You can’t get into China without a visa.

Sure, I had a signed contract and plenty of emails zipping back and forth between here and Hunan to give the new job a semblance of reality, but …

you can’t get into China without a visa.

So when the visa documents came in the mail last Thursday, the China sojourn finally moved from the nebulous to the definite. Only one more hoop remains to jump through — get the bloody thing pasted into the passport.

Taking a job overseas requires a few extra steps than just moving across these United States.

To teach in China, you need (a) a job offer (duh!), (b) an invitation letter from the State Administration of Foreign Expert Affairs, (c) an invitation letter from the local Chinese Public Security Bureau, and (d) the aforementioned visa. The Chinese employer generally takes care of (b) and (c), since they must originate from local government offices, once you provide the necessary documents (photos, medical examination forms, copies of passports and credentials). This process takes a couple of months. Without (b) and (c), you can’t get a Z-visa (for “foreign experts”), so I was on pins and needles until the all-important invitation letters came via China Post and USPS last Thursday.

You see, I had a niggling doubt in the back of my head that the job would fall through, leaving me in the lurch, or that the documents would come too late. With the invitation letters in hand (I had to check on line to see if what I had in hand were in fact the required forms), all that remains is (e), the actual visa, which requires a trip to the nearest Chinese consulate, which for us is in Chicago.

The turnaround for a visa is four days, so we are in much better shape than we were in January 2000, when we picked up our South African visas at the main post office just hours before boarding the plane for Amsterdam. Still, there are some niggling details to complete.

Although I have already provided passport-size mugshots to my Chinese employer for the (b) and (c) applications, the Chinese consulate wants mugshots, too. Those can be obtained at the consulate, or on your own. You also need to complete a visa application form, called the Q-1, which is not the same as the applications for the invitation letters. … Sigh … Furthermore, all this needs to be in person, since China’s consulates do not process visas by mail.

The bright side? If we were still living in Kentucky, I would have had to go to Washington, D.C., to get the visas. Now that we jumped across the Ohio River to live in Indiana, we can go to the considerably closer Second City, a mere five-hour drive away.

While I’m on the subject of visa acquisitions, it would be a good time to gloss on the Chinese medical exam requirement. The examination is more than a cursory listen-to-your-heart, tap-your-knees-with-the-hammer thing. China wants to make sure their foreign experts are not going to drop dead or be Typhoid Marys while within its borders. Sensible, but arduous, particularly if your doctor (or in our case a licensed registered nurse practitioner) wants also to make sure you don’t drop dead. The examination requires blood tests for STDs (including HIV/AIDS) and other communicable diseases, a chest X-ray, an EKG, and a checklist for prior or existing physical and psychological ailments. Our blood tests were fine, but we discovered on the day of the exam that my bad cough was not due to my usual springtime allergies but to a nasty case of bronchitis. As a result, my chest X-ray didn’t look all that great. To make matters worse, the antihistamines I was taking for my allergies must have made my heartbeat flutter a bit, making the EKG look funny, so our LRNP signed me up for a stress test at a local hospital, and another chest X-ray once the bronchitis cleared up.

My bronchitis cleared up well before the stress test. The nurse and the tech put me on a treadmill, wired me to the monitors and cranked the treadmill up (and tilted it, too) to simulate a very brisk walk uphill. The goal was to get my heart rate up to a target of 168 bpm (we hit 171 actually), then check my recovery. I was winded after the simulated mountain climb, but I passed the test. Guess taking the stairs most of the time at school for 24 years helped.

So, when all was said and done, the medical examinations required three visits to our doctor, a stress test for me, a mammogram for my wife (under LRNP orders), and — thank goodness for medical insurance — about $75 in co-pays. (Insurance paid for the stress test — $1560! I could have bought my own treadmill for that kind of money!)

Looking back on this process so far, I have to wonder how many other people would be as crazy as I am to want to go through all this extra paperwork. After all, I’m taking a huge pay cut to teach in Hunan, similar to the drop in pay I experienced when I went from reporter to graduate assistant and later part-time teacher. I suppose that’s one way for governments to weed out applicants who are merely casually interested in working in their countries. You have to really want to take this kind of job to put up with all the extra hassle.

Well, my next step toward China will be to fetch the visas in Chicago. Hopefully, nothing noteworthy will happen there.

August 7th, 2008 | Tags: China, hassle, visas | Category: China | Subscribe to comments | Leave a comment | Trackback URL