The Chinese Visa Conundrum - 签证问题．．．

---

ATTENTION: this blog post is more or less for fellow people coming to China who may encounter similar dilemmas to mine in regards to the Chinese VISA. I hope my experiences can help you get an idea of how to handle these rather frustrating situations

My Situation: I am spending about six months in China. I am doing to two study abroad programs; one in the summer and one in the fall. When i applied for my visa (probably in April of 2008, i left for china on June 10th) i first sent in the forms (Letter of invitation and JW202) for the summer program. When i was informed that they only gave a 90 day visa i tried to apply for another visa to extend my current one with the JW202 and letter of invitation from my fall program at Nankai University in Tianjin. Later (the day before i had to leave) found out that they weren't going to give a longer visa and told me to simply apply for an extension in china with the forms. BUT, for some odd reason they kept the forms for my fall program and gave me back the summer program forms (this made no sense). So the question became: how do i apply for a visa extension without the necessary forms? & how do i get back these forms that the Chinese consul seemed to steal from me?

What I did about it: I spoke with the coordinator of the fall program, my chinese professor at my college in america, and tried to figure out how in the world i would be able to get back these forms. After numerous emails to Nankai University that seemed to lead nowhere, i decided to simply take a train to Tianjin and speak with them directly about giving me these forms...again. My professor gave them a call the morning that i went there, and when i arrived they had all of the forms prepared for me. It went very smoothly at Nankai, and i was able to retain what i needed in order to extend my visa. After my visit to Nankai, i made my way to the Exit-Entry PSB (police station) in Tianjin. I asked them if i could apply for an extended visa right then and there, but since i still had 45 days left on my visa they said that i would need to wait until i only had about a week left on my visa to extend it. They said that if i extended my visa it could only be for 30 days, so it didn't make sense to extend it now since this would only decrease the amount of time left on my current visa. They also told me that when the time came to apply i could do it anywhere...Beijing, Shijiazhuang, Tianjin, all OK....or 都可以。The whole process at the police station lasted a good few hours, but everyone there was very helpful and nice to me. The ability to speak a little chinese went a long way in this whole process. SO, learn chinese. I was able to do all of this in one day/morning. I took the 8am train to tianjin from beijing, did this, and returned back to beijing on train leaving at 7pm. I was able to enjoy the city a little bit with the extra time i had budgeted.

Now: i must wait until i have week left on my visa and then go to the local PSB Exit-Entry station and apply for an extension. I'm pretty sure that i now have all the necessary forms (visa applications, JW202, letter of admission, etc.), so this should be much less stressful next time. If you have any questions, feel free to send me a message.

John

---

Photos

Beijing
We got to take one of the newer fast trains, it was sweet

Nankai University - Friend or Foe?
I will be studying here in the fall with my college from america. definitely friend, not foe

Mission Complete
Yes! i have the forms!

Ballroom dancing
they love these group activities...man oh man