Shirley Temple and I head off to Wal-Mart. Yesterday, I didn’t know where I was on campus. Today, I’m starting to get tired of retracing the same ground.
Shirley is very excited to be here. She talks fast, and in bursts. Low, though – not a monotone, but not terribly expressive. She has a sort of Valley girl lilt without the pinched nasal affectation or high pitch. She studied linguistics and learned some Chinese at a small state school in New Jersey. I don’t ask her age, but back-of-napkin math suggests she’s only 22. She’s never taught before. She doesn’t have a teaching certification. International K-12, I have been told over and again, is a very prestigious institution. It’s just that we’re all in our twenties and some of us have never seen a classroom before. I’m coming to the same question I’ve had since I read the Welcome Guide: What is this place?
Shirley Temple will find out, but it wasn’t her plan: she wanted to teach in the countryside. Somewhere smaller. “Somewhere more real, you know?” Motorcycles farting pesticide whiz past us. I’m not sure I could handle more reality.
“Ugh,” she remembers: “I have to go into the center of the city to get my visa, too; or something. I’m trying to figure it out”
“How did they let you in without a visa?” I ask.
“I had to get the tourist visa, because the school couldn’t get me the expert visa.”
“So there’s a limit to how long you can stay?” As I recall, the tourist visa gets you about a month or so in China.
“Yeah,” she shrugs. “They were saying if I stay too long, and I still haven’t got the expert visa, I’ll have to go to Taiwan or Hong Kong for a few days to get out of mainland China and reset the timer on the tourist visa. But I’m hoping that won’t happen.”
“Shit,” I say.
“Why, what do you have? Did you get the right visa?”
_ _ _
Malbec is incredulous. “What does that mean? I thought you were definitely going to China.”
“I thought I was going to China too.” I sip my beer. “But apparently I don’t have a visa. And I can’t enter the fucking country without a visa.”
Malbec takes a swig, and considers. “Well, that would be a huge cost for them. You have to assume that they do this all the time, and the cost of losing out on a potential hire is far greater than the cost of getting you the visa on time.”
Malbec is too rational. He’s an economist. He’s back in Colorado for his wedding, and we’re drinking and bullshitting by a river for Act I of his bachelor party – this is about as wild as it’s going to get, because Malbec is an economist. He really believes in this sort of thing: this idea that organizations, and thus people, are effectively rational actors when they have a clear idea of their interests.
I want to believe him the way he believes in ordered systems. I want to say that I’m safe, and I’ll easily enter China, and that I won’t be homeless and more or less broke a few days after this. But I’m shook.
Right before Malbec gets into town, on July 30th, 2015, I get an email from Red Tea. Red Tea is the head of International K-12; or at least the head wrangler for all the white people who are brought to IK-12. I interviewed with her twice, in two days, which landed me a theoretical job at IK-12.
That is, I signed a contract. And I spent two weeks and a few hundred of my dwindling dollars to get a TEFL Certification (Teaching English as a Foreign Language, for those not in the know). I got this certificate because I do not have a high school teaching certificate, and despite having a terminal degree in the field and years of university teaching experience, I need to be TEFL certified before they let me in the country. After I got the TEFL diploma from an online course – a shady and comical cardboard certificate – I emailed Red Tea and her retinue the good news. They told me to make sure the certificate didn’t explicitly state it was earned online.
With the certificate in hand, I was ready to go to China. Except, I was informed, that I also needed a health certification: A doctor’s note, essentially, to let me into the country. So I rode my bike to an urgent care clinic and waited for an hour until a doctor came out and told me, “You’re young and healthy; you’re fine.” And he signed a virtually blank form on clinic letterhead, which became the property of the People’s Republic.
So with the TEFL certificate and the doctor’s note, I was ready to go to China. Except that I also needed letters of recommendation to be sent to the Chinese authorities as well. I don’t know if you’ve ever had the pleasure of going to graduate school in the arts, but art professors fucking bail on May 1. I asked and called and emailed and pleaded, and located barely enough academicians in town or near laptops to collect the notes I needed.
