There's a reason why it's called "Red Tape"

The past week has been dominated by sorting, packing, moving stuff, talking about packing, strategizing about our move to Suzhou and talking to others about the aforesaid...


We received our license to work in China and although we cannot even begin to read the fine print, we are very happy that we have negotiated the system this far. "Red tape" are two words I've been thinking about quite a lot these days. It's interesting that the colour "red" is chosen, possibly to describe the anger, rage or steam-coming-out-of-your-head-stuff when having to deal with the bureaucrats of society. The fact that "tape" is used, possibly refers to the fact that when one has gone red and lost your temper, the feeling of desperation is further accentuated by a feeling similar to being wrapped up in tape so tightly that you cannot move your arms or legs! Dante's Inferno is suspiciously silent on the subject of where exactly bureuacrats fit in. I mean, look at the word "bureaucrat". Why is the spelling so difficult? You have to leave your computer every time to look up the word!



After being given 3 sets of differing advice about completing the local visa application process, I took a trip to the Chinese Consultate in Sandhurst yesterday. There was quite a lot of anger being exchanged between members of the public and the members of the People's Republic behind extremely thick bullet proof glass booths (I wonder why). However when I got to the front of the line and proudly displayed my "Alien's Employment License of the PRC", I could see a change in attitude from behind the counter and even got a smile! One surprise is that we all need to do quite a substantial medical check up. One of the categories on the medical information form requires from the medical practitioner that he has to certify that we do not suffer from anything that may disturb the "public order and security". Hold thumbs all go well...


Another little bit of drama is that we lost our apartment that we "reserved" (or thought we did) last week. Apparently the landlord (who was willing to wait for us) was not prepared to wait any longer and gave us an ultimatum out of the blue to sign the lease immediately. Despite mild protestations from our side he/she decided not to accept our final offer. Anyway, Maggie our competent house hunter in Suzhou has assured us there's no need to worry, she has plenty nice apartments lined up. One possibility is in the same block of apartments but higher up in the building. We would like to see the place first before committing, so the plan is to move into a serviced apartment for the first week or so until we sort out the housing problem...


The last weekend we spent saying "early byes" to friends and family and did not worry too much about the move and all the red tape. A very pleasant weekend, with Irene and I even managing to celebrate our wedding anniversary by having a quiet breakfast at Roots.

We have booked our tickets for the 30th of March so we are down to 12 days and counting!! Hold thumbs for our last preparations!

Talk soon!

On Suzhou

Double click and look for the tiny yellow spot...

The easy answer is to direct people to our new home is that it's 80kms west of Shanghai. A couple of times I saw looks on people's faces ranging from "oh, so it's in the Styx" or "oh, it's in the country side"...

A little bit of background. Suzhou is a fairly large Chinese city with around 10million people (roughly the amount of people in Gauteng). It is economically vibrant and has been identified as one of the twelve economic zones in China. It is known as the "Venice of the east" due to the fact that the old city is built around waterways and canals.

What is appealing about Suzhou is that it has a rich history dating back as much as 2500 years. It is world renowned for its gardens and it is one of the "1000 places to see before you die" according to Patricia Schultz. The beautiful gardens in Suzhou have colourful and descriptive names such as "The Humble Administrator's Garden" or "The Master of the Nets Garden".

We will be living in an apartment close lake Jinji, one of the smaller lakes in Suzhou. The apartment complexes in Suzhou have names that make you giggle such as "Golden Love" and "Join in the Grand". We will be living in in a compound called "Horizon Resort". The area where we will be living is known as the Singapore Industrial Park (SIP). It is a massive 200 square kilometre development of businesses, apartments and light industries, mainly aimed at attracting foreign investment. There are roughly 20,000 expats in Suzhou. The SIP is vibrant with modern wide lane roads, bicycle paths and a "nice big city feel" to it. When we were there in October we noticed at least two Starbucks in the area (or "Starbucker" as it is known in China).

The children will go to a British International school called Dulwich College. It is a satellite campus of Dulwich College London. It is a relatively young school with about 500 kids. We like the vibe and the teachers and we're sure they'll fit in nicely. They also place a"cap" of 30% of a nation per grade. In so doing you do get a true international school in stead of a situation where one nation "dominates" the school culture. Children don't go to school during July and August, mainly because of the hot summer. Tannie Bettie (the children's au pair) volunteered (and we accepted), to spend the holidays with us in Suzhou!

Suzhou has steaming hot summers (38 degrees with 100% humidity), we are a bit worried about that! Winters are freezing and snow is not uncommon...

The idea is that Irene and I will take turns to return to SA every three months to keep in touch with the business and obviously to align our work in China with the SA operation. We are still in two minds over whether we want to take the kids with us on these trips.

I can report that since my last post, our Chinese "invitation" has been approved and we should have our visas in our passports, this time next week!. Also we have booked our tickets and our departure date is the 30th of March (a blue Monday!). Our friends have done well to relieve us of our "load of stuff" and our first couple of steps on the journey of a thousand miles have gone without a major hick-up.

Chat soon!

Rihann

On a journey of a thousand miles

The Chinese philosopher Loa Tse famously remarked that a journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step. He did not however offer any practical advice such as what to pack for this journey, as we discovered the past few months.

Some of our friends took to the philosophical idea by suggesting that we should take as little as possible. Between Irene and I we have decided to follow the good advice and are now doing what Lao Tse probably also would have advised: "Get rid of your stuff and travel light". It also reminds me of that other famous treatise on travelling: "The Hitch hiker's guide to the gallaxy" where it is famously remarked that one only needs a towel for inter gallactic travel:

A towel is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. You can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta…wet it for use in hand-to-hand combat…wrap it around your head to ward off noxious fumes…any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the Galaxy, rough it … win through, and still know where his towel is, is clearly a man to be reckoned with."
—Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy

I once famously remarked that the only things I would want to pack are my hi-fi and coffee machine. After much deliberation it would seem that this is not practical...Being the world's factory China expects one to pay heavy duties on all things brought into the country. So! At present we are getting rid of our stuff and is aiming to travel as light as possible and hope that we can prove Douglas Adams wrong by travelling without towels (because we're moving into a furnished apartment...). The big packing operation starts today. We sold our house and have to be out by the 1st of April (no joke) so evacuation has to start regardless.

Our agents in China advised that we should soon receive our formal invitation from the Chinese government. Therafter we need to locally apply for our visas. This should happen round the middle of March. Our estimated departure date should be the end of March. We have not bought our tickets. This seems to be a very hard to thing to do. It is sort of the proverbial last straw.

Things are starting to gather momentum and we are looking forward to getting there and settling in.

Will talk soon!