Near Perfect Trip

I was crossing the street in Donzhimen, Beijing just last week to get to the Canadian Embassy and I noticed a Chinese man with one hand in the customary elderly stroll, behind the back position, and the other holding a brown, leather leash. On the end of the leash was a small poodle with well maintained, curly, brown hair doing the trembling, three-legged hop you sometimes see in a constipated animal trying to start or finish a shit. Although the green pedestrian signal was lit, I didn't look for long, lest a power-tripping motorist, motorcyclist or even cyclist turn the corner directly in front of me purposely forcing me to stop if I saw them or get run down if I didn't. This mockery and abuse of the lowly pedestrian is one of many things I hate about Beijing.

I made it across the eight lane road unscathed, a feat unworthy of mention in most places but worthy of an athletic point to the Man Upstairs in the city of Beijing. I slowed my pace and got a better look at the spectacle I had glimpsed while Froggering my way to the safety of the sidewalk. Or to keep my blog current, "CrossyRoading" my way... The dog was able to squeeze out a tidy, hard-looking turd onto the strip of lawn that surrounds the Canadian Embassy of Beijing. It didn't occur to me until the man pulled the poodle away from a test smell and continued their walk without scooping the poop, that this was, in all likelihood, Canadian soil that now featured its still steamy, oily-looking log of dog feces.

So, my trip to Korea was great. I met up with DB and Amber in Incheon. We went to Tacos on St. Patrick's Day but steered clear of the green beer and were all happier for it in the morning. I went with DB into Seoul to find some items that are more expensive or just unavailable in Taiyuan. I found quite a few of them and was pleased. DB and I went to a place we'd gone before for one of the more daring of Korean dishes, Hae Jang Kook, a staple for the older men of Korea. It's made from all manner of pig entrails and is FAR too delicious to say, "Well at least it's not dog!" Need it or not, this soup provides legendary stamina for the male of the species. I shopped for more stuff until dinner time and had myself a rack of ribs at Canucks Pub. Amber had fried up some bacon and eggs for breakfast that morning so I think I ate about half a pig that day. I later went out with the whole Peet/Spiwak family for Sam Gyup Sal and Kalbi at Busan Kalbi and could have started on the second half of the pig, but didn't want to, cough, make a pig of myself. I said hello to most of my friends in the area and made cameos at most of my favourite places. Then I successfully flew back to China in the early afternoon of the following day without even a hangover.

Alright, what's missing? Can you guess? No problems! When have you known me to take a trip without even a little hiccup? I don't mind telling you that by the time I got to my old room in my old hostel in Beijing and had a lovely welcome from the staff there and a healthy lunch at the McDonalds nearby, I was getting scared. My apartment to the Taiyuan train station by cab; Taiyuan to Beijing by train; train station to airport by subway; Beijing to Incheon flight; To downtown Incheon by subway; Incheon to Seoul by subway; Seoul to Incheon airport by airport bus; Incheon to Beijing flight; airport to hostel by subway; NO PROBLEMS!!! Not a lost bag, a "lost" cab driver, an objectionable seat partner, a subway going the wrong way, the one and only glitch was a delay in the Beijing to Seoul flight, but there is always a delay. I was having a clean run. A boring trip. An eventless travel experience. I'd heard about these before, but had yet to be gifted with one. All I had to do now was go to the Beijing Canadian Embassy and pick up my brand new passport. It was Monday, March 20th. I was told to pick up my new passport on or after March 15th so I assumed it would be ready. I had waited a bit over a month and it had cost me 300 Canadian dollars, so I would have been pretty annoyed if it hadn't been ready. Even more annoyed than I already was that in the embassy IN China, my Chinese money was refused as payment. I had to use my Canadian debit card. I was just lucky it worked! Otherwise, I might have gone Canadian Postal on someone's arse! That doesn't mean the same as "going postal" in America. In Canada it's more literal. I would have written, and, if you will, posted a strongly worded letter to someone.

