The Visa

Old Chinese women are fiesty! That's right. I said it.

I felt like I've been on a Legend of Zelda-style quest to get a Visa - get documents in the mail, take them to New York, brave NYC traffic, visit friends, find the consulate, power through a line of people, etc. and I emerge with a small sticker on my passport that enables me to go places I couldn't before. When I got it, it hovered above my head in a halo of light to a triumphant arpeggio.

When I worked at the American consulate in Frankfurt, I could see how people coming in to the consular section to get travel documents or deal with citizenship issues were experiencing American culture in a nutshell. The security at the gate to get into the consulate was tight, and the line often extended down the street. Once you got through the gate, however, you walk across the driveway and front lawn to the door to the main hall. The hall where people waited for visas was gigantic, with plenty of space to roam around (very American), rows of chairs to sit in while you wait and service windows lining two walls of the room. A nice American or two greets you when you walk in the door and gives you basic instructions and a piece of paper explaining how the system works. The processing was extremely systematic and orderly - a set of windows is partitioned for preliminary check-in, where you are assigned a number based on what you are there for. Then you go sit wherever you like in the chairs until your number is called. There are vending machines, newspapers, magazines, water fountains and public restrooms. The high, windowed ceiling is draped with the flags of each state and the Old Glory. Overall, the process was very ordered, with a structured system in place that was well-executed while the room was spacious, clean and well-lit.

The Chinese consulate is a far cry from this, making the American consulate seem majestic, sprawling and roomy. The building is a large and blocky concrete federal-looking structure right on the Hudson at 12th Avenue and 42nd Street just north of Lincoln Tunnel. The public entryway to the consular section is on 42nd Street and on the outside resembles the entrance to a nightclub. A small set of double doors leads to a cramped security room where you have to walk through a metal detector. This leads directly into a plain low-ceilinged room reminiscent of a very small cafeteria with dull white walls and a bank of bank teller-like windows along one side. Printer paper is hand-taped to the walls giving cursory instructions in English and Chinese. Along the back wall, next to a set of steps that goes to an unlabeled second floor there is a small counter with pens and some papers for some vague application.

Half of the small cafeteria-like room is packed with small chairs. The idea, explained by a hired minority American security guard, is that applicants form a line that snakes through the chairs, starting at the very back and ending in front of the visa windows at the front. The crowd of people is shepherded into this line and each time somebody goes up to the window, everybody's supposed to shift a seat closer. A large old-fashioned digital screen above the windows read the date in Chinese, but clearly had plenty of room for further information. The attempt at organization seemed half-heartedly messy and inefficient, especially given the outsourced security guards. Overall, the process was cramped, shoddily organized and dull, but it worked. The experience clearly left much to be wanted, an gave a sense of a bland, uninformative attempt at efficiency. Most people complained incessantly while they waited. In many ways, I feel as if this may be Chinese government in a nutshell.

The only setback came after I'd waited in line for an hour -- standing up and sitting back down as it snaked through the rows of chairs -- and went to the window to deliver my documents. Turned out that the visa application form had a back, which I had failed to realize -- way to go me. Luckily, the rent-a-cop managing the line flow let me back in after I'd filled it out at the back of the room. While I was waiting for a window to open up on my second try, these two little old Chinese ladies who were first in line were paying better attention to the windows than me and timed the guy leaving the window just perfectly enough so they were at the window before I'd even taken two steps towards it. I was stunned, and a little embarrassed, since the whole room probably saw me get out-maneuvered and out-foxed by these two wiley little China women.

During the whole time I was waiting in line older Chinese people constantly tried to outfox and trick the rent-a-cop into sneaking in front of the line. Sometimes they'd just walk up to a window and ignore him, other times they'd feign (or maybe not feign) not knowing English enough to grab a spot at the front of the line and then step up to a window before the rent-a-cop could recover his wits. Overall, waiting in line turned out to be an incredible lesson in trickery, foxmanship, wile and fiest. Apparently the Chinese are masters.

No complaints, here though, overall. I emerged with a visa and a newfound respect for craftiness, which should do the trick with regards to getting me into China.

Next step: plane to LA.

Preparation

To China! It was completely off the cuff. The idea of teaching English abroad became palatable once I realized the extent of the American financial system's catastrophic meltdown. My main concerns of finding a job and starting a career were Clearly I would not be finding a job in the States with much ease and now, before I head down a serious career track, is a better time than any to take the opportunity to throw something on my resume like teaching English as a foreign language. It's a skill that's always in demand in any country. I have a chance now to build TEFL skills without any certifications or prior experience. On top of that, teaching in China presents the opportunity to vastly improve proficiency in the Chinese language, the most widely spoken language in the world.

One question lingered over all the others: Can you give everything up? Can you leave the comforts of the American way of life? Are you willing to step away from the haze of pleasant ignorance that pervades Western society? To this I can only answer yes.

Of course, there's always the other minor benefits of traveling to faraway lands, living in and experiencing first hand other cultures, and meeting a ton of new people I'd otherwise never be exposed to. In the words of Mr. D.H. Lawrence: "When we get out of the glass bottle of our ego and when we escape like squirrels from the cage of our personality into the forest again, we shall shiver with cold and fright. But things will happen to us so that we do not know ourselves. Cool, unlying life will rush in."

As an introduction, this post really has no significance other than to give the blog a base. Perhaps worth mentioning concerning travel, however, is the Chinese government's visa process. As with most governments, the pace of processing is exorbitantly and painfully slow. I'll add to this paragraph once I go to DC in the next few days to visit the Chinese Embassy and actually get the documents.

For my own organizing...

My Initial Itinerary
From Los Angeles International to Beijing Capital International, by air...
Departure: Friday, February 27, 040 Pacific Standard Time [840 Greenwich Mean Time]
Arrival: Saturday, February 28, 530 China Standard Time [2130 Greenwich Mean Time]
Net Travel Time: 11 Hours

From Beijing Capital Internationl to Aston English in Jinan, by train...
Well this part is a little more spontaneous... apparently there're daily trains that leave from Beijing at 830 and 1730 CST... whether or not the website I found that information on is up-to-date determines how quickly I make it to Jinan. The plan is to go from the airport, to Beijing South train station by public transportation, and catch the train to Jinan.

We'll see how that goes, and the continuity of this blog depends on it. For now, I start incorporating Chinese into this baby...

再见!