An interesting story was narrated to me today. Interesting not so much for its content, which was admittedly a rather common framework of a story, but for the reader, and the context in which it was delivered. The story went something like this:

Some time during the Japanese invasion of southern China, a young Chinese villager, Xiao Er (lit. “Little Two”), is taking care of his family’s two water buffalo. During an uncharacteristic fit of unwatchfulness, the bulls escape his care and run off into the woods near the village.

Xiao Er, ever mindful of his duty, treks off into the woods in search of the wayward animals. Unluckily, rather than the buffalo, he happens upon a Japanese patrol, which spots him and starts harassing him. Just at the point where they’ve decided to impale him upon their bayonets, a Chinese army patrol spots them and promptly charges, killing the Japanese soldiers and saving the day.

I think we can all admit, it’s a fairly common story of this type, and unlikely to win any points for originality. What struck me, though, was that the person who read the story to me was my friend’s seven-year-old daughter, and the book from which she was reading was one of her Chinese language primers. Complete with illustrations of Japanese soldiers poking Xiao Er with their bayonets, and valiant Chinese soldiers (complete with red armbands) blowing the brains out of their Japanese counterparts, it was a startlingly blunt example of xenophobic propaganda.

After reciting this story to me, this little girl beams up at me and says, “See? You guys lost! Again!”

I was speechless.

As Americans, we got things like Peter Pan, Little Red Riding Hood, and G.I. Joe. I guess the only real difference here is that our marketing was more subtle. Whereas the feared “Other” in our stories was a falsetto-voiced supervillain in a skin-tight bodysuit, a talking wolf in a nightdress, or Dustin Hoffman in a wig — wait a sec… were we just being taught to fear cross-dressers? –  this story (and I can only assume others, in similar primers) kind of clubs you in the face by stripping away all the metaphors (and the G rating).

Although, when I think about it, the only difference between a story and political propaganda/commentary is just that… the degree of abstraction. An American story about a never-ending war in a far-flung Asian country is quite obviously about Vietnam, whereas put that story in SPACE, and you get Starship Troopers (no, not the movie)… or The Forever War.

I can’t speak for her classmates, or her contemporaries all across the country, but after a few gently probing questions, I’m fairly confident that little — if any — of that propaganda has really sunk in. For her, these are just a series of stories. They’re somewhat more relatable and have some more visceral… spice… because of the common history (however remote), but they’re still just stories.

It just strikes a strange, dissonant note to have this little girl read such a thoroughly jingoistic story to me with obvious enjoyment, make that kind of “us versus them” comment, then turn around a minute later and beg the German volunteer at the front desk to give her a piggy-back ride to the kitchen to make her some spaghetti.

Yup… multinationalism is here to stay, whether the school system likes it or not.

Also:
A painting of me from Molly; a clay teapot/cups set from XiXi; lunch, dinner, a couple cakes, and a Benchmade knife from Yang Guang (as she put it, “well yeah, obviously it’s fake, but what do you need to do besides peel apples?”); a paper crown from Yang Guang’s daughter Cloris; a “Van Gogh” photo album from Lucky; two giant teddy bears from YingYing (not sure what that’s all about); a Tupperware cup from Man Ni and Huang; one as-yet-unopened gift from ShiTou and ZhangLiang; a little knit-bag thingy (that she just made) from Xiao Fang; and a belt and a set of Rollies from Jing Jing.

They kind of went overboard over here; but as much as I can’t get used to getting presents, I have to admit this was a pretty good 31st.

Dammit, I’m old.

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.

It’s only 2:30pm, and I already feel like I’ve had a long day. Arriving in Shenzhen this morning at 7:20 on the night train from Wuhan, I cheerfully crossed the border into Hong Kong, did my business, and came right back.

Crossing the border itself is something of an unsettling experience, something I noticed the first time I visited Hong Kong from the mainland (that time making the crossing by bus).

It felt very much like walking through a mirror; on China’s side of the border, I disembarked from my bus on the right side, then walked up to the Chinese border controls. Greeted entirely by pretty girls wearing dark blue uniforms, white caps, and almost universally grim expressions, I was guided to a lane marked “Foreigners,” and ushered through the gates quickly and efficiently.

