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Tuesday, June 24, 2014

Sketchy Much?

In China, you have to register your residence with the government. At all times. This is true if you are zhongguoren or foreign, here for a few days or a lifetime. Everyone has to say where they live. If you visit China, it's pretty easy -- your hotel registers you. If you live here, live here, it gets a bit more confusing.

At my first school, they registered us. Once a year, we took a walk down to the police station and stood there while my Handler filled in some paperwork. When I left that school, I learned that you are supposed to do this every time you leave and enter the country, even if you haven't changed visas or residences. It's just that my old neighborhood was backwater enough that the police knew where to go complain if a laowai was found doing something untoward.

In my new neighborhood, the university district, things got more complicated. The place is chock full of crazy foreigners getting drunk on Thursday nights (because they are at university after all), so you have to register. And the rumor is that the police station there is the most strict about the rules.

At my first apartment, the apartment management office would register me. I went down to the office with my old registration and my passport, and I'd get it all back in a day or two. Easy-peasy. My new apartment, not so much.

My real estate agent registered me the first time. When I got back to China, I talked to one of the Chinese admin staff about what I needed to do to register, and it got largely ignored. My friend who lives in the same complex somehow registers at the neighborhood police substation (that maybe isn't supposed to register us), but there names are on the list. Mine isn't. So we ignored that route. And then, and then... it just got too late. Once you haven't registered in time, it becomes easier to wait until the next time you leave the country. And then the next. And the next.

But, I just got my new visa for next year, and if there is a time you should really register, it's with your new visa. I texted my real estate agent, but he didn't get back to me. Then I went to the management office in my building, because there is some form you need from them. That woman sent me away, like I needed to talk to someone else. I have no idea what she said. I texted my landlady. Nothing.

This is supposed to be some super-important thing, and I can't get one person to help me out. It's ridiculous. I need to know what piece of paper to get so I can go check a box and sign another piece of paper. I can get a plumber to fix my sink on a Sunday for $3.20, but I can't do this legal bit of red tape.

Finally, my agent called me back. For 400 kuai, his friend can do it. Fine. Sure. I'll pay. It needs to be done before I end up in some red-tape-police-station-registration Hell where I need to give someone a "gift" to take care of it. He comes by my place to pick up my passport. He doesn't need my housing contract or my old registration. He tells me to meet a woman, about 30 years old, at the bank next to the police station. And I'm not to say anything.

Ooooooooookay.

I go down to the bank. I'm there on time. No one is there.

No one.

No.

One.

I wait 15 minutes. It is Beijing. There is traffic. Still. Nothing but hungover college kids buying fast-food breakfast from street vendors.

I call my real estate agent. (Realize, please, that I only know him by one English name. We'll say David. I have no Chinese name. No family name. Nothing other than a phone number and a hint that his office is near/in the Wenjun Hotel.)

I get a message explaining that "the subscriber can not be reached at this time."

Let me repeat that for you. The one person whose phone number I have can't be reached, the woman I'm supposed to meet isn't there, and I DON'T HAVE MY PASSPORT. I try him again. And again. And again.

I try not to panic (but let's be honest, I'm panicking). I've known David for two years. He registered me before. If this has been a con to get my passport, it's been a long con indeed. A really long con.

I consider calling a friend. I consider going to the police station. I. I. I.

My phone rings. It's a woman. She speaks no English, of course. She hands off the phone to someone who speaks English, but he doesn't know what's going on, either. She just hands him the phone. I try to say that I'm at the bank. We agree to meet at the Haagen Das at the mall across the street. I meet him.

He seems to think I'm a total neophyte despite my assurance that I've lived in China for four years. And to be fair, if I can't even register myself at the police station, what good am I? Breaking the rules, I say that I am a teacher at Tsinghua (which usually garners some respect), and that I do live in the apartment complex that I live in. He says it's OK, there are plenty of things in China that seem sketchy, but aren't. Like I didn't know that, having handed over my passport the previous evening. I wasn't even sketched out for the first eight minutes or so. It wasn't until a full 15 minutes had passed AND I couldn't get my agent on the phone that I thought something was up.

But nothing was up.

We cross back over the street to the police station, and there is the woman. Not only does she have my passport, but she already has the registration. That's it.

Nothing to see here. Move along.