Chinese Visa Acquisition, or, The Forgotten Sisyphean Task (Patreon)

Ahhh, the Chinese visa office: a place where the worst in middle-class, white, suburban Canadians comes out to play in the face of unflinching bureaucratic proceedings. Potentially a 10th circle of hell. Not for the faint of heart. Byzantine, confusing, and not f***ing around when it comes to minutiae; at the Chinese visa office, the devil truly is in the details.

I'm feeling nostalgic as I sit here in the airport waiting for the boarding call to Beijing, so what follows is one account of one stressed little circus noodle journeying into the belly of the beast:
 

******
“Shit shit shit fack shit god damn –“ I waste extra air cursing as I burst up into the cold October sunlight from the depths of St Patrick subway station. Today is my visa appointment at the China Visa Office. I filled out every form, checked it twice, acquired the correct size of visa photo. What I didn’t do …

… was remember to put my passport in my bag when I rushed out the door that morning. 

*******

There is a special circle of hell reserved for those wishing to acquire a visa to visit China, and it mercilessly punishes those who attempt to traverse its inhospitable plains without exactly the right paperwork, in exactly the right size and number, and at exactly the right time.

If I’m being honest, it really didn’t occur to me. The ten-page application form, printing the confirmation page, the appointment page, the passport photos, the letter of invitation from the festival organizers, the pages detailing my proposed flights and hotel accommodations and more … but of course you have to bring your damn passport. 

They hang onto it for three days while they decide to give you the visa or not. 

It is these facts that spin through my head on repeat as I dash back across the polished floors of 325 University Ave, out of breath, bags flying – but passport safely secured in my zippered front coat pocket. 

“You can go get it, just be back before 2:30pm,” the completely unruffled reception woman had told me 52 minutes prior as I stood before her, mouth opening and closing like a goldfish as I processed my grave error. 

I look down at my watch. It’s 1:00pm – the time for my correctly-schedule-online-just-like-I-was-told-to appointment. It’ll take me 15 minutes to ride the TTC home (a cab wouldn’t be faster, in this part of town), 15 minutes to sprint to my apartment building, wait for the horrifically slow elevator, grab my passport, and 15 minutes to reverse all that back down to the office. 

I nod once, quickly, and take off, pitying looks from those in line behind me following me.
 

********

And so, an hour later, I find myself sitting on one of the rows of grey bus-station-style benches arranged in the centre a three-sided lobby just beyond the Visa Office reception desk. Chinese nationals, Sikh businessmen, white married couples in varying degrees of ‘let-me-speak-to-your-manager haircuts’, and at least one woman who looked suspiciously like an IG influencer sit at intervals along the rest of the bench seats. I’m sweating slightly and trying to get my heart rate back down to a normal resting range. I’m not very successful.

Plexiglass partitions separate little cubicles from the rest of the room all along each of the three walls, like a bank. There’s 6 or 7 per side of the room; only two are open on the wall direcly facing the benches; 2 windows are open on my right; 1 window is open on my left. 

A mid-size LED monitor is hung above head-height on the wall facing all the bus-station benches, displaying two columns of letters and numbers that correspond to the ticket each person  has been assigned by reception. A loud, irritating DING! – like a doorbell – pings out across the room every time an employee pushes a button on their desk: a new number flashes up on the LED screen, cueing the next customer to approach their window.  The DING! cuts through the conversation – and any thought process one might be trying to maintain – like a hot knife through butter. I shudder, realizing that this is going to the be the soundtrack to the next two hours of my life. 

DING! 

I flinch slightly at the sound. 

Oh god. 

I look around, trying to distract myself. 

It doesn’t take long. 

“No, no YOU need to understand,” a voice suddenly raises in volume and heat on my right. A middle-aged white guy is standing in front of the plexiglass partition, punching his meaty index finger down onto the strip of counter before him. “I leave for Shanghai next week for my teaching contract. This is my degree. You accepted it last time.”

A quiet murmuring as the unfortunate visa attendant answers him, her voice muffled by the plexiglass. 

“This. Is. A. Legitimate. Teaching Degree. It’s from ******** College, in NY. You have to accept it.”

Mumble mumble. Mumble. 

“No I don’t have TIME to go get extra forms to prove its validity – it’s VALID, damn it! . . . No I don’t have time to come back, I drove all the way from Waterloo, let me speak to your . . . there’s no one to speak to? . . . This is your guy’s mistake, you need to fix this.”

He continues on like this for several more minutes, making no headway with the passive-faced woman separated from him by the Plexiglas. He eventually leaves in a huff, suspect-according-to-the-Chinese-government-teaching-degree tucked under his arm.

On cue, a woman in front of me starts raising her voice. My eyes flick up towards her. She’s short, plump, and wrapped in a folksy, fancifully cut bright purple felt coat with rainbow accents. Her dyed blonde hair stands up in spikes all over her head, creating the overall impression of a disgruntled yet colourful owl, feathers puffed up against an autumn chill. 

