Beware the Qingdao police, or "How I got stuck in China"

It's 21:30 in China, and I have in my possession one train ticket for Beijing (the train left this afternoon at 14:30), one plane ticket for Beijing (leaving tomorrow morning at 7:30), an one plane ticket from Beijing to Helsinki (leaving tomorrow morning at 10:55). I also have one shiny new Canadian passport, received by courier this afternoon at 13:30. What I don't have is a Chinese visa, and that makes the rest of these documents useless. I'm stuck here until I can convince the local police to let me leave. When I eventually sort this out, I'll still be out a thousand Euros or so in train and airfare.

How did I end up in this mess?

[This post is very long - in fact I just typed this up to have a record of what happened while it's still fairly fresh in my memory. I might try to edit it down to essential details later. If you get bored, skip to the essential bits at the end.]

The sad tale begins in mid-June when I took a plane from Shanghai to Qingdao. I thought that I had my passport tucked safely in the outside pocket of my carry-on luggage, but discovered in the baggage pickup area that it was nowhere to be found. I had dropped it somewhere between the waiting room in Shanghai and the arrivals area in Qingdao.

The crew of the aircraft checked my seat, but found nothing there. Later phone calls to the cleaning crew of the aircraft, both in Qindao and in Shanghai, and the cleaning people at the Shanghai airport, produced no results.

I contacted the Canadian embassy in Beijing and found out that I needed to report my lost passport to the local police. They would give me a police report in English, and I had to appear personally in Beijing with that report and a copy of my birth certificate.

I have a small beef with the Canadian Ministry of Foreign Affairs here. Presumably my original passport application should be on file somewhere, and they shouldn't need any other documents to produce another. They can tell who I am by looking at the picture, and surely they could just courier the new passport to the police in Qingdao and get them to give it to me, checking my face against the photo at the same time. Alas, they need to make things difficult. Customer service has never been a strong point of any government. But I digress...

I set about trying to get a police report. I also knew I needed to register my residence in Qingdao with the local police. When you stay at a hotel, the hotel handles this for you, but since I was staying in a private apartment arranged by a friend, I had to take care of this myself.

Wandering around Qingdao, I stumbled across a small police station. I went inside and, with the help of my handy electronic dictionary, managed to communicate that I needed an official police report in English. The policeman was friendly, but had no idea how to get me what I needed. He drove me to a larger police station and, after much discussion with his superiors, decided that he would give me a letter in Chinese, and then I could get an official translation the next day at the main visa police station that deals with foreign affairs in Qingdao.

Eventually I left the station with a nice letter, handwritten in Chinese and stamped with a red police seal, and the address of the visa police where I might get a translation. I had also tried to ask about the residence registration, but somehow the concept eluded him. He just had no idea what I was talking about.

The next day I showed up at the visa police at Ningxia Road. Indeed, these people seemed much better equipped to deal with foreigners, at least at first glance. While nobody at the front desk spoke English, there was a woman who worked in an upstairs office who was able to communicate with me.

I explained that I needed an official police report in English in order to obtain my new passport. She obviously had never heard of this before, but she was able to get my letter translated to English. I asked about registering my residence, but she didn't seem to know anything about this.

So I had my official report, and I concluded that registering my residence must not be nearly as important as I had thought, since the police weren't familiar with the requirement.

It took about four weeks to get my birth certificate sent from Canada. Armed with this and my police reports, I made my way to Beijing on July 24th. I couldn't fly, since you need a passport to get on a plane, and I couldn't take the train, since it was tourist season in Qingdao and everything was fully booked. Instead I sat for 14 hours on a bus, unable to get up and go to the washroom because there were people sitting on little folding stools in aisle. I was grateful I had a real seat, although my back was pretty sore by the time we arrived at 5:00am on the 25th. I hung around at a 24-hour McDonalds until the embassy opened at 9:00am.

Karen, the woman at the consular section was very nice and seemed to have infinate patience. The place wasn't very busy, but the people who where there all seemed to take up a lot of time. I guess the consular section attracts a strange assortment of problems. My problem was that I didn't have a real police report. The letters that I'd gone to such trouble to obtain in Qingdao apparently weren't "offical" enough. I was advised to go the Beijing police and report my lost passport again. And I'd best not mention that I already made a report in Qingdao, or they might make me go back to Qingdao for the "official" report.

