Home soon...

My visa ordeal was resolved yesterday in the most anti-climactic way possible. I went to a coffee shop and waited, while Karen from the Canadian embassy made phone calls on my behalf.

Karen discovered that what the visa people really needed wasn't so much registration, but some sort of evidence that I had really been in Qingdao for the past few months. (I still don't know what would happen if I couldn't show that - would I be stuck in China forever? Obviously some piece if the puzzle is still missing here.) The original police letter that I obtained just after I arrived in June is sufficient to show that I was really in Qingdao, and I did really contact the authorities.

So Friday afternoon I returned to the visa police with exactly the same documents I had had the day before. I went alone this time, and this might actually have been an advantage, since they couldn't give Catherine the brush-off in Chinese, and were compelled to speak to Karen when I handed them my phone. Karen talked to the woman at the information desk. I don't know what she said, but she spoke for at least a couple of minutes non-stop while the policewoman just listened and then directed me to one of the queues.

After another 20 minute wait, I was again in front of a clerk, but this one actually spoke a reasonable amount of English. He asked me again for the registration, and I told him that my embassy had spoken to his superiors and determined that I had everything I needed right here. He didn't seem to entirely agree, but he didn't want to talk Karen, and obviously thought it would be less hassle to just give me my visa. He disappeared with my passport, and when he returned five minutes later the visa was there. Just like that.

So if it was that easy, why couldn't they just do the same thing Thursday and saved me 1000 Euros of airfare, and themselves a lot of aggrevation? I'll never know. Obviously the clerk Thursday was having a bad day, or just had a permanent bad attitude.

I'm trying to look on the bright side of this whole thing, and I must say that I know understand the frustration of a lot of Chinese people at a much deeper level than I could ever have understood just by talking to them and asking questions.

I asked Catherine the other day what she thought of Mao. The feelings of the Chinese people toward this iconic figure continue to puzzle me, but she and my experience with the police have shed some light on the issue. For all the madness of the cultural revolution, Mao was still the one who freed China from imperial rule, both by the Chinese emperors and the Japanese. And under Mao people felt the government was there to help them. People could go to local officials with their problems and know that the officials would do their best to help.

After Mao the promise of prosperity is being fulfilled by rolling back virtually all of Mao's work. And the Chinese people, by any objective measure, are a thousand times better off. But now the government is no longer the friend of the common people. The government and its organs (like the police) are widely seen as corrupt and self-serving.

I have to think a little more about this, and certainly talk to some more people, but this might explain why people here still seem to respect Mao, even as they embrace everything he opposed.

I'm off to Beijing tomorrow evening, and flying back to Helsinki Tuesday morning. Tommorow morning I'll try to see if I can send Karen some flowers.