By WUDE WUXIN MEIGUOREN
Corruption Correspondent
Local father Guo Zhenyuan expressed disbelief Thursday after failing to locate even one corrupt official willing to accept a bribe to expedite a routine school-transfer application for his nine-year-old daughter.
“I’ve personally spoken to every bureaucrat at the municipal administrative service center responsible for approving these forms,” complained Guo. “You’d think, in a country where 65% of officials are supposedly on the take, at least one of them would gladly pocket a red envelope stuffed with ¥3,000 for a quick five minutes of work. I offered cartons of cigarettes. I even suggested dropping the envelope off at their house—you know, keep it away from the office—but each time, they’d just start quoting Xi Jinping’s speeches on socialist values. Who knew those anti-corruption posters actually worked?”
Guo was repeatedly advised that his paperwork would be processed within the standard timeframe of three to four weeks, assuming he provided the required processing fee, proper signatures, and eleven official stamps from six different offices.
“He kept pushing a fat envelope toward me like it was Chinese New Year,” recounted one anonymous and totally lame municipal official. “I politely reminded him bribery is illegal—plus, ¥3,000 hardly covers my risk. The last guy caught accepting bribes was transferred to Zinjiang to inventory wild goats.”
Another official reportedly panicked when Guo pulled out the red envelope. “I told him even touching it would trigger facial-recognition cameras, automatically dispatching corruption inspectors from Beijing. I don’t need that kind of heat.”
As Guo’s desperation mounted, his bribery attempts grew increasingly creative. “At first, it was just cash and Maotai, then concert tickets to a local boy-band. Finally, out of sheer desperation, I offered a full set of pirated Game of Thrones DVDs,” said Guo. “But nothing worked.”
A third official offered Guo some practical advice: “If he wants immediate approval, he should try the traditional route—just become a government official himself.”
Guo insists the normal waiting period is unacceptable. “The headmaster at the new school made it clear she gets a performance bonus if every seat is filled by next week. She already has three other desperate parents lined up. I’ve lived in Zhengzhou my entire life—everything here is corrupt: the water treatment facilities, toy manufacturers, even Buddhist monasteries,” Guo sighed. “But finding a corrupt bureaucrat? No chance.”
At press time, Guo was reportedly hauled away by plainclothes State Security agents after a neighbor successfully bribed a Deputy Division Chief with only ¥500 and a pack of cigarettes to arrest him on suspicion of growing melons in his garden.
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