inefficiency

It’s the time of the year again that my visa is up for renewal. I waited as long as possible for it to change, because each year they tend to “steal” a couple of days from me and since next year I will be very busy with my homestay project, I don’t want to have to change my visa during the Olympics…

The working permit always goes first and with that in hand the passport can receive a new sticker for a year residency. The secretary of the firm does all that so I only have to stand in line on pick-up day, next week Sept. 13.

Now here comes the problem.

My current resident permit is valid until September 10. In a normal bureaucratic system one would say “no worries”, because my passport is already at the official bureau, so the three days “without official residency” are covered.

Not in China.

What I have to do now, is to go with my current residency paper to the local police station to ask for an extension.

Probably they’re gonna give me 3 days and then after that I can go back again with the new residence permit to receive another year.

Insanity indeed, complete waste of time of everyone involved in this process too!

And next year they want each and every of the 500,000 foreigners pouring into town to go through procedures like this?

Good Luck Beijing!