Black Market Visa

Its that time again. Every 6 six months or so I have to go through the dilemma of prolonging my stay in China through the acquisition of a black market visa. It's not as sketchy as it sounds. Your visa and the means of getting one has always been an interesting issue among expats living here. The following is an account of a person named "I' and this person can be anybody.

When first coming to China, I was issued a tourist visa and later on was given a student visa by my university which was all gravy until I accidentally overstayed my welcome by a few days. I spent a few minutes in a small room at the airport while two immigration officers bickered over what to do with me . Just when I thought I was going to miss my flight to London, they said zou ba, get out of here - and I had to sprint to the gate.

The second time I came to China I was only given a 30 day tourist visa from the consulate in New York. I was initially upset considering that I had plans to stay the whole summer in Beijing. However, I quickly learned that they had stopped giving 3 month visas to people who had already been to China, but once in China I could extend my tourist visa twice, 30 days each time. The catch was that I needed to show proof of residence at a hotel, school, or organization when applying for each extension. At that time, I was living at my girlfriends while interning at an investment bank and tutoring English on the side. So I had to come up with a plan.

The first solution was no stay at the Friendship Hotel, a famous complex known for its historically beautiful interior courtyards and spacious units (most hotels in China are not one building but a small campus surrounded by walls). Although it was only a block from where I was living, this romantic getaway provided me with the necessary residence papers. My second extension involved going to Tianjin to receive assistance from a friend of my girlfriends who happens to own a factory. The papers where in order, my extension was granted, and we made a night of it on Tianjin's jiuba jie, bar street.

And for the past year, I have been obtaining 6 month business visa's through a local consultant that has connections with government visa offices in the more corrupt interior provinces. I pay twice as much, but without the proper paperwork, I really have no other choice. This type of black market visa has become very popular among the foreigners here and has helped many of us save an expense trip to Hong Kong or Macau, where most used to obtain new visa's or extensions.

Now, depending on my future plans, I have the option of buying a working visa next time around. This deal would be more expensive considering it would last one year and there would be no complications with a formal company (a legit working visa is tied to your company, so if you quit, your screwed). With the Olympics coming up, the visa department I'm sure will cook up new policies making it more and more difficult to extend visas and as local corruption's ugly head continues to get smashed by the central government, the black market will go further underground. However, in China, as long as there is profit in it for someone, there will always be a way. "I' is not worried.