Yue’s Yappings

With no credit card, no cash and no key to my parent’s apartment I had to spend the night with my friend Jane at her tiny apartment in Shanghai. I got up early this morning to rush to the American Embassy. As always, there is a long line of people wrapped around the building trying to get US Visas. I was told the success rate for Chinese citizens is about 5%.

Waving a photo copy of my US Passport and Colorado Drivers license, the guard let me in right away. I was led to a meeting room where only US citizen are allowed. An American girl in her 20s greeted me. After I explained my situation, she asked if I had filed a police report. I told her that I hadn’t and that the incident happened in Hangzhou. Unfortunately, I don’t have time to go back Hangzhou to file a report. She showed no sympathy and told me it’s policy. Without a police report I can’t get a temporary passport.

Hangzhou is a two hour train ride away. I called my friend Xuan Yulong who lives in Hangzhou and asked him try and get a police report for me. When he showed up at the Hangzhou police station, the police asked him for a copy of a Power of Attorney to prove that he represented me. I quickly wrote one up, in English and Chinese, and faxed it to the Hangzhou police station. They then released a report and statement, which Xuan Yulong faxed back to me in Shanghai.

I took the police report back to the American Embassy. This time, a young man greeted me. When I showed him the copy of my passport and the police report, he told me that they could issue an temporary passport overnight, but I needed two 2×2 passport photos. By this time it was 3:20 pm and the embassy closes at 3:30. However, he was gracious enough to let me run out and get passport photos and come back immediately.

So I ran out of the US Embassy and looked for a passport photo place. I finally found one, but there was a group of girls who were taking glamour shots in front of me. After I explained my situation, they were nice enough to let me take my photos immediately. I took the photos and ran back to US Embassy. By this time, the Embassy was closed and of course the guard told me to come back tomorrow. After I explained to him that I was told to come back with a photo he let me back in.

This time, a Chinese girl greeted me. After she reviewed my documents, she said that the police report wasn’t enough. I also needed an official report from the China Customs office in Hangzhou.

Grrr. So I call my friend in Hangzhou again. He went to the China Customs office and filed another report for me. More problems of course. The Hangzhou China Customs office requires a visa photo in order to release reports, which would require me to take another set of photos and send them to Hangzhou. At this point, I am about to explode.

I pled my case and asked for special consideration. The man at the Hangzhou custom office finally relents and releases the report without the photo. My friend then took the report to the China post office and sent it to Shanghai - I hope to receive it tomorrow. Then we’ll see what bureaucratic challenges tomorrow brings.

Moral of the story - don’t have your passport stolen.