The police in Beijing seemed much more efficent than those in Qingdao. The people dealing with visas actually spoke English. They were a little disturbed that I'd apparently taken over a month to report my lost passport, but seemed satisfied when I told them that it took that long to get my birth certificate. I left an hour or so later with a more official looking piece of paper.

After a little more trouble trying to find references (I have no idea what they need those for), Karen finally seemed happy with my application. Her (I think) boss had to give me a short interview. I'm not sure what it was supposed to establish, but I told her the circumstances under which I lost my passport, and she seemed satisfied. I also had to explain why I had no other Canadian ID, like a driver's license, to prove my identity - I've been living in Finland for 5 years, and all my Canadian ID has expired. She was friendly, but I was a little put off when she sympathized with me for not "wanting" to live in "that place" (Canada). As a matter of fact I like Canada, and I do intend to go back eventually. (I'm just going from downtown Toronto to the Toronto Beaches by the scenic route - through Europe and Asia).

I was done at the embassy at 16:00 and managed to catch a 17:00 bus back Qingdao. For some reason the return trip took only 11 hours. In all my trip to the embassy in Beijing took 37 hours - 25 on the bus, 12 in Beijing itself.

Now it was just a matter of waiting for my passport, which I figured should be ready on August 15th, and arrive in Qingdao on about the 18th (Friday). By Monday the 21st nothing had arrived, and I sent an e-mail to the embassy inquiring about the status. Karen called me back the next day to tell me that there had been a small problem - the passport number I had given for the lost passport was incorrect. My passport would be delayed, but she would send it out by the end of the week.

In fact I didn't know my old passport number at all. The Beijing police had looked up the number in their records and included it in their report. I figured they made a mistake, and stopped worrying, for a few days at least. If the passport was sent on Friday, then it should arrive Tuesday.

Karen suggested that I should check with the police and make sure my visa could be processed quickly once I had my passport. I did so, and after I showed them my plane ticket for the morning of Sept. 1st, they assured me that the visa could be processed in one day.

Tuesday evening I mailed the embassy again. The passport hadn't arrived and I was getting really worried. I knew I still needed to return to the police to get a replacement visa, and my train for Beijing left Thursday afternoon. Karen mailed me back and told me she had sent the visa out on Monday, it should arrive today.

Nothing arrived Wednesday morning and I was starting to panic. I called Karen and got the tracking number for the courier company. I was able to find out that the package had arrived in Qingdao on Wednesday afternoon, and would be delivered on Thursday morning.

I realized there was no way I would make my Thursday afternoon train, and ordered an airline ticket for Friday morning. It would be pretty tight, but if the passport arrived Thursday morning, there might still be enough time to get the new visa from the police. I'd get up at 4:00am on Friday, catch my plane, arrive in Beijing at 8:55, and hope I could make it through Beijing arrivals and check-in in time for my 10:55 flight.

To make things go more smoothly, my Chinese teacher - Catherine - suggested that she would accompany me to the police to get all the paperwork filled out ahead of time. This is where things started to get Kafkaesque.

It seems that in the two months since I'd first visited the visa office in Qingdao, they'd discovered the need for offical police reports and registration of residence for foreignors. They were no longer interested in the police report the same office had originally helped me to obtain, but were satisfied with the "official" report I'd gotten in Beijing. More worrisome was that they needed my residence registration before I could get my visa. Either I'd spoken to the wrong people two months ago, or they'd recently gotten some training on this concept. I would need to go to the local police station in the neighbourhood where I live and finally register myself. No problem, I thought, it was only 10:30am and there was still time. Catherine advised me that I might need to pay a fine for not registering earlier, but I was prepared to pay.

Catherine helped me to find the small neighbourhood police station. It's great to have a Chinese guide for these things - I don't think any amount of wandering around the neighbourhood would have led me to find it on my own.

But nothing she could do would help in dealing with the neighbourhood police. They simply didn't know what to do with me, and the boss was incredibly rude. Unlike my experience months earlier, these police had indeed heard about the need for registration, but if they registered me now I would show up in their statistics as having lived in their neighbourhood without registering, and this would make them look bad. Worse, I didn't have any "proof" that I lived in the neighbourhood. They also didn't seem to have done this before, and kept calling other offices to determine the procedure. When they discovered that I didn't have a passport, this was the last straw. They decided there was nothing they could do for me and sent us packing.

