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Known Lecher posted:The secret to dealing with Chinese embassies is to not deal with Chinese embassies. Pay an agent $50 or $100 and mail/hand them your paperwork. They have the connections and know who to slip a few bills to in order to make sure things actually get done. So I had an issue with my visa for vietnam got a date wrong. I was in mother loving lao, and a dude came to my hotel happily took some money from me and happily brought back my passport with a corrected visa. The fee was 15 dollars...... But yeah use an agent
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Feb 9, 2018 01:09
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What are the odds of just getting your passport stolen in that case?
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Feb 9, 2018 01:10
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Known Lecher posted:The secret to dealing with Chinese embassies is to not deal with Chinese embassies. Pay an agent $50 or $100 and mail/hand them your paperwork. They have the connections and know who to slip a few bills to in order to make sure things actually get done. What is an "agent" in this context? Friend of your spouse's sketchy uncle?
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Feb 9, 2018 01:10
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Reading reviews of the Chinese Consulate in San Francisco on google: - They close at 2:30PM - The photocopier only takes quarters - You will probably have to wait three hours to get served, a lot of people noted this then gave 5 stars - Even if you have an appointment you are going to have to wait three hours - The phones are never answered - Their voicemail inbox is full so you can't even leave a message - Passport photos cost 15$
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Feb 9, 2018 01:16
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Devils Affricate posted:What is an "agent" in this context? Friend of your spouse's sketchy uncle? Usually a Chinese travel agency near the embassy that will also handle visas and passport stuff. Googling “China visa agency [city]” should find some examples.
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Feb 9, 2018 01:17
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Embassy workers can go gently caress themselves. Renewing my Canadian passport is a giant hassle. I need to have 2 specific references to confirm my Identity, I have to go to a specialist photo studio where they sign my photos, oh and I can go in the morning to process the application and book another time in the afternoon to pick it up. I actually save more time if I claimed that I lost my passport. But if I actually renew or apply for a Canadian passport in Canada I’m sure the process is a lot easier.
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Feb 9, 2018 02:08
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Applying for a tourist visa is even worse. It’s a lot more tedious on your end. You need to photocopy and rearrange chronologically all the passport stamps collected and list the duration of each stay. You then submit everything electronically including the photo and set for some appointment to meet. Hand in the passport and get the tourist visa stamp in 2 weeks. The UK was the worst. Not only you go through over 10 pages of questions, it got so ridiculous that you had to prove each meal you were planning to eat and the approximate expenses. My wife just gave up and rather wait for her HK passport.
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Feb 9, 2018 02:16
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I would blow Dane Cook posted:Reading reviews of the Chinese Consulate in San Francisco on google: Wow you can actually pay them photocopiers and take photos on site. Don’t they have a no electronic devices policy inside the embassies? I’m surprised they let you operate the photocopier. And how is the decor? Canadian embassies are amazing, it looks just like home from the ceiling paneling, to the green carpets
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Feb 9, 2018 02:20
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I recently had my passport renewed and when I got it I found out that they forgot to put my middle name on it. I called them about it and said they would have to re-issue a new passport which would require me paying the fees and filling out the paper work over again. I tried to get a straight answer if having no middle name on a passport even matters but no one seems to know.
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Feb 9, 2018 02:29
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Your passport should match the name on your ticket which should probably match your credit card and/or ID.
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Feb 9, 2018 02:31
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caberham posted:Wow you can actually pay them photocopiers and take photos on site. Don’t they have a no electronic devices policy inside the embassies? I’m surprised they let you operate the photocopier. I dunno i just looked at the reviews. The photocopier only takes quarters.
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Feb 9, 2018 02:52
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Vakal posted:I recently had my passport renewed and when I got it I found out that they forgot to put my middle name on it. I called them about it and said they would have to re-issue a new passport which would require me paying the fees and filling out the paper work over again. If your passport say Jobn Smith then book a ticket for Jobn Smith. 
