China 2008, Part V: The Friendly Neighborhood Public Security Bureau

Over the past few days, I've done a bit of discussion and reading about history. In particular, I've been interested in history that ties the West and the East together. Naturally, this interest led me to the Marco Polo case. One interesting thing that we uncovered was the proximity of the dates of the Polo family's voyage to the peak of Chinese civilization and the rise of the Renaissance. Marco Polo traveled through China during Kublai Khan's rule, which was in turn part of the Mongolian Empire, the largest empire in human history, which, though known for its violence, is also well known for its advanced technology and religious tolerance. Of course, at this time, Europe was only about one hundred years removed from the Dark Ages and the notoriously non-tolerant Crusades, and it is well known that Europe's technology and culture was more than a step behind that of the Middle and Far East.

It is interesting then, that following Marco Polo's travels, China did not make any further progress, while there was a renewed interest in science and the arts in Europe just a century later. Did China perhaps, after having firsthand contact with an inferior society in the West, decide then that there was no longer any reason to continue to improve? On the same token, did Europe, after hearing of a strange and advanced culture to the east, suddenly become motivated to ramp up their culture and education? An interesting thought, but I haven't yet been able to find much discussion on the subject on the web. If anyone finds out anything more about the links between the East and the West, please let me know!

Anyway, on to the next episode of China 2008!

The day after our trip to Ling Shan Da Fo, we went with Cherrie to get her hair cut and straightened. When Cherrie and I first met, she had very straight hair, but since then, she's usually kept her hair in a pony tail or cut short with her natural waves. In the States, it is prohibitively expensive to do your hair very often - Anna told us that it sets her back about $80 per visit to the hairdresser, and that she goes once every one or two weeks! That's potentially over $300 a month! In China, however, one of the things that has remained inexpensive among the rising costs of everything else, such as clothes and housing, is service. The reason for this is because service is essentially the same thing as labor, and labor, obviously, is very cheap in China - it's cheaper for most companies to have their products built in China and ship them to the states than just having them built locally! The cut and straightening worked out to about 150 RMB, or a little over $20 USD, which is actually still quite a bit - you can usually have your hair cut in China for some 5 to 10 RMB, but I suppose the straightening is a bit more expensive. Still, it's better than $80, and I've found that Asian hairdressers are usually more skilled anyway!

On Monday, we headed back into Wuxi city with a few missions: Renew Cherrie's Chinese Passport and find a red dress and red shoes for our wedding reception. So, we headed to Wuxi's Public Security Bureau (PSB) office. What is the PSB office, you ask? The PSB office is basically the Chinese equivalent of a police station, but it's also where Chinese citizens register their residential status and apply for passports and most other services that we in the States would usually go to City Hall for. I imagine one major difference is that the PSB office are all state run, so they all basically report to the central Chinese government. Don't let the cute cartoon and the seeming convenience of having your police and registration services at one place fool you - the PSB, while it serves to protect you, is also probably a good example of why Chinese government is... not good.

When we arrived at the PSB office, we were concerned that we wouldn't be able to receive Cherrie's passport in time for us to go back to the United States. The PSB informed us that it typically took ten working days to get it, but it was possible, though not guaranteed, that we could receive it earlier. After some time, some of the PSB officers assured us that the new passport would arrive before our departure date and one lady officer told us that she would call us upon receiving the new passport at the office, so we began the somewhat tedious process. First, Cherrie had to go and take a new passport photo. While in line, the lady officer, noticing that Cherrie lived overseas, asked her whether or not she worked in the States or knew of any people that worked in the States - a somewhat suspicious gesture. Then, since the PSB only accepted bank notes, Cherrie had to run over to a nearby bank to get a bank note. Then, upon paying the processing fee, they clipped the corners of Cherrie's old passport, rendering it invalid in the system, and gave her the receipt which she would need to pick up the passport on June 30th.

The problem was, our flight back to the U.S. was on June 28th! After all that reassurance, the official receipt still stated that the pick up date would be two days after our intended departure! We complained to the lady officer and told her that, due to our circumstances, it was very important that she inform us immediately when the passport arrived in the Wuxi office, when, to our surprise, the officer bluntly said that calling the applicant was not part of their job, and it was the applicant's responsibility to track the passport's status! Merely 10 minutes earlier, she had assured us not only that it would arrive on time, but that she would personally call us to let us know when it arrived. Perhaps, after her dubious questions about Cherrie's status overseas, the officer decided that Cherrie was of no value to her own overseas ambitions and thus no longer felt the urge to help us in any way. This episode really made our faith in Chinese government take a big, ugly hit.

We did our shopping and found the dress and shoes we wanted, and then went home. During dinner, we told Cherrie's brother about our adventure at the PSB office, and he told us not to worry, and just wait until her parents got back. Fortunately for us, Cherrie's parents know the family of a PSB officer who was able to contact the head of the Wuxi branch office, who personally took the passport to Nanjing to expedite and complete processing. Unfortunately, he still could not get the passport back in time before our scheduled trip to Yunnan after the reception, which would later present us with another challenge. Still, our passport issue was more or less resolved. I guess, just like everywhere else in the world, it's not what you do or how you do it, but who you know that really gets things done!