So with the TEFL certificate and doctor’s note and letters of recommendation, I was – well, I needed a criminal background check. Learning by doing, I deduced that the Chinese authorities didn’t seem to care what kind of background check this was; merely that it said “background check” in official-looking letterhead, in English (like the time I was certified as a TEFL instructor in a classroom setting, except that that classroom was online and the walls were bricks of steaming bullshit). I found the cheapest background check for a region I’d lived in previously, ordered it, and plucked it out of the mailbox a week before my lease was up.
So now all I needed was enough money to make it to China in one piece. IK-12 said that they would pay for my airfare, except that they would only reimburse my airfare for the trip to China after I had spent a year in China. So using the magic of Craigslist, I sold all that I had, and did not give it to the poor but rather hoarded the miniscule financial reward and huddled with that shit for warmth. I booked my flight for August 20th. I booked a flight out of Colorado for August 7th. All that I needed to work in China was a visa, which Red Tea told me was her responsibility.
So on July 30th, eight days before I leave Colorado and my empty bedroom, I get that email from Red Tea:
SUBJECT: Infomration [sic] about [IK-12] and Packing
HI [Sazerac],
I hope you are doing well with the prep for moving to Shanghai.
I am wondering whether you have received my email with the packing information? If not, here they are again. [just, all sic, okay?]
I have to say, some information in the attachment is a bit old, since Shanghai is developing really drastically.
best,
[Red Tea]
The infomration in question is contained in five Microsoft Word documents. One is simply a map of the school – since I have never been to Shanghai before, and since the map is sparsely detailed, this conveys effectively nothing to me. (But it’s okay – Shanghai is developing really drastically.)
Another document lists frequently asked questions, in an order I would not describe as optimal. It does tell me about my luggages, though:
2. Ship luggages.
We would strongly suggest that our teachers come with the luggages. Since before we had some teachers’ luggages sent to the wrong places or even wrong countries.
[ed. note: !]
If you have to mail some of the luggages, please choose the companies with good fame and service. If you want the school to receive and take care of the luggages before you come, then we would only lock them somewhere when we receive them, and we can not guarantee there is no loss or damage during the delivery.
I feel better about selling my stuff, since I do not want to bother finding a company with good fame. I am also not dazzled by the school’s offer to lose my shit in a closet somewhere.
I get some advice about the dress code – “shirt-tails hanging out, beach/open sandals, dirty jeans, sleeveless T-shirts and other type of scruffy clothing are undesirable” – and I get a warning: “The school authorities will view any breach of this dress code with all seriousness.” But I’m spared some of the marching orders: “Also lady teachers, please don’t wear low cut clothes[.]”
(I think this rule is unfortunate, but I do not have good fame or all seriousness, so I do not make the rules. If I had to guess how much of the seriousness I have, I would say half. I have half seriousness.)
But the only really vital document is called, subtly, “Survival Guide 2015.”
“We are excited you chose our school,” it says. “[We] put together this little survival guide to help you make the transition from your home country to China.”
Hit me, Survival Guide 2015! What can you tell me about the weather in Shanghai?
“Shanghai has four seasons.”
Vital shit! Is the winter the cold one?
“The winter is cold and damp.”
Right on. What should I bring to deal with that?
“Thermal underwear (very important).”
Fucking baller, S-Guide 2015. Any other hot knowledge?
“As cosmopolitan as Shanghai is, it’s still China and it’s not the West. You will see things and experience things that defy all logic and sometimes the laws of physics.”
Survival Guide, do you not know what physics are?
“Anyone who complains about capitalism being patriarchal has never had to buy tampons in communist China.”
I needed to know that to survive! Okay, anything else important? I’m seeing something about the visa here.
“Once you have received your paperwork along with instructions from the school, you need to apply for your visa.”