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Feb 9, 2018 02:52
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So my birth certificate name is : [Surname], [chinese name] Abrahim my family’s close friends were Arabs and and wanted to give me an Arab name. But my grade 2 school teacher (and spellcheck) said Abrahim was a spelling mistake and changed the school board records to Abraham [surname] But my social insurance card name is [Half of Chinese name] [surname] It’s a freaking mess, even my citizenship card have different names in the front and back. Changing my legal name in Hong Kong was going to be a mess but thankfully I just used my Canadian passport as justification to sort out any inconsistencies. I guess I’m a true colonial now because my first name is my English name and Chinese name as middle. Which is actually kind of classist and sometimes low level police officers get confused. Changing my “go back to my village card” china permit was a mess when I showed my new name. The office personnel insisted I had a legal name change and wanted me to write another declaration form and go through a quagmire of bureaucracy and wait 9 months from the usual 2 weeks. Luckily he said that he will try to fast track my position and wanted me to write a letter. I wrote 4 sentences in English but that was not acceptable. So he rubbed his hands and wrote a whole page of polite honorifics and bullshit in Chinese. Anyways, get your records sorted out. It might seem cool to have multiple identities for different agencies but it sucks when you get older and really hard to transfer stocks and money to yourself
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Feb 9, 2018 03:02
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Yeah adding to that, my first name is spelt locke, pronounced lock - ee, ive seen everything from lock to lachlan to lachy on documents. had to submit my birth certificate 4 different times over about 25 hours of waiting at offices when i was injured and wanted to claim student welfare payments, was loving bullshit. make sure your shits right. this isn't even china related, gently caress all beuracracy. E: My favourite was when my first job tried to submit tax documents for me that I was supposed to do myself, but the dumb lady entered my name wrong on the computer and the dude who did the form went with that despite having my birth certificate and employee forms that I did myself in front of him, then he wouldn't listen to me when i told him because I was 13 at the time. poo poo's a headache if you have retarded parents who give you retarded white people names. underage at the vape shop fucked around with this message at 03:23 on Feb 9, 2018 |
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Feb 9, 2018 03:19
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Outrail posted:If your passport say Jobn Smith then book a ticket for Jobn Smith. Yeah, that's the conclusion I eventually came to. The airlines only give a poo poo that the name on the ticket matches and border security doesn't trust what it says on the passport anyway, they scan the barcode to see if any red flags show up.
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Feb 9, 2018 03:45
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My first name turned out to be misspelled on my birth certificate; somehow this never came up until I moved between states and years later got a new driver’s license in my then-home state, which required a copy of my birth certificate from my birth state.
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Feb 9, 2018 03:49
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SerCypher posted:So a China story in America. My wife just went through the same ordeal but worse. We live in Pittsburgh and had to drive to NYC (six hours) to apply for her new passport. After we got back, we received mail that told us her photo didn't meet the standards. It was the same deal that it's literally impossible to contact them. No phone or email is or has ever been answered. My wife decided to mail new photos in, but once she did we never heard from them again. This was all back in June. We waited a long time for them to contact us or notify us, but they never did. Since it is impossible to contact them, she decided she had to just go back there in person. We had a kid in September, so we can't really drive there anymore. I had to take the kid alone while she flew there for the day. She said she got there and they said "Oh yeah, here it is," and just had her passport in a drawer. No attempt to tell her "your passport is ready" and of course it would be IMPOSSIBLE to mail it or anything else. I think the NYC consulate hours are like 10am-2pm or something insane like that. They just really don't want to work and if that hurts all Chinese citizens on the East Coast of the US...well gently caress it who cares because I want to live in NYC with a cushy fake job.
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Feb 9, 2018 04:22
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angel opportunity posted:I think the NYC consulate hours are like 10am-2pm or something insane like that. They just really don't want to work and if that hurts all Chinese citizens on the East Coast of the US...well gently caress it who cares because I want to live in NYC with a cushy fake job. That's quite literally what it is. You got a rich daughter who wants to live in New York/LA/Vancouver/Toronto/London/Paris? Just pay the official in the party and they have a "job". The entire crew who work behind the windows at the Toronto consulate drive luxury automobiles that would seem to be more than they can afford on a typical civil servant wage.
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Feb 9, 2018 04:35
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Think of how many more rich people could have a cushy posting if they kept the consulate open later by having multiple shifts.
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Feb 9, 2018 04:38
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Platystemon posted:Think of how many more rich people could have a cushy posting if they kept the consulate open later by having multiple shifts. Consulates don't make money, that's why they don't care.
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Feb 9, 2018 04:55
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Blistex posted:Consulates don't make money, that's why they don't care. Yeah but the people you have to bribe to get your daughter a consulate job do make money.
