Becoming Legal

As of tomorrow we have been living in China for a month. It's gone by really fast, but at the same time it also seems like we've been here forever. Weird, huh? For this last month we've also pretty much been prisoners in China- because we were still applying for residency we haven't had our passports. We couldn't leave no matter what happened. I think I mentioned in a previous post that I can see Hong Kong from my bedroom... do you know how hard it's been to see that every day but not be allowed to travel there because we don't have our passports?!!

After we arrived in China, our first step towards residency was our trip to the hospital to have physicals done. I blogged about that business HERE. The next thing we had to do, a few weeks later, was travel to a police station about 45 minutes from Shekou for interviews.

Our school hired a bus to drive us to the interview. I was really surprised when they gave me back my passport to present at the interview and there was also another document with it that looked like a Chinese passport! I didn't remember applying for one of those! (it is actually my "foreign expert certificate- that's right, y'all, I'm an EXPERT)

There were about 18 of us new teachers at the interview and they called us in one by one. There were two interviewers- Mel got the nice one and I got the one who looked like she wanted to punch me in the face. She asked me about my practicum experience (where I taught first grade) and she asked "what is first grade?" When I said that meant the students were 6 years old, she clarified her question with a roll of her eyes: "yes, but *sarcastic, superior laugh* what is first grade?". I repeated that it means the students are 6, she stamped something on a piece of paper, and I was free to go. Beeotch.  

The next day, we had to get on the same bus to submit all of our documents at the immigration office in person. This time, the package my school handed me had even more passporty looking books. It was getting to be quite a collection.

The first round of new teachers to ask China, "Can we pretty pleaaaaase live in your country?"

The only questions I had to answer at immigration were "What's your full name?" and "Where were you born?" and I totally aced those, you guys! Also, I forgot to mention that these 2 minute interactions at the police station and immigration wound up taking like 3 hours because there was so many of us, but mostly because everything at these places is so     s   l  o  w.  Because of this, we had nothing to do but chit chat with each other, and the group of us- all grown adults- were shushed. Multiple times. At both places. How rude. 

But then, guess what happened today? We got our passports back! Woo hoo! We are officially free to come and go as we please. And if we decide to stay a second year, the renewal process is much easier and we don't have to go through all of this again. So guess where we're going tomorrow morning?

Oh yeahhhh! Hong Kong or bust!