… you mean the one the school was procuring for me? I mean, at the very least, won’t I be able to enter the country while they register me with the government? Because I leave the state in a week and the country in 19 days, and I already bought the ticket. And I don’t have any fucking possessions left.
“If you live more than a couple hours drive from a Chinese Consulate you can contact a visa/travel office in your city. Many travel agencies, for a fee, can help you process your visa.”
What is that? What does that mean? Do they still have travel agents where you live, Survival Guide? Why the holy fuck did no one fucking tell me I need to physically acquire a goddam seal of Chinese state approval before I fly across the fucking Pacific?
“Consulates can do same day service only if you get to the visa office before 10:00 am.”
Isn’t getting this fucking visa the whole service? What is this process you’re describing? Christ. Shit.
(Goddammit.)
Well, since I’m here, do you have any other advice for me before I go scream into my one remaining pillow?
“Condoms – Bring them with you. Don’t ask; just trust me on this one.”
I close the file. I email Red Tea, trying to figure out if I read what I think I read. And I go online and purchase 108 condoms. (They had, like, a really good deal on bulk packs. Leave me alone.)
A few days later, IK-12 gets back to me. The emails are vague yet tart, but I’m doing my own research and starting to piece the operation together. This, as no one previously explained, is how it works:
China, while a lot more open than when Nixon flew in, is still a closed country, more or less. You not only pass through TSA and the Chinese equivalent, you need a visa from a Chinese consulate to enter China at all. (There are exceptions only in special zones – Shanghai is one of these zones, but all you get are 72 hours from the minute your plane touches down, and you aren’t allowed to leave the province.)
What IK-12 expects me to do is to find a Chinese consulate, and give this consulate official papers that I will receive from the school, which are papers I did not previously know existed. I do not have these papers, and I do not know when they will be arriving. When I tell this to Red Tea, she suggests that I do not book a flight until I have the papers. The flight is already booked, because their fucking semester starts in 17 days.
The end of my time in Colorado is a series of panic attacks punctuated by bouts of crushing regret. Malbec’s wedding is a reprieve, sort of, except that it reminds me that other people in the world feel safe, and happy, and content without moving to somewhere else knowing nothing about it. The excitement I felt when I scanned in my signed contract is very far away from me, and I don’t think I am going to find it again.
A friend – one I haven’t seen for ages – swings by for a farewell drink. She asks if I’ve had my vaccines updated. I have not. I ask around, and do some research, and see I’m already outside the required timeframe for some choice shots. I’ll figure that out when I get to China, and hope I don’t contract polio on the flight over. If I get on the flight. And if I’m allowed to get off it.
I have tens of thousands of dollars in student debt, so I’m always frightened by and about money. But now I start to count each cent, because I might need enough money to buy airfare back to Los Angeles from Shanghai, at a desk in the Shanghai airport.
I’m going to see old friends around the country before I go: in Austin, in Chicago, and in L.A. I don’t have a place to stay, so I’m just going to crash on those couches, and spend what would’ve been rent money on airfare. I give Red Tea and her crew addresses: they might need to mail my documents to one of these spots. (I’m not certain they even will mail these documents at this point, should these documents exist.) I also scan for consulates, since Denver doesn’t have one. Austin is too small. But Chicago – Chicago has a Chinese consulate. Chicago has a consulate four blocks from the hotel I splurged on, right next to the Mile (now is not the time to point out how basic that shit is).
For the first time in a while, I feel a little lucky. Maybe I will get on that flight out of L.A.
I see everyone I can, and give out hastily scrawled letters to some of my closest friends. There are a lot of hugs and a lot of drinks. I don’t sleep the night before I go. I pack up the remainder and say goodbyes, and one of my bandmates drives me to Denver International. When I get to the baggage check, I have only two suitcases and a backpack, and no other possessions on Earth. The large suitcase is 25 pounds overweight. I pay $75 with the shrug of the damned, and wait by the gate, and try not to cry, and pass out in my seat before the plane takes off. I still don’t have a visa.
