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We received the official letter from the Consulate, instructing Ms.P to return to their Guangzhou office anytime, “Monday to Wednesday, 2pm – 3pm”. Huge window there. So she has booked a flight for next Monday. I will stay home this time to save a little cash on flights. I really think this could be it.

It’s frustrating, though, because the letter, like the email, does not clearly say whether she will be granted a visa or not. I pointed out that we know for a fact any applicant who is granted an immigrant visa must be in Guangzhou in person with their passport to have it stamped, and then pick it up from the post office 1-2 days later. So that would seem to indicate she has passed. But she countered that maybe they have called her down there merely to retrieve the many documents of hers that they held onto, such as our marriage certificate, because they didn’t want to send them in the mail. Perhaps – but I think it would be awfully cruel of them to make her fly to Guangzhou just to be denied in person. I had hoped they would at least give us the truth in the mail and offer us the opportunity to pick up our docs in person or have them shipped.

But one can’t trust the immigration authorities to do anything one might consider civil or logical. After the ordeal one must go through to have his wife admitted to his own country – to have his rights honored by his own government, that is – one learns to withhold all the subconscious assumptions one would usually extend to normal social relations. In other words, one learns never to trust.

So that I may end on a happy note, here is a picture of us from a great party last weekend, taken by our friend, professional photographer Charlie Xia.

Visit Charlie’s site and hire him to do work. He’s awesome.

Meanwhile, we will be hoping and praying that our ship has come in.

Yesterday I sent an email to the consulate asking them when we would hear some info. So here I am working at the office, just off the holiday, when my Gmail notifier pops up this beauty:

From: Guangzhou Consulate Immigration Affairs
Thank you for your inquiry! We just sent out a notice on 5/7/07 to Ms.P  to inform her…

Aaaaa! What does it say??? I dropped everything and rushed to my inbox to read the full message:

…to come to this office for continued processing. Ms. P  should expect the mail within the next two weeks. Please advise Ms. P to follow the intructions on the notice when she receive it.

Aaaaaa! What does that mean???? I want to reach through the computer and scream, Just give me a YES or NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hysterics aside, it does sound good. We know that, if approved, she has to go to Guangzhou to have her passport stamped. It seems unlikely that they would make her fly to Guangzhou to be denied in person. Our hearts are racing – it’s nerve-wracking!
I relayed this to Dave online, who donated the following hilarious scenario:

She needs to travel to India…. find the mountain which is touched by the crescent moon… there she will find the magic rocks… which will be guarded by ENDOR the gatekeeper…. she should then steal the rocks and bring them back to the consulate…. where she will wait in line

At this point, I am ready to believe anything.

“You may enter,” says ENDOR

We were up in Beijing for the Labor Day holiday, and it was six days of relaxation and partying. Xianyi and I finally visited the Forbidden City together, although we failed (again) to find our way to the Great Wall. We were just too busy sleeping in each day to bother making the 2-3 hour trip. Anyway, the wall’s not going anywhere. And one of the cool things about Beijing is that you don’t have to go far to see really cool traditional Chinese architecture. The above picture, for example, was taken during our last hour in the city, when I asked the taxi driver to pull over for a minute as we drove to the train station.

The highlight of the trip was the MIDI Festival, China’s only outdoor rock festival. We spent one of our days at the four-day show and had a great time. Probably should have gone on other days, too, but it just didn’t work out. While there, we saw a lot of bands, none of whom I was familiar with. But I wasn’t really there for the music, more for the atmosphere. Here you have ten to twenty thousand young Chinese gathering in Beijing’s Haidian Park just hanging out, listening to music, drinking beer and selling wares. Lots of food stalls, people selling t-shirts and handmade goods, and plenty of cheap, cold beer. It was awesome!

Here was one of the bands I saw, no idea who they are.

Some punks in the crowd.

Mostly I spent the hours skating on the mini-ramp that Eli’s company had set up on the grounds. I fell down about 20 times but it was great to watch some of the guys there who really knew what was up, like this Swedish dude:

I was having so much fun skating, I pretty much missed all the bands. But we could hear lots of music, so that was all that mattered.

Here I am looking like maybe I know what I’m doing. To see what actually happened, click here. It’s pretty funny.