A blog entry about applying for a visa? How bureaucratic and absurd!
That Applying for Lawful Entry Thing
The invitation letter from Beijing Normal University (BNU) finally arrived after a bunch of delays completely and totally caused by myself (the PIB staff were wonderful helping me out with this). *Folks, don't misplace important documents and remember to set up mail-forwarding after you leave campus.
Official documents in hand, I took an early train to New York to apply for my visa. Having forgotten my headphones, it was looking to be a dreary day. Looking like a sad potato in the taxi line outside Penn Station, I ran into some friends - coincidentally one of them also applying for a visa. The rays of heavenly light springing from the clouds dimmed momentarily as I found out I had forgotten to bring a passport-sized photo for my application form. Thankfully there were a few places nearby that did visa photographs for certain forgetful people...
The Chinese Consulate in New York frequently gets terrible reviews, but I didn't have much trouble. I made up my mind to apply for my visa in Chinese while waiting in line with this English-speaking (外国人) friend of mine. Who told me "It's going to be a train wreck." Well, I managed to get out a sheepish "你好" before being asked "whether I had any copies of my invitation letter and JW202 form" in Mandarin. To which I replied "sorry." I managed to get out of there in less than 30 minutes, but not before the visa agent gave me a look that said "you're an idiot" and "why are you wasting my precious, soul-wrenching-fluorescent-light-filled time with your feeble attempts at language proficiency." She was, however, exceedingly friendly and I was surprised at how easy the whole process was.
Outside the consulate, a confused guy asked me and my friend what he was supposed to do with the slip of paper they gave him. "Thats the receipt you hand in for your visa. Yeah next Wednesday. You're good. No problem," conversed my friend. Afterward, my friend, a lanky caucasian male with thick-rimmed hipster glasses, remarked: "stupid white people."
--E.L.K (令鑫)
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