seems like china doesn't want to let me in. both times i entered china (on the train from mongolia and flying back from north korea) i got hassled.
the train was the worst. a woman came around to collect the passports and arrival cards from each cabin. she looked at mine, stared at the picture, told me to take my glasses off (i've learned it's much smarter to take your passport picture with glasses on if you always wear glasses like i do). looked at me versus the picture for a few minutes. i even put my hair down to help match the picture. she asked when i took the picture and i said 9 years ago. she finally accepted it and continued on.
little did i know that it wasn't over. she came back with another agent and asked him if i looked like my passport picture. he looked, didn't say anything conclusive and told me to follow them. i got marched off the train, down the platform (everyone else was still locked in the wagons) and took me to the supervisor in charge. on the way they asked me the last time i'd been to china, why i've been here so many times, and where i was born. in the supervisor's office it was him and three others. i remembered i had my drivers license and pulled that out. he looked at everything and determined it was me in the passport photo and they let me go.
but the fun wasn't over. they ran me back to the train because it was just about to be moved to have the bogies changed (mongolia and china have different gauge tracks). they put me on the last car, i had to go through 7 wagons to get back to mine. first went okay, then I had to deal with a Mongolian passenger who wouldn't let me by, kept turning me back , explain to 6 Chinese guards what happened and what I was doing, three carriage attendents who only spoke Mongolian who wouldn't let me through their carriages and unlock the doors between the carriages and explain to two more Chinese guards what i was doing. finally got to the last door before my wagon and the attendant let me through but the last door was locked. she shrugged and went away and I thought I'd have to spend 2 hours standing there while they changed the bogies. fortunately, two of the Chinese guards i passed came by and got the key and helped me get back to my cabin, just before they disconnected the wagons to change the bogies.
flying back to Beijing was not as bad, though erick got a taste of it too. the immigration agent didn't think either one of us looked like our pictures and had us sign our names and compared it to our passport signatures. guess we both passed because he let us both in. luckily we shouldn't have any more china entries this trip.
1 comment:
You seemed to take it calmly. One time my friend's mom lost her "return-to-village" card. We had to spend a night in jail until the card was shipped in. Thank goodness it was a jail for tourist like us. The guard was very interested in Hong Kong and treated us to tea.
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