The Commissioner’s Office of China’s Foreign Ministry in the Hong Kong SAR

Though I’ve now been to Mainland China twice during my episode here at HKU, I must first preface these experiences with what it took to get there.

Hong Kong to the average individual is full of bureaucrats. Businesses, who find it easy to incorporate here, would beg to differ. Though a friend of mine spent a total of five hours on applying for her Hong Kong identification card (HKID) and had to pick it up a month later. In contrast, when I was 16 I completed my behind-the-wheel portion of my driver’s test at the California DMV office within the hour I arrived.

So before leaving on my plane to Hong Kong, my mother asked why I didn’t get my Chinese visa in the United States before I left, knowing the likelihood of my travels there. I had no good answer, except that CEDARS (the student assistance office for HKU which has been lacking helpfulness) said it would be easy to pick it up here in Hong Kong.

At two pages long, the application was shorter than the ten plus pages of the Hong Kong visa form and the six pages of the U.S. passport application (if memory serves me right). With a processing time of four days flat (two if you pay $150 HKD more), it was back to me faster than the Hong Kong visa (a month) and the U.S. Passport (six weeks).

My timing wasn’t great. Admittedly, I could have gone for it in the first few weeks of school when nothing was happening and I should have gone during the summer to the local consulate office in Los Angeles.

Oh well.

After gathering my passport photo and filling out my application, I appeared at the office for the Commissioner’s Office of China’s Foreign Ministry in the Hong Kong SAR in the Wan Chai district. It took me five seconds to get through building security, ten minutes in a waiting room, call number in hand, and thirty seconds at the window. (Less than fifteen minutes in comparison to the hours at Hong Kong immigration.)

Seven days later (though I could have gone in four), it took a little longer. It took about half-an-hour to get in the building, and fifteen minutes in the collection line. For pickup, there were two windows. The first, we gave the people behind the window our receipts (with something of an application number). Then proceeding to the second, they had our passports ready to go. Depending on how fast people could pay and how fast the clerks could make change the line moved faster or slower.

I thought this system was rather efficient.

Going up to pay, I was reminded that I am American. The guy in front of me was from an African country and the guy behind me was from Europe. (I didn’t judge based on skin color.) They paid $150 HKD and $225 HKD, respectively. I paid $1020 HKD to get my passport back.

The little fee thing is based on country because of reciprocal charges, so because the United States charges the Chinese $130 USD for visas, China does the same to Americans.

But at that point, it didn’t matter. I had my passport back. Without the biometric electronic chip, my passport is retro. It bends easily and has a bland color palate of baby blue and pink. It has the thickness of an Emory board. The new ones have a palate of red and blue and have a thickness comparable to British passports (about two stacked Emory boards).

Inside my passport was evidence of all my adventures thus far. There was my first Chinese visa when I went in 2007. My Schengen stamps followed (Zurich in, Munich out). Next page was my Hong Kong student visa (important though bland). After that my student entry stamp to Hong Kong, which takes up a full page or a half page depending on its orientation. Flipping the page were my Macau in and out stamps, and on the opposing page was my new Chinese visa.

It looked the same as my first Chinese visa. (Duh, James.) I was allowed multiple entries into China before March 2010. I was then ready to go to China.

Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
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