All right, I've bitched here often and at length about my visa to China; every month when I go to Shenzhen it seems like the Chinese government is just rubbing it in my face and laughing.

But of course, there's a flip side to everything.

I'm planning on going back to the US in late May for a few weeks, to attend a wedding (hi, Ryan and Katie), visit some friends, eat pizza and burritos until it hurts, and hopefully take care of some business while I'm there.

I was hoping -- still am, actually -- that Jing Jing would be able to come with me. Aside from work, studies, and money, there was the question of getting a tourist visa for her to the U.S. After looking at the application process for U.S. tourist visas for Chinese citizens, there's still hope, but I'm extraordinarily discouraged.

Let's do a little comparison here. For my Chinese visa, which I thought was kind of a pain in the ass, I had to:

• Fill out a short form at Gobal Express -- my travel agent in Mountain View, CA (hi, Tina).
• Pay about $130 in fees.
• Wait about a week.

Now, for a Chinese citizen applying for a US tourist visa:

• Make an Appointment for the Interview & Appointment Wait Times.
  • That's right, you need to go to an interview. And you can't just make a call to the interviewer or go to your friendly local police station or whatever, you have to show up in person and wait in line, typically all day for a 3-minute interview. From what I've seen, you have to go to a major city with strong diplomatic ties to the US -- Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu, and Guangzhou seem to be the only ones on the list. The Wuhan embassy's website states that they handle neither Visa Services nor US Citizen's Services, which kind of leads me to ask the question: what are we paying them for?
• Pay the Application Fee.
  • According to the embassy's website, the current fee is 904RMB, which converts to about $130, if you use a particularly crappy exchange rate.
  • Let's put this into perspective though. A friend of mine in Wuhan rents an apartment with her mother in the non-ritzy but non-shitty part of Hankou. It's 2 bedrooms, comes fully furnished including a television, and costs 600RMB per month. A typical salary for an entry-level job in a town like Wuhan (teachers, hotel staff, young professionals) is around 1000RMB per month. So you're looking at nearly a months' salary, or a month a half's rent, just to apply for a visa that has about a 24.5% rejection rate (for reference, North Korea's visa rejection rate is 26.9%  -- bizarrely, Canada's is 25.5%).
• Prepare an Appropriate Photo.
• Fill in the Online Visa Application Form (DS-160).
  • This is a 16-page online-only document that must be completed on the embassy's website (which is unstable, prone to crashing, and has a 20-minute timeout which cancels all progress).
  • Also note, the application must be completed entirely in English, except for one form field.
• Gather the Required Documents.
  • This includes the application form, a receipt for the fee payment, a passport, a photo, ANY previous passports containing ALL previous US visas, even if expired, and ... this is the fun part... "supporting documents."
    • The supporting documents mentioned are basically anything that can prove or support that you intend to come back to China after your trip, and seem basically random. Pay stubs, bank statements, a resume (in English... naturally), any other "proof" of personal or professional relationships in China that will convince you to come back.
    • Not to mention you have to prove that you have the financial ability to go there and come back, and pay your way while over there... and this can't just be a sack of cash or a bank receipt, you apparently have to prove a history of having this much available money.
• Appear for the Interview.
• Arrange for Visa/Passport Return through China Post.

From what I've heard, the process takes a month at minimum.

If all that seems kind of excessive, that's because it is. It is, in my opinion, balls-out insane, and way out of reach for the vast majority of Chinese. Which, I guess, is kind of the point. It also seems kind of arrogant that the application can only be completed in English, and by all reports speaking good English helps your chances immeasurably during the interview process. This just seems unnecessary and spiteful. I'm sure there are practical reasons for it, but honestly -- how hard would it be to hire bilingual staff at the consulates?

A Chinese friend of mine here said that mostly it's the Chinese government trying to keep people here in China, but I'm not sure how the Chinese government manages to dictate U.S. consulate policy.

Aside from political tension, there are probably plenty of good reasons for the process being such a pain in the ass, but from this perspective it's kind of hard to see them. I've always heard that U.S. immigration policy is like a bad practical joke, but I've never actually had a good look at it from the outside.

It makes my monthly overnighter to Shenzhen pale by comparison.