Ma Fan - from Rob

Ma Fan. There’s this great little word in our new language. It carries such deep meaning. You use it to convey anything that is troublesome or bothersome. Basically anything that is a royal pain in the neck can be described as Ma Fan. The cool thing is when you throw out the Ma Fan everyone understands. You can be talking about a subject and all of the sudden reference it as very Ma Fan and you quickly receive knowing grunts and nodding heads in agreement, as though you’ve just connected with some deeply common experience that binds people together. Maybe it’s the very idea of Ma Fan that holds this entire culture together. I could easily think that today.

Today I set out to pursue what I think is step 3 or 4 (I have no idea how many there are total and probably still won’t when I’m done) to getting our visa situation settled. We have already renewed the company registration, changed the official address to our home, and named ourselves as the chief representatives. Last week Alicia and I had medical exams done to get our health books that allow us to officially say we are not bringing in any infectious diseases into the country. What a relief! That trip was truly an experience, and oh so blog worthy, but not the focus of my rant today. All of these things were merely the run up to going in for our visas. All of this stuff had been a little Ma Fan, but nothing compared to what I was about to run into.

After we biked the kids to school today I took off to meet "our guy" who is helping us with our visa stuff. He goes by Mr. Golf. This is yet another example of the strange things that can occur when locals give themselves English names. Mr. Golf speaks just enough English to act like he can, but not enough to really communicate. So Mr. Golf and I head off together to a rather large and tidy govt building filled with attendants behind counters and a full array of cubicles behind those. The air was filled with lovely elevator music that would have been fitting any first rate department store in the states. After a few trips to different floors we finally found the place we needed to be, back on the first floor, and the long day began. The day can really be split up into two parts, the waiting before lunch and the waiting after lunch. I waited while he found out what forms we needed. I waited while he filled out those forms. I waited while the people behind the counter mulled endlessly over the newly filled out forms. But the best came right before lunch.

Somewhere along the way some friends of Mr. Golf’s came into the office. They were working on the same things I was, so Mr. Golf decided to go ahead and help them out as well; which only doubled my fun. Mr. Golf was off with his friends when lunch time arrived. At what must have been the exact moment of noon the whole office went quiet. It was this deafening silence that caused me to look up from the game of snake on my cell phone I had decided to pass the time with. I was all alone. No workers. No others people waiting. Not even my friend Golf was to be found. A few moments later the lights went out and shades were drawn over the windows. It was lunch time. I was not lonely long as Mr. Golf found me and we decided to go out and find some noodles for lunch. We grabbed a quick bite at a nearby noodle shop and then went back to the office. When we arrived the lights were still out, but the cubicles and the counters were fully manned, except everyone was asleep. Everyone in their place, most sitting or slumping in their chairs, but sound asleep. A few conscientious nappers even had the cute Lone Ranger mask without the eyeholes thingies to maximize their downtime. At 1:00 exactly the music kicked back on and within 2 – 3 minutes everything was up and running again; just in time for me to wait some more.

Over lunch Mr. Golf told me that we may have a problem getting done what we need to get done. He wouldn’t, or couldn’t elaborate further. At one point in the afternoon, after he disappeared with his other friends for about another hour, he tried to explain the problem and could only get out what I understood to be, "Bank of America." That threw me a little because I could not figure out why BOA would have anything to do with my visa. After spending the entire afternoon at the office I walked out with a License for Employment in this country and Mr. Golf seeming ominous about our progress. The Employment License was much less than we set out to get and really does me little immediate good.

My phone rang soon after arriving home from a hard day of sitting and waiting. It was Mr. Golf. He said that I needed to come to his house that evening with someone to translate so I could fully understand what was going on. I said Ok, and that I would try to find someone to come with me. With a translator in tow I headed to Mr. Golf’s house at about 8:30. Upon arriving I learned that the entire system has changed from what it used to be and the new system offers new and interesting hoops to jump through. The biggest revelation was that "Bank of America" was actually "Back to America". The biggest new step is that I have to enter the country on a business visa and cannot change once I arrive, as we had been planning to do. My Employment License simply allows me to apply for a business visa at an embassy or consulate… in America! Note to all parents…. We don’t really think we will be coming back to the states anytime soon. We went on to discuss the prospect that we can probably just go to the embassy in Hong Kong and get this taken care of. So it means we will take what we hope will be a short trip out of the country next month to take care of step 5 of what will certainly be a process that will offer many more Ma Fan days.