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Feb 9, 2018 04:57
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It isn't a cushy job if you can't take the afternoon off every day
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Feb 9, 2018 04:59
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Let's check out the consulate in New York:quote:Unfortunately neither of us speak fluent Mandarin but she persisted in speaking to us until she got too annoyed and started speaking to us in Cantonese. If you knew we were trying so hard with another language and yet you speak our language fluently, why are you trying to give us such a hard time? quote:Oh, btw that copy machine does NOT give you changes. It cost 25 cents to copy one page. I put one dollar in, got one page copied, it won’t give the rest back. So you may also want to bring several quarters in case your copied documents do not meet the requirements. quote:The office staff is professional and efficient. But the security guard is extremely rude and unfriendly, especially Chinese guard is screaming to Chinese applicants all the time. God, I don't need to return to this place anymore after renewing my mother's passport. quote:I planned a trip to Japan, then China. I paid a visa service to drop off my passport a week and half prior to my departure for the following service: quote:I can't believe how rude the Americna security guard outside the Consulate is. He being so mean toward the chinese people who were waiting outside in line. Today was pouring rain in NYC so they handed out the umbrellas, it supposed to be nice however a chinese old lady forgot to give the umberalla back and the guard just yelling"Get the Fxxk back here !" and other rude words.Then when he saw American residents he keep saying "I apprecite your patience and thanks for understanding" and the same time he ignore all the chinese people around him.Also he said something like "chinese are human manufacturing" and staff. I can't express how dissapointed and angry i am right now. In the Chinese embassy chinese people can't even receive respect. This is so Pathetic ! quote:Thought that if we got everything ready, everything would be straightforward. We purchased money order from Walmart beforehand. However, they only accept money order from the 7-11 next street and made us to purchase the money order again. quote:The people there are extremely rude. One of their copy machines is broken and the other one is says it takes dollar bills but only takes change. If you happened to forget to print something, they send you to a Chinese Restaurant where they'll charge you $12 just to print the visa.This place needs to change.
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Feb 9, 2018 05:02
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simplefish posted:It isn't a cushy job if you can't take the afternoon off every day I’m saying you still have the same people working 9:30–14:30 as usual. The night crew comes in and operates the consulate from 14:30–19:30. Obviously the second shift is somewhat less cushy, but it’s free bribe money on top of whatever you were getting before.
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Feb 9, 2018 05:05
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I would blow Dane Cook posted:Let's check out the consulate in New York: Without excusing that guard’s behavior, I can only imagine how psychologically and morally broken I would be if I had spent my entire life living under Western standards of behavior and courtesy, never knowing anything else, and then took a job that involved keeping mainland Chinese people in line for 40 hours a week. Also lol at the old lady “accidentally” forgetting to return a free umbrella.
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Feb 9, 2018 05:10
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In comparison I guess got my new American passport from the AIT 2 weeks faster than they said it could take. No muss no fuss.
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Feb 9, 2018 05:11
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My china visas get processed in 3 days without expediting, no fuss about photographs, always less than a 2 hour wait even at its busiest, normally less than an hour. Wait actually now I think about it the application form on their website was out of date but it took two minutes to copy across to one of the up-to-date blanks they had there I can catch a bus to the office so the whole thing is painless simplefish fucked around with this message at 05:36 on Feb 9, 2018 |
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Feb 9, 2018 05:17
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Names, my wife has a terrible time with her names: Part one: About 150 years ago, a patriarch of the clan declared that each successive generation should have, as a part of their name, a character from an auspicious poem. So my wife's brother and all her cousins have the same character as part of their name, and their parents all have a different one etc. Except my wife, whose name is the shanghainese equivalent of bubala or chookie or whatever nonsense syllables you call a baby if you come from rural parts of Shanghai. The cantonese speaking nurse in the hospital heard her mom call her this, and kindly filled out all the forms for her. When they came to check out her dad says "That's the wrong name! It must be changed!" but on being told that it would cost $100 he literally said "Oh, she's only a girl" and left it as it was. Part two: The family arrives in Canada, my wife goes to school and is told she needs an english name, mom picks one and all is well, except that that name has no legal existence, and 20 years later is on her degree. Who is this person? where are they? Why do you have their degree? Made applying for a work visa really fun. Also, the Chinese consulate in Vancouver was great.
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Feb 9, 2018 05:19
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Ccs posted:Apparently the new Chinese embassy in Quebec that recently opened up is actually efficient and has good workers. I've heard a lot of horror stories about the Toronto one, where the only way to make an appointment was thorough a website that only works on a very old and specific browser, and the staff all take half days. The worst consulate I've ever had to deal with was the Korean one in Chicago. The Chinese visa centers in Korea were actually super efficient and pleasant.
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Feb 9, 2018 05:33
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Blistex posted:Consulates don't make money, that's why they don't care. Some consulates use visa processing fees as a means keeping operations afloat. The American Guangzhou consulate makes boat loads of money and can afford to pay really nice serviced apartments for long term staff. Get this, they can even pay temporary workers luxury hotels like the four seasons at daily rates for months yaffle posted:my wife goes to school and is told she needs an english name, mom picks one and all is well, except that that name has no legal existence, and 20 years later is on her degree. Who is this person? where are they? Why do you have their degree? Made applying for a work visa really fun. So how did she register her citizenship name? She probably went through something like this : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BolmzWM9PE And her Chinese passport name was used. My elder sister couldn't be in the same ceremony because she was just about to by 18 and had to take a citizenship test and go at another time
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Feb 9, 2018 05:56
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caberham posted:Some consulates use visa processing fees as a means keeping operations afloat. The American Guangzhou consulate makes boat loads of money and can afford to pay really nice serviced apartments for long term staff. Get this, they can even pay temporary workers luxury hotels like the four seasons at daily rates for months Her citizenship name is her Chinese name, the school name, which she uses for everything, doesn't exist as far as any government is concerned.
