We’ve all heard that getting a visa for the Middle Kingdom ain’t as simple as it used to be. I’m sure The Boys have their reasons for making things difficult for the waiguoren (side-note: the Nigerian drug-dealers are still knocking around town) but the illogical way in which the authorities are going about this is now starting to gall me. 

Fake round trip tickets out of and back into Hong Kong? Bogus mainland hotel confirmations? These are recently tried and proven ways to get around the silly rules, but I’ve decided that I won’t play that game. 

As Zhongnanhai pointed out earlier (and one that I personally found particularly informative, given that my F-class visa expires next month), I might have to show bank details and letters from a non-existent employer in my home country to qualify for a 30-day stay on the Chinese mainland. Or is that Mainland China? These days I often forget. Well, whatever you want to call it, I’d say the boys in AmCham, etc, are vexed, the Shenzhen/Hong Kong-based ones in particular. 

But let me get back to my own woes for a minute. Saddest thing about this whole circus-act is, I am actually married to a Chinese citizen. We will be celebrating five years of marriage (pewter?) in November. Therefore I should by all the laws easily qualify for a year-long L-class visa, as I “visit my Chinese family” while earning a small fortune working on the black. 

But no. 

Because my visa is an F-er (pun completely unintended) the authorities in the capital say they cannot change its status, and I have to go to the other “System” to have that done. And, this is the beauty: If I go there, I’ll really have to start lying.  

If I’m not carrying proof of exit from the “One Country”, or at least a return ticket to the second system, plus evidence of a hotel booking for my 20 to 30 day stay, even the mighty Liu Xiang would fail to get my visa application past the first hurdle. These days, though, them be the rules. 

However, in practice/reality/screwed-up politically-disoriented nations, all I would actually have to do to get around this irritation would be to log onto e-long.com, book a room in some cockroach-infested slum that doesn’t have a verifone or any other means of grabbing my credit card details, and I’ll get the booking sheet, gratis. It would be sent to me via email, all official looking and on company headed paper, and duly cancelled within an hour of printing. Same deal with the flights. I’d say the folks at e-long & Co. are at this stage getting a bit pissed with this increasingly frequent scenario. 

But this time, I’ve decided to stick one up at the Middle Kingdom – instead, I shall be booking a flight to my native city. I am not going to jump through the various obtuse hoops merely to get an eleventh Chinese visa stuck on the inside of my passport (plus, I am running out of pages). So, thanks to these silly, probably “terrorist inspired” or more likely “flag unfurler motivated” immigration rules, I will not be able to sing happy birthday to my daughter when she turns two years old. How harmonious is that? 

You know what? Given how uniquely civilized the country is, I think the Chinese Visa application process should be declared as an Olympic sport. Oh right, I forgot. The locals wouldn’t have a chance at winning. 

Richie Mullins would like at this point to reiterate his staunch adherence to the One China Policy, and his vehement opposition to any attempt by outside interferers to split this unsplittable nation.