Waiting Around (Part One)

After I made the decision to go to Guangzhou I knew it would be some time before I would get my visa and actually would be able to go to China, I just didn't know how long. When I first asked David, my new Foreign Affairs Department guy, the same job that Ma Ming and Teddy had at my previous two schools, when the semester would start he said something vague about the 1st of September. But in July when I asked him what was up he said that he was going on vacation soon and wouldn't be able to deal with the visa stuff until sometime in August. I would have been more worried about that but I dealt with the same dithering last year before going to Alaer. When mid-August rolled around and I hadn't heard anything from David I began to get worried. I tried e-mailing him but I didn't get any response. Finally I called him on his cell. He said that he was in his home town and he hadn't seen my e-mails because they didn't have the internet there, but that he would get back to his office in late August and could do the visa stuff then. He also entreated me to not worry about it.

When late August rolled around and still nothing I was getting worried again. My parents who are planning on moving to Beijing had rented there house from the beginning of September, though do to more Chinese visa nonsense they are still to this day in a hotel in DC, and I would have to move to a small hotel with them if I was still in the US on September 1st. On top of all that I was just bored. I didn't think that I was going to be home as long as I was and I ran out of stuff to do. I called David again he said that he was working on it but it would take some time for him to get the forms he needed form the government there. When September 1st came and went I moved into a hotel near GW with my parents. David also told me that the school didn't really start until mid-September, which is sort of true, so I shouldn't worry so much. This, of course, would have been nice to know a lot earlier. Finally in early September I got my visa papers from China, they actually had to be delivered to a family friends house since the renters were living in my parent's house.

I went down and used the papers to get an actual visa in only one day, the easiest part of the whole process, and bought a ticket for China. Unfortunately when I told David when I was arriving he said that it was a Chinese holiday so it would be tough to get someone to meet me. I was pretty annoyed but I was able to change the ticket to a few days later. The flight itself was long, DC to New York, New York to Hong Kong, and Hong Kong to Guangzhou, but I was just happy that I was finally going to China.