Ahead of me, through the No-Man’s-Land, was the Hong Kong border controls. I was directed to series of lanes marked “Foreign Guests” — a significant, if not literal, distinction — which were all staffed by men in their thirties, dressed in crisp white uniforms with dark blue caps. Smiles weren’t exactly abundant there, either, but they seemed somewhat less grudgingly given. Once I was checked through (again, efficiently), I walked out to the parking lot and boarded my bus… from the left side.

The distinctions don’t stop there, but they get even more boring, so I’ll spare you the details. Suffice it to say, Hong Kong seems vastly different from neighbouring Shenzhen and mainland China in general — and at least for emigration/visa purposes, it is still a different country altogether.

This brings up the reason why I’m in Shenzhen today, when I’d rather be getting some work done, writing a different weblog entry, or (and this is very much more likely) massacring zombies in Wuhan. Thanks to the comparatively frosty relations between China and the U.S., my visa is good for a year, but only allows me to stay in the country for 30 days at a time. Fine for a vacation or even a backpacking trip, but things get a little more complicated if you want to stay here a little longer, like me. It boils down to requiring me to exit and re-enter mainland China every 30 days.

Fun.

Wuhan being in central China, the options for convenient exit/re-entry are limited at best, and when you add in the fact that I’d like to do it on the cheap, that just leaves Hong Kong. After a trial run by air which proved to be a huge and expensive hassle, I figured out that the most efficient way was to take a night train to Shenzhen, walk across the border to Hong Kong from Shenzhen station, walk back into Shenzhen, spend the day in Shenzhen proper, and then take the night train back to Wuhan. Total cost: about 500RMB/$73, cab fare to and from the Wuhan train station, plus a day’s entertainment and some duty-free liquor and candy.

With the timing of the trains and my bowels as they are, I essentially pay $75 a month to take a dump on Hong Kong.

This is my third trip out. The last two times I’ve done this, I’ve had other things to occupy my time — getting ripped off for a camera in Kowloon, meeting an uncle in Shenzhen — but this time I figured I’d have a nice, relaxing day off. I’d bring my laptop, spend a little time in a cafe somewhere writing and/or killing zombies, have a little dim sum and maybe a massage before hopping my train back.

Yeah… not so much.

First, the massage. There were plenty to be had. In fact, I couldn’t walk more than two steps within a three-block radius of the train station without being offered one in sotto voce, usually by a woman, while having a sheaf of photos of semi-nude “masseuses” waved at me.

I quickly learned the effectiveness of the “talk to the hand” gesture. You can say “No!” as many times as you want, they’ll still follow you for a block or so, yammering about how hot their masseuses are the whole way. But one “talk to the hand” and boom… peace and quiet.

Still, it only took being confronted by about five of these women before I became heartily sick of the idea of massages altogether, and fled to the relative safety of a McDonald’s.

So that was lunch. At 11am. After a double cheeseburger and Coke, I took a deep breath, charged out through the throngs of flesh merchants, and took refuge in an eerily empty mall, where I wandered around aimlessly for about half an hour before being told it was actually a housing development, and could I please leave because I was probably disturbing the residents.

Red-faced, I headed back out to the street, where I explored a couple alleyways, quickly turning back to the main roads every time because they were all jammed with massage touts, I suppose on their lunch break.

Now, after about an hour and a half of that, I’m back at the train station sitting in a Japanese fast-food noodle shop because they have wi-fi, and filling up on barley tea and Aleve because the trains idling three floors are making the entire building tremble, giving me a headache and making me nauseous. So much for the dim sum.

I should do a little planning next time.

I’m coming up on 30 days in China — I know this, because I’m about to go to Hong Kong on my monthly visa pilgrimage — and one thing I’ve learned about myself, is that I can get used to much more than I originally thought. I have no doubt that many aspects of my life here would be strange, and probably more than a little gross, to almost everyone I know back in the States — including myself, were it not for the last few weeks.

