davethegrinch.net

Sarah says:

 My mind was running wild imagining what Chinese Immigration would be like.  David and I both admitted that going through any immigration makes us  a little nauseous.  Even Dutch immigration never failed to make me sweat a wee bit even though their toughest question ever was aflirtatious , “Do you speak Dutch?”  There was the time, I don’t think I ever documented this, during all my back and forth between Amsterdam and London that Heathrow immigration almost didn’t let me into the country and I have a ‘coded’ stamp in my passport as a souvenir.  This means that from April of this year for the next six months they will view any of my attempts to enter England as mildly suspicious on account of them thinking I’m actually illegally living there.

 But this is a whole different ball game, right?  This isn’t the Lovey English or milk-drinking Dutch – this is CHINA!  Now tell me who in their right mind would be relaxed about entering China for the first time? Fortunately, the only other westerner on our ferry, a girl from Germany traveling alone, had made friends with a Chinese girl and they were in line in front of us.  Every calming word the Chinese girl said to the German girl David and I overheard and it was calming us, too.  We also knew that the Chinese girl was studying in Seoul and she was coming home to visit her parents who were just on the other side of immigration waiting for her.  Her pure excitement put me at ease as well.  What bad could possibly happen trying to cross a border that this adorable little thing was so clearly excited to cross?

 We felt sorry for the German girl when she was questioned at length, had two additional officials called over to review her passport and was eventually taken off to the side.  “Poor girl, she must have done something really stupid”, we thought.  Hah.

 In Asia, you must walk up to the immigration officer one at a time.  No happy, skippy, lovey couples going up together.  So up I went all by myself, looking back at David and thinking of “Not Without My Daughter”.  Will I ever see David again?  However, I instantly put on the polite, confident smile that I think impresses immigration officers and assures them that I mean no harm and chuckled inside at what I thought was the man’s innocent curiosity as he looked at each and every stamp in my passport seeming to say in Chinese, “oh, what’s this?  oh, this one is pretty…”  I noticed that he kept returning to the Nepal tourist stamp……and then he called over his supervisor.  My knees started to shake so badly they could have triggered an aftershock.  His supervisor was equally concerned about the Nepal stamp and wanted to know why we had visited Nepal, why we had visited India and also how much money I had in the bank.  Fair enough, I can understand their concern about Nepal.  They are probably on high alert for Tibetan sympathizers right now.  However, I felt a surge of panic at just what kind of sympathizer they thought I was when I wasseparated from my passport and from David and was taken to the ‘special room’.  I was trying to hold it together but my knees, I was certain, were going to betray me at any step.

 What transpired was definitely the most difficult immigration search I’ve endured but also the most cordial, mildly humorous and kind of sweet encounter – almost as if I’ve volunteered for a Coke vs Pepsi taste test and they were excited to have me participate.  Inside the room were five girls who could not have been older than 25, all were adorable, all had the hugest smiles and all seemed more girlishly curious about the contents of my pack than official.   They did have me remove every single item from my rucksack and my daysack.  They looked at every piece of clothing, they looked inside my shoes, they smelled every lotion and potion in mywash-kit and wanted to know what everything was for, they looked at every picture on my digital camera, they flipped through every book, looked at every scrap piece of paper.  They asked where certain things came from, wanted to know if this or that was Korean or Taiwanese.  Theygiggled at my supply of contact lenses and wanted to know the difference between my heavy rain jacket and my light one.  In the end, though, they helped me pack everything back up, gave me back my passport which had magically re-appeared and escorted me out with big smiles, big waves and sang in unison, “Thank you for your cooperation!!”.

 Thank you for entering with Chinese Immigration!  We hope to see you at another checkpoint in the near future!

 David says that he was asked not one single entry question, he was told not to worry about me, that it was all routine and they even helped him take is pack off while he waited for me, sympathizing with how heavy it must be.  By his description, I’m surprised they didn’t offer him a cup of tea.

 Of course we then had to clear customs as well and I, again, had to empty out my entire rucksack and the male customs officer, again, looked at every single bottle in mywash-kit, infinitely more confused about the face wash and shaving gel than the girls had been.

 In my mind’s eye, a small cheering squad met us with flowers and balloons on the other side, congratulating us for making it through.  In reality, though, it was a Chinese police officer.  Yet another uniform.  This one, though, only wanted to help by safely putting us into a cab and wishing us a good visit.

This entry was posted on Friday, May 30th, 2008 at 4:56 am and is filed under China, Global Travels. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.