The Portfolios

Above you can see the reason that it takes so long to get a green card or a visa to America. This is the line of people waiting to apply for one or the other outside the US Consulate in Shanghai this morning. This line is there every morning. The people just keep on coming.

As an American citizen, I do not have to wait on this line. And as the wife of an American citizen, Yoyo is guaranteed eventual success in her bid for a US green card, unlike the majority of the people pictured above. However, because so many other people are married to Americans and waiting for green cards, there is a bureaucratic backup of approximately one year. Attention loved ones: this is a major reason I do not know when I will be returning to America. Please, for the love of God, stop asking me.

This morning I successfully filed the Petition on Behalf of an Alien Relative for Permanent Immigration to the US. The cost was $190 and many a red-tape hurdle. In fact, I should have filed it yesterday, but when I showed up to do so, I was presented with a brand new list of required documents, about half of which I did not have. So I had to come back today. And even though every document I’ve seen for the last year in my research, including the one handed to me yesterday, has said that the fee was $185, when I showed up today I was told that the fee had been raised. When I asked them if it had changed overnight, they said it had changed months ago. Why, then, was I given incorrect information just yesterday? “Oh, ” said the clerk, in a tone that suggested I should know better, “they never update those forms in Beijing.” It seems the Chinese method of bureaucracy is rubbing off on the American embassy. “Besides,” she continued, “it’s only five dollars.” I wanted to smack her.

Yoyo and I have a theory, one which is shared by many other applicants, and that is that the US government purposefully makes it as difficult as possible to obtain a visa so that many people will be put off by the whole thing and just give up. By making would-be immigrants jump through hurdle after hurdle of red tape, getting these documents, filing these forms, paying those fees, they will weed out thousands of people who just aren’t persistent enough to keep up, and thereby lighten their own load of paperwork. It makes sense. But it doesn’t really work. In China, there is no possible way the US government could design a course strenuous enough to put people off. Not a people who have seen 50 years of mind-numbingly ridiculous bureaucracy become the standard form of government. And it clearly doesn’t work in Latin America, either.

One other funny note about today was the amount of chops the Consulate used on all my forms. I swear, with the amount of stamping, inking, sealing and signing that was going on, I thought I had accidentally ended up at the Ministry of Adoption.

Yoyo’s birthday was on April 16 (Easter Sunday this year) and we celebrated with a weekend trip to Xitang, a “Water Town” on the outskirts of Shanghai. Water Towns are popular getaway destinations for urbanites and make good day trips or overnights. They get the name from being located on the many canals that connect (eventually, somewhere) to the Yangtze river.

Our trip began with a train ride out on Saturday morning that took about 90 minutes. Arriving in the city (technically a district of Shanghai) of Jiading, we caught a taxi to Xitang, about 10 minutes away. We were met outside the hospital by a man Yoyo had contacted to arrange a room. He led us into the official tourist town that is Xitang, where we had to purchase entrance tickets of 30 RMB each. Once inside, the man led us over a small walking bridge and down a narrow stone path along the canal to his house, where a woman I assume was a family member of his led us to our room: it was up a glorified ladder on an 80-degree angle to a small loft that looked like it might collapse at any moment. For this they wanted 150 RMB. This was not about to happen, so we thanked them and left in search of another room.

We walked back down the path, asking people if they had rooms. Quite a few places were full. These were not hotels or even hostels, but simply rooms in people’s houses. Finally we called into a room where a man was cooking lunch, and he said that he had one room available. It was quite nice, and he only wanted 130 RMB for it, so we took it, put our stuff inside, and went out for a walk.

There is pretty much nothing to do in a water town except walk, shop and eat. So that’s what we did. The tranquil scene was only slightly disturbed by the crowds, which were fairly large, but not as big as they might be next week during the national Labor Day holiday, and anyway not nearly as bad as any regular Shanghai street.

We were looking forward to the food in Xitang, but in fact it turned out to be kind of bland. Looking around the tables at every restaurant, it became clear that everyone ordered basically the same dishes: cold chicken, steamed fish, snails, and one or another vegetable. These proved less than exhilirating. The fish, especially, was rather insipid.

After lunch, we walked around a lot, admiring the canal from various spots. The bridges going over the canal tend to clog up as people stop for pictures. They inevitably have a tough time getting the shot because no one stops walking in between cameras and their subjects. This leads to a lot of grumbling as photos of loved ones sitting on the bridge are ruined by untimely passers-by.

The canal itself is troublesome for many reasons. There is a lot of trash in the water, even though guys on boats go around constantly scooping it out. And people can be seen everywhere using the river to wash vegetables, their hands, and their dishes. This is unhealthy even by the standards of visiting Chinese. I heard one woman say exactly what I was thinking as I watched a local ringing out her mop in the canal: Oh my, over here they’re washing vegetables, over there, they’re washing their mops! A man walking by then threw his lit cigarette into the water.

We decided to while away the afternoon playing cards and reading in a teahouse. After dinner we watched the boats offering rides on the water, which made for a pretty scene because of the red lanterns they carried. Unfortunately, I had left my camera in the room, thinking the opportunities for pictures were gone with the light. Scores of others had thought otherwise, and they lined the bridges and walkways, and even climbed over rooftops with their long lenses and tripods, in search of the perfect shot. With so many photographers jockeying for position, the serene quality that the canal was supposed to offer its guests instead took on the air of a White House press conference.

The next morning, Yoyo opened her gifts from me. I went for quality over quantity, and so she only had two to open: a set of new bath towels, made of high-quality Egyptian cotton (which Yoyo, who loves “useful presents” adored), and a gold heart locket necklace, which our friend Candice had tipped me off about. Yoyo had expressed a desire for this locket to Candice, who dutifully reported it to me. Earlier in the month I bought Yoyo a new mobile phone which, due to the malfunction of her old phone, had to be delivered two weeks ahead of time.

Having slept through breakfast-time, we went for noodles for breakfast. In China (though, admittedly, this is mainly a northern thing, while Yoyo is from the south), it is common to eat noodles on one’s birthday, as long noodles represent long life. We shared a bowl of especially good mian tiao, which had beef, fish, and eels in its sauce. Honestly, it was one of the best bowls of noodles I’ve ever had, and easily the best meal we had all weekend.

Then we were off and back to Shanghai on a bus, which was much faster than the train (as it was direct), though it was about three times the price. Back at the house, I fell asleep for a nap, and then we ordered Sichuan for delivery. Despite the shortcomings of Xitang, it was good to get out of the city for the weekend, and it was great to come back.

One of my favorite blogs is Banterist, a simple site written by a really funny guy in New York. Recently I checked in to see what was up and found that he is visiting Shanghai. He has only been here a few days and already he has created some of the funniest posts I’ve read about the city I call home. True, much has been written about bad taxi drivers in China, but I have yet to find anyone do it better than this. And for a general rundown on all things Shanghai, read this.