When in Rome

Today's weather: High = 19 Low = 10
Showers

When in Rome, do as the Romans do. As much as I don't like doing sneaky things, today was a matter of necessity and following the locals in what they would do. Later on, my Chinese friends gave me a thumbs up for creativity, and some found this whole thing hilarious about what I did.

To make a long story short, I lost a drivers license last summer along with a bunch of other valuable documents. So far everything has been recovered except for the license! The last 3 weeks have been spent trying to replace this license, and it has been incredibly frustrating. However, I scored a minor victory on a necessary document that has been dogging me for the past two weeks. For that success today, I felt absolutely elated!!

My former drivers license was obtained in Jiangsu Province, Suzhou prefecture, Wujiang sub-prefecture, Luxu Town, and at a specific address of the school and associated hotel I used to live and teach at two years ago.

In order to replace the license, I had to make multiple trips to Wujiang sub-prefecture, and also Luxu Town, specifically the local police station in Luxu. That was to try and score some key documents to prove that I used to live there, at the specific address had to match that which was on my drivers license. The goal was to procur a temporary registration form of residence from the local police station. With that in hand, the next step (not done yet) would be to go to the vehicle management office in downtown Suzhou along with other documents, including a photocopy of the former lost license.

Then I'd try and replace the license. It is very possible that I will end up making another series of trips to downtown Suzhou in the near future, with each trip obtaining more and more information about what is required for the next trip. Sucks eh, but that's how the game is played.

Nonetheless, today's victory means I won't need to make any more trips back to Luxu again. For that, I'm happy.

The last several attempts to get that document in Luxu failed, and resulted in a constant game of ping-pong between police stations, with each officer saying I had to go to the other one.

For example, the Luxu police station said because I don't live there anymore and my passport number is different from the old one, I need to go back to the Shanghai police station and register where I live. But I already registered in Shanghai with my work visa, and there is a form to prove it. But Luxu says the dates on that form don't match the most recent entry date in my passport and I'd need to pay a fine in order to score the document. But Shanghai says it is not necessary to pay a fine because I only need to register once, and that was done at the beginning of the school year. But Luxu says I have to register every time I re-enter the mainland, the most recent one (at that time) being Feb 13

I figured that the ping-pong game would go on ad-infinitum, so enough is enough, it was time to put a stop to this crap.

The plan was a somewhat sketchy one, and a risky one too -- but my chances of success would hinge on how professional the job was done, and the attention to detail. First, I asked my secretary in Shanghai to email me the latest registration form of the house address from the police. Due to what the Shanghai police office said above, there was no need to get the most updated entry dates because the registration matched my work visa, not the dates of entering the mainland. But Luxu police office obviously had a different opinion.

Basically, the emailed form I got was good enough except for a couple of dates that needed changing. PDF editor to the rescue. I made a blank form by using the computer to white-out all the existing dates, then printed out the blank form. Next step was to print out the "correct" dates using fonts and sizes in Microsoft Word that resembled the other fonts on the form as closely as possible. This took tons of practice. Once it was satisfactory, I then copied and pasted the dates into the blank form in a very literal sense. After that, off to the photocopiers to make several copies, adjusting the toner level and using manual whiteout and photocopying again to erase any trace that looked like the document had been tampered with. In the end, the product was so professional looking that it was nearly impossible to tell it was a fake.

Part of the "success" here was that the other information from the Shanghai form was not changed, and it included the fact that I had previously entered the mainland from LUO HU, a major entry port from Hong Kong. So on my recent trip to Hong Kong, I made sure that I re-entered from the same LUO HU entry point, and got a genuine stamp in my passport with the exact date and location that matched what was on my faked form. And that also matched the internal records in the PSB computer system which the Luxu police officers were no doubt looking at.

Waiting in suspense, but making jokes with the police officer at the same time, it wasn't long until I got exactly the document I had hoped for. I then did like the locals do and checked over every detail on the form and studied it intently before thanking the officers, making another joke, and then taking off.

Sometime before that, the police officer also said, "Hang on, I can add here that you are visiting a friend for the purpose of your stay in Luxu." I said, "Good enough" even both of us knew that was a bunch of BS.

Appearing to leave in a hurry immediately after getting the document would be a major tactical error. Even if it was perfect, I wanted to create the appearance of looking over it, as if I was trying to find where any mistake might be.

All of this brought back memories of when I was younger and attempted to forge a parent's signature on a school-related document during elementary school. The attempt failed back then, but this is a classic story that I tell again and again to various Chinese students I teach. That story is always a hit with them. Several of them have commented that I was thinking and acting like a Chinese person even at a very young age. Who would have ever thought that such tactics would need to be used again in my adult life. Shameful, yes, but there was no other way I'd be able to replace that damn license I had lost.

Readers may recall this isn't the first time I had to forge paperwork in China in order to replace a lost document. A very similar tactic was also done to replace a lost passport back in the summer time actually. The police officer in Guangzhou asked for a letter of release from my former Wuhan employer, otherwise they wouldn't put a visa inside my temporary passport. To make a long story short, I ended up faking that document also.

The idea is that you do the faking with photocopies, not with originals. To fake an original is much more difficult. There are obviously vendors who can produce a custom-made red circular stamp on demand to your liking for a fee which you negotiate. However, it takes a lot of time to make it look right, and they charge expensive prices for good reasons --- very detail intensive work. Anyways, the idea is that you present the photocopy as a document, and don't say anything. If they ask for the original, you can say you need to keep the original to show other departments, etc. and in exchange you can offer for them to keep the photocopy you've faked. At any rate, PHEW, they never asked me for the original.

This is something I never want to do again, and let's hope this is the last time.

Once everything was fine, I got on the motorcycle and crossed the provincial border back into Shanghai using the newly discovered series of backroads in order to avoid both of the police checkpoints. Thanks to major improvements on that HU-QING-PING highway now, the whole trip only took 65 minutes of riding time back downtown. Before it could take anywhere from 75-80 minutes. Fittingly enough, that may very well have beee my last Shanghai -- Luxu run.

A friend asked if I was going to stay overnight in Luxu again, like I had done last time. I was like screw that, there's no reason to go back there again now.

I had to at least celebrate by stopping off exactly at the midway point in Qingpu for a well-deserved meal and a McDonald's coffee.