For instance, I haven’t used (nor seen) a western style toilet in about 3 weeks, ever since the one toilet here was plugged one too many times (not my fault, honest). The cleaning staff, sick of having to fix it without a plunger, took the logical step of padlocking the stall shut.

One might wonder why they didn’t just go buy a plunger, but this would be missing the essentially Chinese nature of this solution: it’s immediately effective, simple, free, saves you hassle down the road, and doesn’t involve going across the street to the supermarket. The fact that others may be inconvenienced can be dealt with later, if and when they complain.

As far as the process itself goes, I’ll admit there’s a certain visceral quality to using a squat toilet as opposed to a Western style toilet. With a little balance, practice, and good aim, you eventually start hitting the poop flap dead-on. There’s a gratifying little “thwap” sound, the plastic cover springs back into place, and you don’t have a turd staring back at you for the rest of your visit, which can only be considered a plus.

The standard of hygiene in kitchens here is undeniably lower than what I was used to in the US, even considering the fairly lackluster way I took care of mine. I haven’t actually seen any physical repercussions yet, and oddly enough I don’t really expect to. Lately, most of my meals have been home-cooked in Jing Jing’s apartment — we’ve started a you-cook-one, I-cook-one rotation — and this has given me an up close and personal look at how typical (lower?) middle-class kitchens operate in Wuhan.

It’s been an interesting experience, and there are a few things that I’ve decided absolutely had to change, but it’s still an incredibly remote departure from what I’m used to.

Most of the things I normally identify with a kitchen are nowhere in evidence here; there’s no fridge, freezer, microwave, dishwasher, hot-water tap, disposal, stove, or oven. There’s one cutting board and one knife, neither of which are typically scrubbed between cutting meat, fish, and vegetables (unless I’m doing the cutting, anyway). Initially, there weren’t even any cups, bowls, or plates, but Man Ni and I fixed that with a trip to the local department store.

All of the cooking (aside from the rice cooker) is done with a flat-bottom wok on an electric hot plate, which is actually shockingly effective, and far more responsive than any gas or electric stove I’ve used before. It’s also surprisingly versatile; with this setup we’ve made braised pork, fried fish, oatmeal, soups, noodles (fried and in soup), fried rice, sweet potato fries,  omelets, and a huge variety of Chinese dishes that in English essentially just become different kinds of stir-fry, which glosses over the bewildering array of techniques I’ve already seen used.

Not having a fridge means that we’re often sniffing leftovers, seeing if they’re still okay to eat. One point of contention between me and Jing Jing is our individual interpretation of when something’s gone bad. We spent about twenty minutes one night chopping, frying, braising, and stewing before she would admit, much to my relief, that the pork spareribs we were trying to cook had long passed the point of edibility.

It eventually struck me that this, really, is “greener,” more sustainable living. We talk about triple-paned windows, recirculating air conditioning, and solar water heaters, but in the end, for most of the world what it really comes down to is doing without. That essentially means you live closer to the outdoors; your food spoils faster, your home is colder in the winter and hotter in the summer, and the timing of your showers often depends as much on the schedule of the water heater as your own. It also means you’ll see more poo, eat wilted greens, and start making distinctions between “spoiled” and “too spoiled to eat.”

Despite all this, or perhaps even because of it, I haven’t had a single regret about coming here. Yes, there have been difficulties; poop and rotten food aside, there are my visa hassles, the sub-zero weather, social drama, and of course I miss my family and friends Stateside.

But there are always compensations.

It might be two degrees below, but the scarf Tan Yin gave me keeps my ears and neck warm. I have to board a train or flight to Shenzhen every month to step across the Hong Kong border for my exit/entry stamp, but this gives me a chance to connect — for the first time, really — with an enormous extended family I barely even knew existed. I may struggle with the occasional social difficulty, but through it all Jing Jing and Yang Guang are there to knock me back on track. And I may feel homesick once in a while, but there’s the sure knowledge that my friends and family in the U.S. will always be my friends and family.

But my god, do I want a carne asada burrito.