Most of this interaction took place in Chinese between Catherine and the police, and I was a little stunned by the whole incident. If it had been just me I probably wouldn't have left so easily. But Catherine is used to being badly treated by the police, and accepted being shuffled out the door. Before I really know what was going on, we were on the sidewalk.

At this point I got a call from Becky, my friend who was waiting for my passport to be delivered. It had finally arrived, and we agreed to meet at a coffee shop at 13:30 so I could pick it up. It was lunch time, and we knew the visa police would be on break, so we ate something and tried to figure out what to do next. We thought that, if these people wouldn't register my residence, then perhaps I could go to a hotel and check in for one night. If I had my passport, the hotel might be able to register me.

We went to the coffee shop and I finally got my passport. (It turns out the number I had for my old passport - obtained from the Beijing police - was in fact correct, and the date on the package was Tuesday, not Monday.) We stayed there for a little while and Catherine made some calls. She finally concluded that the hotel couldn't help me because they would need to see my visa, which I didn't have. She also called the visa police, and they assured her that I really needed the residence registration or they couldn't give me a visa. We would have to go back to the rude neighbourhood police.

Partially because I was in fact getting furious, and partly because it seemed like the only way to get anything done, I took a more active role in the discussion this time. Catherine played "good cop", and I played crazy foreignor. The neighbourhood police still didn't want to register me, but after a lot of phone calls the chief finally told us that his superiors had fixed things. If I went back to the visa office now, they wouldn't require the registration. Relieved, we left at 15:30. Still no registration, but I now had my passport and an assurance that the processing would go smoothly. I should have gotten this in writing.

We arrived at the visa police at 16:00, one hour before closing, and had to wait in line for 20 minutes. The people behind the desk moved at a glacial speed, stopping frequently to get cups of water while customers queued. We finally got to speak to a clerk at 16:20, but she told us that she didn't know anything about my special exception from the registration requirement, and I would have to speak to her boss.

We were directed to the chief's office on the second floor. We went up, and I was promptly sent back downstairs. It seems foreignors aren't allowed out of the lobby. Catherine emerged three minutes later and told me the boss had told her he was very busy, and who had sent her up to him anyway? Now what do we do?

The rest is a little fuzzy, because a lot of things were happening at once. We were trying to get somebody to listen to us, and Catherine called the neighbourhood police and tried to get the chief there to talk to somebody here (which he refused to do). I also called Karen, my embassy contact, at least once. But I don't exactly remember the order of any of this.

I started to get a little agitated again, and started to walk back upstairs, only to be physically stopped by the doorman. It was now 16:40. What was going on? The boss would call down in a few minutes, they said. Sure enough, at 16:50 the boss calls and they hand the phone too me. I ask if he speaks English, and he promptly hangs up. Then he shouts down from upstairs and says he won't deal with my issue and I should leave. I call Karen at the embassy, and she's puzzled (I had notified her earlier that things looked like they were going ok). She asks to speak to somebody there herself so she can try to figure out what's going on. Just then the boss comes down, but he refuses to take the phone. He leaves and waits in his car outside for several minutes. Too busy to talk on the phone, but obviously has time to sit in the parking lot. After five minutes he drives off.

Now it's about 17:00 and people are packing up, lights are dimming, and things are getting quiet. Karen asks for the public number of the police station and tries calling, while I wait on the other line. No luck. They're no longer picking up the phone. There's nothing else to be done.

So here I am. No visa. No idea how I'm actually supposed to get a visa. My plane ticket home now worthless.

Karen said that she would call the visa police again as soon as they open in the morning. My best bet is probably obtaining some sort of lease agreement from the guy whose apartment I'm staying in - this would then be "proof" of my residence.

Looking back at my story, I think I've finally figured out the origin of the problem (aside from being foolish enough to lose my passport). The English speaking policewoman who was "helping" me two months ago didn't actually know anything, except how to speak English. Her colleagues surely knew about the "official" police reports for lost passports, and about how I could register my residence. But she had no clue, and couldn't be bothered to ask somebody who did. Now I'm in some sort of procedural black hole, and nobody wants to take responsibility for dealing with the problem.

I've never been very impressed with visa procedures from any country. Finland seems determined to keep good people out, Canada (at least from stories I heard years ago) is slow, Russia and India are just plain incompetant. But China has them all beat.