Dom, Tan, Leilei, and Xixi in China: Visa "extension" faff

The other day I suggested to Tan that we might be able to stay a here a little longer if we could change the flights and get renewed visas. She said yeah that would be good, so this morning we went to the Pingguo police station to see what we could do. First we got some passport photos done at great expense (although Leilei looks particularly good looking in his) and filled in two copies each (Leilei and me) of the application form. Then we went back to the police station only to be told we couldn’t get the visas done there – we had to go in person to Baise (for the third time in a month in my case).

Handsome young man

So, Xiao Li borrowed his sister’s husband’s car, picked up a mate who also happened to need to go to Baise, then Xiao Wei, Tan, Leilei and I all piled in the back of the tiny Chevrolet Starlet (about the size of a Nissan Micra. There was actually rather a lot of leg room in the rear, partly thanks to the fact that the bloke in the front was short, and partly due to the tiny boot this car has. Thinking about it, this is quite a practical arrangement…how often have you had your knees dug into the back of the seat in front while the boot has been nearly empty? Well I have plenty of times in the UK but I am 6’1”.

By 2pm we’d reached the police station in Baise, where interestingly half the cars in the car park were right-hand drive (see Saturday 14^th October). We went to the Visa Extension desk and the lady who dealt with us spoke reasonably good English. She interrogated me about when I arrived, where I’d been staying, how long etc… then asked to see our marriage certificate. I said that wasn’t necessary as the Chinese Embassy in London hadn’t required it for our visas. However, I’d ticked the “Visiting relatives” box instead of the “Sightseeing” box. Damn. So I said how about if I just tick the “Sightseeing” box instead, as I am sort of doing that as well. She said that would be ok, but that she would need to evidence that I had enough money for the remainder of the stay. “Ok, how much?”, I asked. “100 US dollars for each day”, she replied. Shit.

Well I didn’t have my marriage certificate, and I didn’t have my most recent (or any) bank statements, just my cards. Then I thought – this is ridiculous! It’s just an extension of an existing visa for which I had to show nothing but our passports and pay £60 – I wasn’t asked for all this when I did the same thing in Shanghai three years ago.

“Oh, but it’s not an extension”, you have a business visa. “No! it’s a tourist visa! That’s what I applied for”. But sure enough, on my visa (and Leilei’s) was the letter “F”. Well it’s not obvious, but “F” stands for business, and “L” stands for tourist in the visa world. So basically the Chinese embassy had screwed up, and no one had batted an eyelid when Leilei went through the customs on his business visa….

I just about held myself back from shouting some sort of abuse about the incompetence of the Chinese visa system, took a deep breath, and calmly looked at the situation. We had to apply for a new visa, not an extension, and we needed a marriage certificate or proof of having at least $3000 in the bank (I’m not sure if they accept overdraft facilities, but I wasn’t confident about it).

Leilei had come to the desk at this point, and the woman had softened a bit. I took out my wallet and gave her £100 and a wink and said I’m sure there’s some way we can sort this out….

No I didn’t, I took out two debit cards and a credit card and told her I had enough money, but obviously I didn’t have the statements. She said I could ask the bank to send them but I said I might as well get my mate to send my marriage certificate – it would make no difference, it would still be too late to change the tickets by then. So she said she would at least need a photocopy of the bank cards, and then see what could be done.

While she waited for someone else to come, the woman was inspecting all our passports and noticed that Tan’s first visa to come to the UK was a spouse’s visa, not a fiancée’s. I had to admit that the British consulate in Shanghai had made a mistake on the visa, and laughed about how easy it was to make visa mistakes while secretly feeling utterly relieved that I hadn’t vented my spleen a couple of minutes earlier about Chinese visa incompetence.

Well I don’t know if it was Leilei’s smile, or that fact that during this time I was introduced to one of the policemen who worked there who was a friend, but they said it should be ok just to take a copy of the cards. I wasn’t going to argue, although I didn’t know what value the copy would be other than being able to take my money. We will just have to wait a minimum of five days to get the passports back.

As we were in Baise we met up with Tan’s elder sister again for a slap up meal at a decent restaurant – the bees were brilliant, most of them freshly hatched!

Leilei trying on a field worker's hat in a nice restaurant.

After the meal we made our way to a local beauty salon where we had to remove our shoes and put on slippers by the brand name of “Knie”. Tan and Xiao Wei had their eyebrows plucked, and Xiao Li and I had a facial. Yes, I thought it sounded weird but it was very refreshing – facemask and all.