while. The message from the Chinese Consulate in Hong Kong was pretty clear: you’re welcome in China, but you’re not welcome to apply for a visa. My company’s generous US$800 visa-run travel allowance had started looking less generous when they said Hong Kong was out, but Tokyo, Bangkok or Delhi were in. After spending last July in the muddy farmyard of Delhi’s monsoon, and wishing to avoid yet another rendezvous with sin city, I decided Tokyo would be a welcome change.
The second step (which overlapped with the first step) was to secure a Registry of Residence certificate. Coercing my landlord into showing the police her ID was no easy feat. After a week of hiding and two personal phone calls from the police, she finally agreed to come down to the station. Once there, she attempted to escape through the back exit, before spending twenty minutes in a side corridor asking various people to check if there were any “foreigners” blocking the front entrance. When our number was finally called, she announced she’d forgotten her ID card. By the time she left, the entire Sanlitun police force was whispering about the mad lady.
After cruising through steps three, four, five and six, I was back to the visa-run. A few days before my scheduled flight to Japan, my company decided I didn’t really need to leave after all. The Tokyo visa-run mega-plan was quickly replaced by an afternoon in the Foreign Registry Office with a private agent who had filled out a 20 centimetre high pile of forms on my behalf. My job was to stand behind him, send good vibes, and look foreign. A week later my passport was returned, proudly bearing the mark of Z.
So I have the Z, but am still left musing over how to collect RMB5000 worth of fapiaos every month, so I don’t lose a huge chunk of my pay. To even come close I need to get my landlord to take a trip down to the Chaoyang tax office. To avoid worrying about this, I have taken to worrying about my partner’s visa issues. For him to get the Z is far more complicated, and I fear he spends too much time on the micro issues, as he’s more often perched on the windowsill meowing at neighbouring cats, than thrashing about in the bureaucratic swamp.
*
The first step to the Z was rising above the quagmire of hysteria-filled forums that overflow with visa rejection cases, and accepting that the ease of the HK visa-run was gone for a while. The message from the Chinese Consulate in Hong Kong was pretty clear: you’re welcome in China, but you’re not welcome to apply for a visa. My company’s generous US$800 visa-run travel allowance had started looking less generous when they said Hong Kong was out, but Tokyo, Bangkok or Delhi were in. After spending last July in the muddy farmyard of Delhi’s monsoon, and wishing to avoid yet another rendezvous with sin city, I decided Tokyo would be a welcome change.
The second step (which overlapped with the first step) was to secure a Registry of Residence certificate. Coercing my landlord into showing the police her ID was no easy feat. After a week of hiding and two personal phone calls from the police, she finally agreed to come down to the station. Once there, she attempted to escape through the back exit, before spending twenty minutes in a side corridor asking various people to check if there were any “foreigners” blocking the front entrance. When our number was finally called, she announced she’d forgotten her ID card. By the time she left, the entire Sanlitun police force was whispering about the mad lady.
After cruising through steps three, four, five and six, I was back to the visa-run. A few days before my scheduled flight to Japan, my company decided I didn’t really need to leave after all. The Tokyo visa-run mega-plan was quickly replaced by an afternoon in the Foreign Registry Office with a private agent who had filled out a 20 centimetre high pile of forms on my behalf. My job was to stand behind him, send good vibes, and look foreign. A week later my passport was returned, proudly bearing the mark of Z.
So I have the Z, but am still left musing over how to collect RMB5000 worth of fapiaos every month, so I don’t lose a huge chunk of my pay. To even come close I need to get my landlord to take a trip down to the Chaoyang tax office. To avoid worrying about this, I have taken to worrying about my partner’s visa issues. For him to get the Z is far more complicated, and I fear he spends too much time on the micro issues, as he’s more often perched on the windowsill meowing at neighbouring cats, than thrashing about in the bureaucratic swamp.
*