When I finally make it to Chicago, I check in with my friends in the suburbs. First they say they haven’t received any mail – and then, moments later, a text: they have something. It has my name on it, and some Chinese characters. I ask them to overnight it downtown.
I wait around for hours that morning; hoping for the package to show at my hotel. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. I try everything I can think of – tracking number, my full name, alternate spellings – until one identifier finally clicks: Why yes, we’ve had that package since last night! I furiously scribble my signature and rush over to the consulate. It is closed. It closes at 2pm, daily. Tomorrow is my last day in the city.
The next morning I arrive early and take the elevator to a drab, flat room with glass terminals: a revue of box offices. I take a number and wait. After an hour of numbing readings from the alphabet in a thick accent – “A4. Now calling ticket A4” – I arrive at the window.
“You need copies. Copies of all documents,” says the Chinese officer, at a glance.
I rush down to the nearest Kinko’s, photocopy my passport and everything else I have, and return. It’s 1:15. At 1:50, I make the window, hand in my passport, and hold my breath.
“Okay,” the officer nods. “We keep this.” The passport. “Tomorrow afternoon you come back for visa.” So that’s a two-hour window.
I drag my suitcases through Union Station and take a train out to the suburbs. My friends introduce me to their infant daughter, and we talk over old times and new plans. I tell them how great I think China is going to be, chaos and all, as an adventure. I’m starting to believe that again.
The next day I take the train back into the city, walk back to the consulate, and wait. I’m waiting in the wrong line, I’m told. I wait again. I need more photocopies, I’m told. There’s a photocopier in the corner – but it was manufactured in the Carter administration and requires change I don’t have. I wait again and tell the new officer that I don’t have change. He sighs, grunts angrily, and rips the pages out of my hand; somehow at once. He walks to the copier right behind him, makes three copies of the documents – documents given to me by the Chinese to begin with – and hands me back my passport. Three days of work for 35 seconds and a photocopy of a meaningless piece of paper originated in Shanghai in the first place.
I open my passport. Stitched inside, with thick white thread, is a new page: it’s a 90-day Z-visa; step one of my certification as a Foreign Expert. I’m standing in the city I lived in before Colorado, and I’m about to move to China. I allow myself to feel a little excitement again. It’s about eighteen hours until I fly to Los Angeles.
As I turn away from the desk, and the glass, and the Chinese stamping robotically, I wonder: it’s not going to all be like this, is it?
_ _ _
I wander around Chinese Wal-Mart and let Shirley talk with all the sales reps. She’s looking for makeup remover. It takes decades. Her Chinese doesn’t appear to be as good as she advertised. She buys some food and I buy some utensils, out of habit.
We walk back to the school over soggy streets. I’ve been through this intersection six times now. It’s still frightening, but I’m starting to learn the moves. I don’t begrudge the scooters the attempted murder.
“You know, all of us have to be pretty cool to be here,” Shirley says. “We came all the way out here, and we figured out the visas, and what to bring. No one I know back home could have done this.”
I know some outrageously intelligent people. I know plenty of people, back home, who could have done this. But I know that none of them would have done this. I know that my friends are very afraid of anything that’s not suburban American life, and that they still have hooks in stable, stratified employment – or the dream of it, anyway. I know they wouldn’t have tried this, because they get scared when they don’t have a job offer six months before they want to start a new job. Maybe we are a special group over here: we did it. We made it. We figured the flights and got the visas however we could. We lugged our stuff into the apartments and we found some food, and we’re going to figure out the next problem tomorrow, as it comes at us. Maybe this really is our adventure.
I stare up at the grimy, smoking sky. It’s a cigarette bowl, overturned. Sprinkling ash on me. I remember Four Loko, dressed like he’s ready for his fourteenth birthday pool party, telling me how good China is. I remember that his listed occupation is “teacher.”
If I’m so cool, why the fuck am I here?