I have become one with the MADNESS that is the Chinese bureaucratic system.

We all applied for a visa in America, but apparently that visa does not actually allow us to live in China for a year. It is essentially temporary permission to enter the country. So now that we are here we have to completely reapply for permission to actually stay if we want to avoid deportation. I have spent most of the last week and a half trying to make that happen.

It started with a trip with my host family and all the other kids and families to the police station to apply for temporary residence permits and register our location with the authorities. That wasn't to bad we just had to fill out the paperwork and our families were there to speak the necessary Chinese.

But that was only the beginning...

Next came the health exam. I did go to the doctor three different times in the US to fill out all the paperwork for the exact health exam. However, that for some apparent reason didn't count. I think all the stuff I did to get to China was essentially a practice run.

They were accommodating and rather than making us all go to the hospital to get the exam the hospital came to ECNU (my school). They were there for two days. We were told not to eat breakfast because of the blood tests and then go to class and wait to be called out. So passed the first day and a half. Right before we got out of class at 11:45 on the second day someone came into my class and asked who needed a health exam. We raised our hands and were given numbers on little slips of paper with somewhat official looking red stamps. We were told to report back and get in line at 1:15 and that we would be taken by number.

Megan and I were in this group. The boys had gone after school the day before, and Kate is only stying for a semester so she doesn't have to go through any of this. Megan was somewhat convinced that the numbers actually meant something but I was still in doubt. So we decided that since we couldn't eat lunch anyway to just sit and wait. I remembered seeing that all the people went into room 101 first for their health test and then into this strange medical bus parked outside. There were two chairs outside room 101 so we sat down to wait.

While we were waiting we talked with two boys next to us. They had apparently gotten there at nine that morning and had not been tested before lunch. They were then given number 82 and 83. Megan and I were 61 and 62. We puzzled over this for a while and then gave up as to how it could have happened. Then we decided to get some homework done. There was a desk across the hall so we dragged it over to our chairs and got some flashcards done.

The door to room 101 opened at 1:30 and a man stepped out. He looked down at Megan and I, and barked "numbers!" We handed them to him, he looked at them and had a woman hand us some more forms. The desk definitely came in handy then. we filled them out signed them and gave them back to the woman. She looked at them and then sent us into room 101. Meanwhile a large mob had formed around the man and the woman with the forms and the man was shouting out numbers sequentially while people waved their arms and shouted.

In the room we went through various paper processing and had our blood drawn. We were then handed a cotton ball and sent outside. They had us sit for 3 minutes and the sent us onto the bus for the rest of our exam.

We were pretty lucky on that front, because we were talking to kids in our class who didn't get to go at all and were told to go to the hospital at some other time.

Next came our attempts to get the new visa itself. That started on Wednesday. We had to go to the foreign student office of ECNU to try to get the originals of our JW202 visa application form. When we got to the office we were told that we had gone to the wrong place. We kept asking them though until we found someone who told us that we were in fact in the right place and gave us our JW202s, a new visa application, and a letter from the university saying that we were attending and would be allowed to continue.

Thursday afternoon we had to go get our medical results, which was surprisingly painless. We were then told to report back on Friday because the police would be coming at 9:30 to process our visa applications.

We came at 8:15 and got in line. We were maybe the 15th people there. by 9 there were probably 100 students in s a somewhat orderly line. 9:30 came and went with no apparent change except for the growing line/mob. At 10 an office worker came to inform us that the police were "on the road."

At 11 someone finally came and sat at the desk at the front of the line. She was apparently there to check our paperwork, of which we had quite a bit. That instantly erased the last semblance of a line and the students became a full fledged mob pushing to hand their paperwork in.

Before we got there we were given a list of the things that we needed; passport, photo, copy of passport, and originals of our JW202, medical form, school forms and residence permit. We had all of these things, however they started yelling over the crowd that we also needed to have a copy of our residence permit. Fortunately I was part of the group of gap year students and we were willing to help each other. We all gave our residence permits to Nate who is a 6'2'' cross country runner who could elbow his way out of the mob and sprint for the copy machines at the CIEE offices and then elbow his way back in.

Finally at 11:15 the police arrived. They all filed into the building and closed the door. Five minutes later someone came out and started handing out numbers. Both Nate and I were 19... At 11:25 the police went to the cafe across the street for lunch. The entire crowd pretty much started laughing at that point. We found out later that the officer in charge of writing receipts had not arrived and thus they were unable to proceed.

Meanwhile, Megan had been pushed to the front, about five people ahead of Nate and I and Jonas was somewhere about five people behind us. I ended up sandwiched between Nate, and another guy who must have been 6'4'' since he was taller than Nate, who turned out to be from Glendale and was really nice.

At 12:15 or so that police returned from lunch and the process actually started. It took me about half an hour to get the 15 feet to the door so I could get my visa. But in the end I did succeed ans did the others...

We get our passports back on Friday, which is the day Megan, Kate, Jonas, and I are leaving for Beijing. So we now get to see if we can go to the visa office in Pudong to pick them up early... The guy in front of Megan set it up that way, but we couldn't quite communicate it.

I am now one with the Chinese bureaucracy in so many more ways than I ever wanted to be.

Yesterday after the Visa fiasco Fung You Ming a.k.a. Bryan one of the CIEE interns took us to a street off of people's square that is famous for stationary, bookstores, and calligraphy. We went to buy calligraphy brushes since we are going to have a lesson from a calligraphy master at some point in the near future.

We also went to Shanghai's largest book store. I bought three children's books with character and pinyin so I can try to read.

I am currently attempting to read a illustrated version of snow white and the 7 dwarfs... IT IS WAY ABOVE MY READING LEVEL!!!!!!!! It is really strange being illiterate.

My tutor was trying to teach me the many grammatical uses of the particle "de" in the Chinese language. She then suggested that I listen to this one song that makes extreme use of de... It is pretty epic how many times she says de in about 30 seconds. Here is the link to the music video if you want to hear it. The song is by 許哲珮 and it is called 汽球.

This afternoon the rest of the gap year kids are coming over to make dumplings... So I have to go help set up. I'll try to post again before I leave for Beijing.