The visa attendant she’s dealing with is trying to be helpful, showing here two or three places on her forms where she needs to make adjustments or signatures. Purple Owl Lady starts flapping her hands, flashing the tacky, oversized rings squeezed onto her thick fingers. 

“I don’t understand, you make this so confusing! My husband will be back, you’ll just have to explain it to him.”

I can see the visa attendant patiently attempt to re-explain, eliciting zero positive response from the disgruntled woman before her, who huffs and looks in every direction but the visa attendant.  The visa attendant’s face is a masterclass in neutrality. She quite clearly is waiting for this unruly customer to cease her melodramatics. 

“I just – I just CAN’T!” Purple Owl Lady finally explodes. “YOU PEOPLE NEED TO MAKE THIS EASIER.”

You people. Never a good way to start a sentence. 

DING!

I glance up at the LED screen. Miracle of miracles, my number is finally up! I clutch my thick stack of papers and quickly walk up to the appropriate window, heading off several interlopers looking to cut in line with last minute questions. Not a chance. 

The woman behind the glass flicks through my papers, highlighting things here and there. 

“Why are you going to China?”

I clench internally, recalling the very explicit email I was sent by festival organizers: say that you are coming for business meetings; do NOT say that you are performing.
It seemed sketchy to me at the time, and it felt sketchy now. 

I clear my throat. “Business meetings.”

The woman flicks through more of my papers. 

“What is your job?”

“I am a performer.”

“And you are going to China for business meetings?”

“Yes.”

I MEAN  - my brain desperately tries to find some half-truth in the festival organizer’s instructions – these festivals ARE big networking events. Inevitably you DO have discussions about potential contracts . . . we’re just . . . also . . . definitely . . . competing in a capacity that involves performing in a ring in front of hundreds (thousands?) of spectators. Right. Yeah. 

“This is an M visa. You cannot perform with M visa. M visa is for business exchange only.”

“Yes. That is why I am applying for an M visa.”

I may have imagined it, but it seemed like the woman narrowed her eyes slightly as she looked up from my paperwork and fixed me with an unwavering stare. I didn’t imagine her mouth pursing. Considering my unwilling bullshit. 

This is so stupid, this is so stupid – my mind chants ceaselessly. You’re going to fly 22 hours to China and get to the border and they’ll send you right back home. You’re going to get caught. This is so stupid. Why did the organizers tell me to apply this way? Political relations between Canada and China are terrible right now. This is not an ‘everyone loves a Canadian’ situation where they’ll laugh and pat you on the back and let you through. GASP – OR EVEN WORSE – you’ll get to China, you’ll get in, do the festival, and then when you try to LEAVE they’ll show you some footage or photo from the festival WHICH IS BEING ADVERTISED WIDELY and say, “LIAR!” and I’ll be locked in a Chinese blacksite for 20 years and no one will ever find m– 

“You will need to write a statement here,” the woman finally says, interrupting my catastrophizing train of thought. She presents me with the final page of my visa application. There is a small box to make a note. “You will write, ‘I promise not to engage in any media while I am in China’.”

“’Not engage in any media’?” I repeat back to her, confused. 

“Yes. No performing. No shows. No media.”

That is not how I interpret the word media. GREAT. THERE WE GO. SEE? NOT DOING ‘MEDIA’ IN CHINA . . . just . . . lying . . . about what I’m doing there … OH GOD.  

See – we also signed a contract with the festival releasing rights to any photos and videos taken at the festival. 

Which there will surely be a lot of – 

Which definitely hold the potential of blowing my “yes, just going to talk business, ha ha” yarn out of the water. 

Stuck at the window with nothing to do except either crumble under pressure and wail that I was a liar, or continue on with my sham of an application, I reluctantly write, ‘I promise not to engage in any media while I am in China’ in the box. 

Gulp. 

I am whisked away, sent to another counter to pay, and suddenly the ordeal is over.

Except for the sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach.

************************************************************

I can’t do it.
It’s way too sketchy.
My father is horrified at the idea of trying to enter China with the incorrect visa. 

My peers are horrified at the idea of trying to enter China with the incorrect visa. 

My agent seems surprisingly ambivalent about it all, but nonetheless concedes that it seems like a bad move, given the current climate of international relations between China and Canada (NB: it’s not good). 

My agent writes back to the organizers that we will not move ahead with the festival with the incorrect visa. 

A flurry of emails follows: No, they’re already in the brochures, they can’t not come! The ‘F’ visa is very difficult to get, it takes a long time, you need a letter from the Minister of Culture, all the other artists come on M visa, it’s quite normal . . . 

But we stand our ground.
(Aggravating the situation further is that Troy already possesses an ‘F’ visa, from a previous work contract in China – how would that look when we walked up to Customs together? “Okay, Troy, so you’re performing in this competition . . . and Ess, you’re . . . what . . . his manager?” I don’t think so.)

I begin to think that this is it: no China festival.
And then the new letters of invitation from the Minister of Culture land; new instructions from the organizers (go apply for F visa, double entry); and ­– it dawns on me – another round in that special circle of Hell that is the Chinese visa office. 

I hear a phantom /DING!/ just thinking about it. 

