PSB Fun

PSB stands for Public Security Bureau and it is the big scary official looking place we foreigners must visit to get visa extensions. It is especially scary if you know that you are in a country illegally and hoping that no one notices, which I am. Cross your fingers I don't get deported!

What I mean by "illegal" is simply that I'm not doing in this country what my visa says I'm doing. I'm here on visa type L = ordinary, or tourist visa. Under visa type L, I am not allowed to attend an institution of education or partake in any money making endeavors, such as working. Woops! My Beijing school didn't send me my official letter of invitation and my company here in Kunming doesn't have a permit to issue an intern a business visa, which means it really shouldn't have a foreigner interning for it at all. (You all will be relieved to hear that blogs are blocked in China, so no one in the country can actually read this).

The plot thickens. Last week, I'm desperately trying to find a way to get my visa extended since I don't plan on leaving for Hong Kong until about 4 days AFTER my expiration date (I feel somewhat like a commercially sold piece of produce). I have heard that Kunming won't issue extensions and that you have to go to Dali or Lijiang for such services, but this poses the problem in the way of work. If a PSB office is only open during the week, and it takes 3-5 business days to process a visa extension application, that’s a whole week away from work. So I call the Kunming PSB office and talk to a very nice man who speaks English (in all my dealings with the Kunming PSB, I've only ever once found someone who spoke English). He tells me that I can get the extension (so all the worrying was for nothing!) and that I don't even need a residence permit (something I never got - could get, didn't, adds to the illegality of my situation) as long as I am staying in a hotel. Great. So I trek over to the PSB during my lunch break one day, passport in hand. I made copies of my passport on the way because it is always good to have at least a copy on hand.

Problem #1 - apparently they require copies of your passport as well as the actual passport. Luckily I had the copies, but that left me empty-handed.
Problem #2 - they wanted the name and room number of my hotel. I write down Camilla Hotel, a popular hostel among travelers, and then claim that I can't remember my room number and my friend has my key, so I call Ben. "Hi Ben. I was just wondering, what is our room number at the Camilla Hotel? I'm AT THE PSB AND SEEM TO HAVE FORGOTTEN" Luckily, Ben is not as dense as he sometimes appears and figures it out. The reason I had to call Ben at all is because I don't know how the room numbers work at the Camilla Hotel and didn't want to put down a room number that didn't exist, like 3A. Ben doesn't know either, but he somehow he knows that the Green Lake Hotel has a room number 518. So I tell the officers I made a mistake, I’m actually staying at a different hotel. I cross out Camilla Hotel and write in Green Lake. This HAD to look suspicious. I turn in the form and my passport, get my receipt, and walk away thanking whatever higher being stepped in and saw to it that I was not asked to show my room key, and praying that the PSB doesn't actually call the hotel to confirm temporary residence.
Problem #3 - I lose the receipt. I don't even realize until I'm in the taxi on the way back to the PSB 5 days later. I have the cab turn around and take me home. I look everywhere, but to no avail. I tried calling the PSB again, but this time no English speakers came to my rescue and even with the aid of my electronic translator, the phone conversation is slow and bumby at best and the man was none too understanding.

So I returned today ever so timidly. I'm working illegally in this country. I don't have a residence permit. I am lying about the hotel that I am at. I have no receipt or proof that the passport is even mine, especially considering they took away my photo copies and the picture in the passport is from when I was 13. As of yesterday, my visa officially ran up, so I don't really want to think about what would happen if my attempt to obtain this extension failed (deportation? hefty fines? PRISON?). And finally, I needed my passport to get to Hong Kong on Friday to see my mother. In short, it was not a good situation.

Miraculously, nothing went wrong. After explaining exhaustively that I didn't have my receipt, no it wasn't at home, and no my friend didn't have it, they hand wrote a new one for me, let me pay for the extension, take my passport, and go. Hurrah!! There is only one tiny little problem left to deal with. I found out a day or two ago that visas and extensions will not be issued into a passport with less than 6 months remaining on it. My passport expires on October 14, 2006 - about 6 1/2 months away. So I might be returning to the US a little earlier than expected. Hopefully that return will happen under my own free will (not being deported), and I will have escaped without visiting Chinese prison or paying any hefty fines.

NOTE: I chose to wait to talk about this until AFTER everything worked itself out for the sake of my mother, who doesn't even read this anyway because she is still having a hard time coming to grips with the fact that I'm in this far away country in the first place.