But no need! It was ready! My card worked. I had done it! The perfect game! Scored a 10! I was in a travel ZONE! All I had to do now was take the train back to Taiyuan and this trip would be legendary! Just like when you have the last empty seat on a plane, train or bus and you hear, "Excuse me, do you mind if I sit here?" you absolutely KNOW there's a great big BUT, (butt), coming! BUUUUTTT, as she handed me my spanking new passport, then stamped the old one a couple times with her "cancelled" stamp and cut it up, she said to me, "You now have 10 days to transfer the visa." Immediately my head swam with questions and I had to rank them in order of importance because there was someone already pushing his way past me to the window. "I live in Taiyuan. Can I do this in Taiyuan?" She said, "Yes," then to the jerk behind me, "Can I help you sir?" So THAT was the only question I asked. I wanted to ask a few more like, can I even get back to Taiyuan since the train stations make you show your passport a few times before you can get on the trains? WE know I have 10 days, but will THEY know? Was my visa, which I had just renewed for two months with my trip to Korea, still valid even though it was now in a cancelled passport? Would I be able to do the 100 other things I needed to do in China that require a passport? Particularly change over to a work visa.

I had about 2 hours left before I had to check out of my hostel and head to the train station. As I exited the embassy, I texted Faith, the representative of the school sponsoring my work visa, that everything was fine except the visa transfer. But told her I could do that back in Taiyuan. I noticed the pile of dog shit as I passed it once more. Just in case, Faith called the government office in Taiyuan that the Canadian Embassy said could do the transfer and they confirmed that they could NOT do the transfer. I had to go to the office in Beijing pronto. Luckily for me, the staff at the hostel agreed to keep my bags behind the desk while I went to the Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau, Exit-Entry Administration Building to get what seemed to me to be a useless procedure done. Faith told me that she had had the experience before with a foreign teacher and that teacher's passport was kept while they did it. AND it took a month. So then we started wondering what I was going to do with my old, cancelled, CHOPPED UP passport. Would I be able to get the blood tests and medical tests and all the crap needed for the work visa with my old passport? So Faith called a couple places and they said they could do the medical stuff with just a copy of my new passport. A digital copy. So I had to find a place that made digital copies. The hostel scanner was not good enough.

Long story short, one of the girls from the hostel went with me and we got the digital copy done and got to the office and filled out a form and waited in line and got to the teller who said, "Do you have the receipt for your new passport?" I hadn't brought it. I said something like, "Well of course, why wouldn't you need that?" Seriously! What in the wide, wide world of sports do you need the fucking receipt for the passport for when I have just given you the passport? With my picture on it. Taken a few days ago. Wearing the exact same shirt I had on at the time, even! But THEN she said something that invoked in me a muscle relaxation that I can't exactly explain. I know there was some surrender to stupidity, and there was some relief, some flabberghasting and a touch of gobsmackery, but I couldn't hazard a guess at the exact percentages. She said, "You don't need to transfer the visa." My translator and I BOTH wanted a second opinion and we asked another official who said that it's not necessary for the business visa. It's only necessary for visitor visas or something like that. Well, I wasn't about to argue. We got out of there before they changed their minds or the laws.

It still sticks in my craw that the girl at the Canadian embassy didn't check if I had a business or visitor's visa before giving me her totally invalid advice that I needed to transfer the visa and, yes, Taiyuan could do the transfer, AND she hadn't told me the idiotic rule of requiring the receipt for the transfer application. Maybe I SHOULD write that strongly worded letter.