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Feb 9, 2018 06:01
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My citizenship name doesn't include my Chinese name and when I produced my birth certificate to the Consulate, they just called headquarters and just shrugged "sorry we will stick with whatever was filed. If you do want to change your name, you better do it back in Canada"
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Feb 9, 2018 06:11
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Does Canada allow legal name changes like a civilised country, or does it use lovely French civil law?
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Feb 9, 2018 07:43
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GotLag posted:Does Canada allow legal name changes like a civilised country, or does it use lovely French civil law? In Quebec, a citizen must have a good reason to change his or her name. “I got married” does not qualify as a good reason. Children may take either parent’s surname or a combination of the two. The other provinces are fine. I’ve heard that some even allow the common law process (basically just start using a new name), but I don’t know which ones. You want to file the paperwork anyway to avoid future legal hassles. If you get your name changed in a different process, Quebec is of course forced to recognise it, but that can require multi‐month residency. Platystemon fucked around with this message at 07:55 on Feb 9, 2018 |
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Feb 9, 2018 07:52
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As a U.S. citizen and passport holder - My experience getting Chinese and Indian visas before: Use a visa agency. Mail my passport after doing the questions online and paying online. Get my passport back whenever its ready. Getting Chinese visa IRL in Chiang Mai, Thailand: Walk in wearing flip-flops and my least-stained, least-ripped shirt and shorts. Don't comb my hair or shave. Play phone while doing the paper work by hand. Spend an extended time drinking ice water from the water cooler (WTF, China?). Give the skinny girls behind the glass window my paper work. They're all wearing tank tops and shorts too, so we give each other air-fives because we recognize how comfortable we are. I come back 2 days later and get my passport back. Arriving in India: "Saar, and what is your purpose here in India?" "Staying with friends, seeing some temples, enjoying the heat." "Heh heh, enjoying the heat! Welcome to India." Arriving in China: "You don't look like the man in the passport photo." "It's me when I used to buzz my head." "But it doesn't look like you. You have longer hair now." "The photo is seven years old..." *Calls three other customs officers to stand there and look at the photo and look at me* *I hand them my state ID card, which has a photo of me with hair, and tell them to look at the name and DOB* "Oh... ok....." *Stamps passport* *Has to do this every single time I enter into China* Arriving in HK: *Guy/girl chatting and joking with the officer in the next booth* *Doesn't even look at my passport* *Smashes buttons, gives me the little slip of paper to show I entered legally, and waves me through* Arriving in Thailand: "WHY ARE YOU HERE???????????" "I came to see my father and family." "WHY ARE THEY HERE????????" "My father married a Thai woman and has lived here almost three decades" "WHY ARE YOU HERE?????????????????????????" "Umm..... tourism?" "WHY DID YOU COME?" "TO gently caress LADYBOYS AND PAY FOR SEX AND DRUGS, RIGHT? THAT'S WHAT YOU EXPECT ME TO SAY?" "Welcome to to the kingdom of Thailand." Arriving in UK/EU: "Sir, what is the purpose of this visit?" "Staying with friends, seeing some mosques, and enjoying the hot weather." "What? Do you know where you are?" *Get anal probed for two hours before being boarded on a flight back to my country* Arriving back to the USA: "What were you doing in these countries?" "Hanging out, enjoying the weather and food." "Welcome home, sir."
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Feb 9, 2018 08:24
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"Welcome home, sir," is one of those things that will never not bring a tear to my eye. But I only hear it after 20+ hours of flying, so I imagine I'm mostly delirious by that point. Also, I've never had any issue at Thai immigration. The closest was when I filled out the landing form after canceling my work visa since I was in the middle of converting to a spouse visa and the officer wanted to know why I marked myself as a tourist when I had a valid work visa. I pointed out that that visa had been cancelled without prejudice and he stamped my passport without issue.
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Feb 9, 2018 09:42
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Sino-Indian relations on the up and up https://twitter.com/chinarhyming/status/961882363709059072
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Feb 9, 2018 10:33
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I'll assume Nazar is Gamal Abdel Nasser, but who is "Mazni"?
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Feb 9, 2018 10:49
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Imperialist Dog posted:Sino-Indian relations on the up and up Does “dictator” means something different in India? What do they have against Abe Lincoln? Kopijeger posted:I'll assume Nazar is Gamal Abdel Nasser, but who is "Mazni"? Minoo Masani, perhaps.
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Feb 9, 2018 11:11
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Platystemon posted:Does “dictator” means something different in India? He saved the Union and freed the slaves, but he didn't exactly respect the constitution or due process.
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Feb 9, 2018 11:15
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