A Day in Shanghai

I live in the Bin Jiang District of Hangzhou. But don’t tell China. According to China, I am now officially a resident of Shanghai.

In order to apply for an F type visa (a business visa), you must register as having residency in the same city as the business that employs you. Technically, I am not employed by the business, but by the head of the corporation himself in order to teach his daughter and niece. But no matter; this is a minor detail.

I took the 11:00 am train to Shanghai this morning. It takes about an hour and a half to get there from Hangzhou. Lucy and I thought we’d leave the apartment at 8:00 am, in case we could get an earlier train, but it was sold out. So, we waited at the Hangzhou train station for two hours. Luckily, I had brought a book with me. Several chapters later, it was time to board.

We were fortunate enough to grab a soft seat. On my previous Shanghai-Hangzhou train experience, I was forced to stand for the duration of the ride. This time, I sat back and continued to read my book. The only distraction was a four-foot middle-aged woman sitting diagonally across from me who proceeded to suck back some fried rice. I read the same sentence several times, trying to mentally drown out the sound of the food traveling from one side of her jaw to the other.

When we arrived in Shanghai, I was amazed to see the sunshine. I had only been to Shanghai once, upon arriving in China. That day was extraordinarily smoggy, just as I had been warned. No one had ever reported sunshine from Shanghai. It was beautiful and it immediately put me in a better mood.

A taxi drove us to a hair salon in a Korean neighborhood where we met Lucy’s friend and boyfriend, who told us where we could go to register as a resident of Shanghai. One form from this building, another from that building, two signatures here, five copies of your passport there, and I was finally registered. Now to apply for the business visa.

The headquarters for the company at which I was supposedly employed were on the third floor of a building not too far from the train station. A worker took my passport and all my documents and paperwork when I entered. I frightened a few fish in the hallway aquarium and watched a 50-year-old Korean managing director chain smoke while talking about his two children. We made idle conversation for a few hours while I waited for who-knows-what.

Whenever I meet the duty officer – and who knows when that will be? – I am instructed to tell him that I am an English translator for a dental company in Shanghai. According to China, I was hired to train engineers how to write professional business documents in English.

After getting our story straight and making sure I knew what the deal was, Lucy and I left Shanghai to return to Hangzhou and our students waiting for us back in Bin Jiang at the apartment. It was a long day, but I shot a few good photographs and got out of town for a few hours.

So, my passport is in Shanghai, on its way to apply for a business visa that will hopefully last me 90 days. We will find out on Friday if it was successful.

I’ve said it before: nothing in China is simple.