Dear mean lady at the Beijing Exit-Entry Administration Bureau,
Help! I am a 26-year-old gay man stuck in a traditional Chinese quandary. I’m going back home, along with millions of other straight and gay countrymen and women, to my hometown in Anhui Province for the Lunar New Year Spring Festival. My parents have been pressuring me for years to get married and introduce my “fiancée” to them. They have even threatened to cut off the funds they send me that help keep the struggling Beijing Pink Hello Kitty Anita Mui Memorial Diva cabaret afloat. They think it is an English-language school.
I have paid a 45-year-old woman 10,000 yuan to pose as my future bride but in addition to the age difference, she presents some other problems, such as suffering from Tourettes’s Syndrome. New Year’s dinner could prove awkward. Any suggestions?
Yours lovelorn,
Fed up with Filial Piety
Mean lady at the Beijing Exit-Entry Administration Bureau says:
I see you’ve supplied all the documentation needed for a working “Z” visa and are seemingly fully qualified for the position. Everything seems to be in order…. I just need your D/1046 danwei authorization release form from your previous employer. Oh, you don’t have it?
I’m afraid your visa will have to be denied. Yes, this rule was introduced at an unspecified date earlier this year. No, we didn’t mention it on our website or through any other outlet. I’m telling you now. You’ll have to find a blank copy of the D/1046 form on your own, as we have none available at the moment. This is a pilot program subject to final approval by the National People’s Congress in the next 5-year planning session.
Yes, I understand that your flight is tomorrow and that the paperwork and deposit were supplied months ago. No, there was no conceivable way you could have anticipated this problem. But. This. Is. China. These. Are. The. Rules. We do not break them for anybody! Unless you are able to get the form within the next 45 minutes, before we close, along with a 4,000-yuan special processing fee, I cannot return this already stamped-and-sealed visa placed here in your passport.
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