Chinese Bureaucracy!
Trip Start
Feb 25, 2006
1
114
148
Trip End
Jun 24, 2009
This past week has been a huge pain in my *ss. I had a bad feeling about getting a visa when I was reading about how hard a time people were having trying to get a China visa before the Olympics, but I wasn't nearly worried enough. I should have taken care of it in Singapore before I left. At least in a civilized society, you can negotiate or reason with the consulate. When I got to the Chinese Consulate in Kuching, they took one look at my passport and since it wasn't red like all the other Malaysians, they just said sorry, you can't get a visa from here. They said that I have to go back to the US to get a visa. For the first time in 2.5 years, I had proof of onward travel, hotel accommodation AND the events that I am supposed to attend at the Olympics and they still wouldn't give me a visa. Chinese bureaucracy! How the hell are you supposed to have a successful event if you won't let the bloody spectators in to witness the events? The Chinese government has been messing with me since even before I was born when the communist bast*rds chased my family out of China and took their fortune. As a result of their stupid new visa rules, I've been trapped in Kuching searching for a way to get a visa without having to go anywhere or send my passport back to the States. The main problem was that I had to work with people at Johnson and Johnson, the sponsor of my trip, 12 time zones behind me. Things seemed to be going well at first, until the woman I was working with decided to type thechineseguyYOUmet instead of just replying to my emails from thechineseguyUmet. We lost 2 days because I didn't get any emails from anyone at JnJ, but I still managed to ship my passport out by Friday afternoon after I called her and discovered the problem. Unfortunately, it will still take 2 weeks to get back to me if all goes well. I had made the decision to send it to DC after a customer service rep at Malaysian Airlines said that I could fly with only a drivers license but after I sent my passport, I checked with a few other people and they said no. I'm grounded for the next 2 weeks so I'm going to have to bus and boat it around Borneo while C flies to the places that I wanted to go. It's not so bad though because I probably would have done it the hard way anyway if C weren't with me.
Comments
accusation!
are you accusing me of being a DRAG???!!! remember, i'm the no-jungle-woman in the jungle!