Regal

If all goes as planned, today I will be acquiring my official Chinese residency visa.  This means I can come and go from the country as often as I like.  I’m now “official” in the eyes of the government.

You ought to see the ornate paperwork that you receive.  My company hangs on to it, but there’s the so-called “Brown Book” which looks sort of like a passport or an old-style bank book.  Then there’s another two-page certificate thing, which comes in the type of folding binder-thing (I don’t know what the hell you’d call it) which a high school diploma comes in.  Very official, very ornate, and definitely very Chinese.