Today's weather: High = 31 Low = 20
Sunny
It's getting hot out there again! Actually, it's great weather.
If anyone actually reads this drivel, then you know I've been going on nonstop about the hassles of trying to replace a lost Chinese drivers license in China, over a multiple series of posts. This is the final document out of many valuables to be replaced when I literally lost a bag with my life in it last summer.
Fittingly, I haven't lost a single item since that summer, and I now make it a goal not to lose anything valuable ever again. Having learned from experiences, it is appropriate to slot this into the same category as getting into a car accident in China. It's just something that you don't let happen.
I was chatting about this issue with one of my Chinese local friends / colleagues in the office. She has been incredibly helpful in the translation work and other assistance to go with this driver license fiasco. Somewhere in the conversation, she slipped in the fact that she has never lost her ID card and doesn't intend to. I asked why and she said, "Because we Chinese know the process involved in replacing a lost ID card and other valuables, and just how troublesome it is. So we take special care not to let that happen."
On a related note, she also explained in detail the process needed for a Chinese person to apply for a passport and to travel abroad, or to live abroad for an extended period of time. Let's just say the complexity and trouble of what's involved made my head spin. No wonder so many Chinese women marry rich single foreign men in China in order to get out of the country, it's not exactly rocket science. But even still, for those who opt for this shortcut method, the paperwork is mind-boggling.
You have a physical body and you have a soul, but you don't exist if your paperwork is out of order.
As for my drivers license, why bother going through all this trouble of retracing my steps to Suzhou prefecture where I used to live, and doing all the things as outlined in the previous posts? Why not just apply to replace the license in Shanghai, or make up a new identity?
Actually, that tactic would not have worked and I'll explain why shortly.
As I found out today, all the steps I had done previously were indeed correct. I had a hunch that I was doing the right steps, even going back to Luxu and obtaining a residence permit form. This was all confirmed today by paying a visit to the vehicle management office in downtown Suzhou. It was no motorcycle backroad trip this time!! Thanks to the high-speed trains directly from downtown Shanghai to downtown Suzhou, I got there in 25 minutes.
Unfortunately, I still got there too late as they stopped collecting numbers at 4pm even though the office closed at 5pm. My interpreter deeply apologized as he didn't know this information and said they closed at 5pm, thus prompting me to get on a train after work and arrive around 4:30
Wanting to regain some face, he did a fantastic job by approaching the main information counter and asking all sorts of detailed questions about what I needed to do for the next trip, and whether the documents I had at present were all OK. The clerk checked the documents and said they were OK. So the process is going to be like this now:
1. Make another trip to the Suzhou vehicle management office around 1pm, or just after the lunch break. I can easily do this on Monday as classes finish arround 11am. Thank goodness for my teaching schedule as I can actually do business errands while not taking the whole day off. This has been an incredible advantage here.
2. Present all the documents, fill out a form. The form is incredibly simple. It even has a checkbox for the reason why you need to replace the license: lost, stolen, destroyed, or confiscated by the police.
3. Take a number, wait in line.
4. Get the replaced license within the afternoon
5. Pay 10 RMB. Chump change, really
What I also found out is crucial. After getting the replaced license, I must convert it to a Shanghai license within month. Failure to do so means the license will be revoked!! Thank goodness they told me this.
Unfortunately, that is going to mean a subsequence visit to the Shanghai vehicle management bureau and dragging out this thing even longer. Not only that, but I absolutely must get it done next week because the Shanghai bureau won't convert a license unless my residence permit visa in the passport has at least 3 months validity! That means I have to do this before May 15.
OK, so it's a pain in the ass, but at least I know what's coming up, and it is becoming clearer what needs to be done. It is a lot like the passport fiasco back in summer where the worst part is at the beginning with all the uncertainty. Then, once you reach a certain point, it's just doing a whole bunch of logical steps. It's still time-consuming, but at least you know that you have more and more chances of a successful outcome as you get further along in the process.
So the steps I've taken so far are the best ones.
The alternative plan to create a new identity and a new license from scratch in Shanghai would have failed because I would need to follow these steps
1. Obtain a copy of my original Canadian drivers license which I DO NOT HAVE thanks to a blunder I made last summer with applying for that license too late, and it didn't arrive in the mail until after I had gotten on a plane back to Shanghai
2. Even if I did have the license, would need to take it into a translation office
3. Apply for a 100-question multiple choice test on Chinese traffic laws. This is the same test I had already taken in Jiangsu province and I worked my ass off for it, passing after the 3rd attempt. I have little intentions of wanting to repeat that test.
4. Even if I did this, it would all have to be arranged before May 15, due to the residence permit issue. There is no way I could get a slot to write the test before that, as the Shanghai office is busy, busy, busy, busy, busy. You have to literally book it months in advance
Even now, I'm really worried about a 'simple' conversion of the Suzhou license into the Shanghai one which must be done. This is a very popular type of transaction and could easily take a long time in the queues. I have a good mind to camp overnight in front of the door and do it first thing in the morning, or at the very least, arrive at 4am or something, just to ensure the damn thing gets done next week.
There's the possibility of simply not doing the conversion and just driving around with a Suzhou license. But that would not be a good plan since I eventually will be converting that license into a motorcycle license after doing the official test back home in Canada over the summer. If I attempted to convert a Suzhou license directly into a Shanghai motorcycle license, they would ask for other documents and eventually find out I hadn't done this within a month. And I'd be screwed.
Another thing is that I'm going to be moving out of my apartment within a month, after the drivers license thing goes through. Then I'll need to register with the police in a new district in the midburbs, and then eventually the school is going to help me extend the residence permit once I sign a contract with the school for next year.
So as it stands now, obtaining a replacement license in Suzhou and converting into a Shanghai car license must be done next week. Wish me luck.
I hope all this information is convincing evidence enough that the hukou system in China is very much alive and kicking. The differences between living in Shanghai or Suzhou are extremely real. You don't just hop back and forth between the two places like a bullet train which can do the trip in 23 minutes.
Having a job two years ago in no-mans land between Shanghai and Suzhou really illuminated what this whole thing is all about, and I'm still facing the consequences of that 2008-09 school year, even today.
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