But, whatever, it was a waste of a little time and taxi money. And we got a bit wet in the rain. Does that qualify as a hiccup? If it hadn't been for the stress of wondering if I could take the train home and what I could and couldn't do while they had my new passport, I wouldn't even have taken 1% off my 100% travel success. But then I got to the Beijing train station. The time wasted had postponed my buying a ticket home by just long enough that even though it was only 2 in the afternoon, I had to buy a ticket for 6:02 PM. I was ready to check out at 10 AM and would have taken an 11 o'clock train to Taiyuan, which would have gotten me HOME by 2PM. Instead, I was just buying my ticket at that time and I had a 4 hour wait. It turned out I met an Australian Chinese guy named Ming who's in the coal industry and we had a really good chat. The time passed faster. I got his card and his WeChat. Nice guy.

So I came that close to my first ever perfect trip.

These days, I am more and more keenly aware that even though I came to this city and applied for this job with considerably more money in the bank than many of the jobs I'd started in this racket, I am still broke! Since I first contacted this school I've paid for everything. The interview was a flight here, a stay at a hotel, taxi around town, food and a train back to Beijing. I've paid for two of the visa runs to Korea described above. I've paid for three months rent on my apartment and all the cleaning and supplies that were needed to make it into my home. I've paid for my food, travel and entertainment. Now I'm told that I'll be paying for the aforementioned medical tests, the flight to Hong Kong including hotel and food during my work visa run. By the time I get my work visa, I will have paid for everything but the cost of the document itself. Since the school is making far more money than I am from my teaching, you'd think it only fair for them to offer a more equitable split of the price of setting me up here. Every school in the ESL industry does! I know I'll look back at this post in a few months and I'll think I was whinging a bit, but right now I'm feeling a little ripped off. I like the offer, I realize it's a fantastic salary and I'll be making more than a lot of people over here who work longer hours and all that and I appreciate that, but... right now I feel like I'm paying the school to allow me to work for them.

Another thing that makes me a little nervous about this job is the low number of students in my classes. Don't get me wrong, I love low numbers! But I am not sure of whether I should be worried about them or not. Whether the international school is a separate part of the school or if it's funded by the THRIVING school with a couple thousand students I see exercising on the soccer field every day. I am worried about job security here. Will this job be phased out before I can even finish my contract? I am hoping to work for several years here. With this deal, I can save enough to retire at a young age. So I don't want to appear ungrateful by complaining that they're not paying their fair share of the initial fees. So I had a chat with Faith. She gave me some good advice. There is an 8000 RMB flight reimbursement that comes at the end of my 1-year contract. That's about 1600 Canadian bucks. Not bad. I am going to ask for 4000 of that in advance to help cover the work visa costs. I don't see why they wouldn't do that. And it saves me from crying for equitable treatment and losing favour.

It is another example in my evolving "At least the glass ain't ALL empty" philosophy. Yeah, they SHOULD pay more and I shouldn't pay so much. But after working a few years at the highest salary I've ever received, it's not going to matter much to me. So it's best to just not complain.

This is all contingent, of course, upon a long term stay here in Taiyuan. I know it isn't going to be the work that drives me away. I like the school and the students there. The mosquito problem I have already reduced to reasonable levels. I don't yet have friends here so it's a bit boring, but I am hoping to do some teaching in the off time in Korea, where I still have good buddies. I'd be crazy not to expect problems, but I'm still pretty hopeful about my new life here. And if I'm going to be totally honest, the amount of raw materials, oil, water, wheat, trees, minerals, who knows what China gets at ridiculously favourable rates from Canada, the number of laws Canada relaxes for China, the number of opportunities for work and education I've missed out on in Canada because privileged Chinese people filled them, and eventually forced me to work away from home, the way China has metaphorically shat on Canada just during my lifetime, and not even including my Chinese girlfriend I waited on hand and foot who gave so very little back, I think China owes me this. If I lose this job I'm going to Beijing to that strip of grass surrounding the Canadian Embassy, which is always festooned with various shades, ages and consistencies of dog shit and I'm going to find an offending pet owner, pick up his dog's doo-doo and do to him the reverse of what his dog did to a little strip of Canada. I hope it never comes to that.