************************************

I wait a week for the next available time slot at the Chinese visa office.
E-mails are coming almost daily from the organizers, asking if I’ve received my new visa yet.

No pressure.  

Okay kid, this is old hat for you this time. Passport? Check. Meticulously triple-checked stack of papers? Check. Money for this thing? Check. PROPER VISA CATEGORY LISTED: Check. 

The woman at the reception desk looked at me in mild confusion. “Why are you here again?”

I guess they don’t have many 5’9” bald humans walking through the door on a regular basis. 

“Wrong visa.”

“Ohhhhh,” the girl says, looking mildly horrified. “That’s not good!”

“Nope. Tell me, what will they do with the old visa?" 

“Oh, they’ll void it.”

“Yikes. Okay.”

Back onto the benches, clutching my ticket with the number of my appointment on it. 

DING! P47. A business woman in tall stilettos and a fresh blowout. 

DING!  A28. A tired looking dad with a toddler sleeping in arms. 

DING! B14. A newly married couple. 

The minutes tick by. Strains of conversation weave through the air, loud and insistent over the low murmur of polite conversation amongst the waiting, hopeful visa applicants. 

“No. No,” I hear a woman’s voice. I half turn, clocking a middle-aged white lady with another May-I-Speak-To-Your-Manager haircut. “I can’t stay to do my fingerprints today, I have to leave. Now listen! I came all the way from Waterloo. That’s a two hour drive. I am NOT coming back. You people need to find a solution.”

There it is again. 

You people. 

DING. 

Another conversation, this time to the left. The businesswoman in the sky-high stilettos isn’t having very good luck with her application. “You mean I have to come back if I want to apply?” she huffs indignantly. “But I had  a business visa before. Why can’t you just renew it? . . . I have to do ALL THIS? AGAIN?!”

DING. 

Another voice. “Well I CAN’T stay, I have to go PICK UP my SON.”

“Perhaps you can call a friend to pick up your son?”

“No!”

* silence *

“… So I’m just losing my appointment?”

“This is your appointment time. If you leave, that is your choice.”

“How is it MY choice if YOU PEOPLE ARE RUNNING LATE.”

Uh oh. ‘You people.’

DING. 

I half-smile to myself. One – taking any kind of condescending or indignant attitude with any kind of arm of a foreign government seems like a really bad personal policy to me. Two – don’t they realize that there is zero sympathy for their puny, meaningless little lives in the face of the giant, grinding wheel of bureaucracy?!
 

Wrong size of passport photo? Too bad.
No time for the appointment because everything is running late? Too bad. 

Wrote the wrong place of issue for your passport on the form? Too bad.
Told you need to re-print 20 pages of forms because you forgot one thing? Well no you can’t write it in in pen; you’ll need to go to the back of the office, pay to use the computers provided, and then pay 25c / page to reprint your entire document stack. 

Cash only.

DING. 

My number! I rush up to the window and hand my papers over to the lady there. I explain the mix-up as briefly as I can – ‘a mistake was made’ – and explain that I need to apply for an F visa, instead of the M visa, because I will be performing in China. 

The young woman looks concerned. “Ohhh . . . this is a very hard visa to get, though,” she says to me. 

“I know. I’ve heard it’s a bit tricky. There’s a new invitation letter at the back explaining everything. 

“Hmm. Well – technically it has to be the original letter of invitation from the Minister of Culture.”

“You mean you guys want the physical letter written by the Minister of Culture in China, to be mailed all the way to Canada, and then submitted to you? When there’s only 14 days of lead time or something like that for the Minister to issue such letters?”

“Yes.”

“I see,” I say, sighing. “Well – what can I do? This is what my employer has told me to do. We must move ahead.”

The young woman disappears out of sight, into the back of the visa office, for a few long minutes (presumably conversing with a peer over my confusing application).  

She returns. “Okay – here is what you need to understand. If we apply for this visa – F visa – there is no guarantee that you will get it.”

“I understand,” I say, smiling.  

“And it also means this M visa is cancelled,” she continues.

“Got it.”

“Which means you may be stuck with no visa at all.”

“That would be very unfortunate,” I say politely. “I’m sure if there is an issue the organizers can intervene to the best of their ability. This is all the information I have to go on.”

“You’re sure you want to do this?” she says, looking doubtful.

“Yes please. Let’s try.”

She looks slightly pitying as she has me sign a declaration confirming that I understand that these hours spent in purgatory may be for nothing, and sends me over to the payment window across the room. 

I submit my passport to the payment woman – it will be held for three days again while my application is inspected. Mildly nerve-wracking to hand your passport over to someone like that, even if it is all very official and by-the-book. I hope the world doesn’t suddenly tip over into Apocalypse-mode and I suddenly need to have this very important piece of identification to fight my way onto a plane that’s bound for the last only safe place on Earth or something.

I cross my fingers, tap my debit card, and leave.
 

***********

Three days later, I return to 325 University Ave. 

I open my passport to the page that feels thicker than the rest. 

F visa. Double entry.

 

Approved.