Chinese Visa

Man is not the most organized creature on the planet, at least not my man.

Back in November, we made a decision to go back to Beijing in Feb 2018 to celebrate Chinese New Year with my family. We haven’t done that for 8 years. It’s pretty exciting. So we figured out our vacations days, talked to my parents and my sister, finalized our itineraries, and voila, two round-way flight tickets were booked!

I still hold my Chinese passport (smart me! Ha!), so all I need is to work until my vacation day comes and off we go, but Mr. Steve is a round-eye, and he needs a Chinese Visa for the trip.

Last Friday:

Me: Baby, did you get your visa for our trip to Beijing?

He: what visa?

Me: Chinese visa. You are not a Beijinger as you have hoped for. Duh!

He: Oh sh*t, I totally forgot.

With less than 3 weeks left before our departure, this immediately became a priority slightly higher than watching the hockey games. So on the weekend he started to do some online research, printed the visa application form, and made a note to himself that he would go take a visa headshot on Monday morning and then drive to Chinese Consulate to submit his package. I was informed of his thought process but I neither checked the application form nor made an appointment for him. And because of that I guess, interesting things started to happen.

Yesterday (Monday) I got 5 text messages and today I got another 5, all from the Mr.. Apparently he has experienced some challenges along the way.

First, he completely forgot to take his photo, so he went to the Consulate without the headshot, fortunately or unfortunately he arrived at the Consulate during their lunch hour, so the security guard didn’t open the door for him; when he returned and eventually got to meet the working staff they told him to go to the Chinese Visa Center which is at a different location. He then on the 2nd day went to the right location, but this time the staff there told him the application form cannot be filled out with handwriting which he did. To save another back and forth trip, he went to STAPLE downstairs and spend $30 to download a new form, fill it in with right information on computer and have it printed. All done right? No, the staff took a quick glance at the form and said to him: Sir, the form you’ve filled out is for diplomatic personnel, if you are not one of them, you need to go back and download a different one, fill it out and print it off. You can go now.

By this time, you can imagine what kind of message he is texting me and what level of frustration he is at. 🔥 🔥

Tonight, I sat down with him after dinner, took in charge of filling out the form, making an online appointment for him to go this Friday so he doesn’t have to wait in line the 10th time, and did a final check of all his documents and copies.

Honey, good luck this Friday and please don’t text me if anything goes wrong. I will just go to Beijing without you. I will eat one more chicken feet for you, ha!

Man oh man. The moral of today’s story: man is like kid sometimes. They are not organized and they don’t pay attention to details. But you gotta love them because they are just that darn cute! 🙃