I wanted to get my license to drive in china, not that intend to buy a car but partly as something to do!
Elaine and i went to the local lingxi traffic office to ask about taking the test as international licenses don't apply here and was told no. Not in this small town I would have to go to the big city and bring my license, passport, visa and local police residency permit, all translated of cause!
The first problem was that although when I first arrived I had registered with the police for a local residency permit it had lapsed more than a year ago and we hadn't gone to get another. The police station was only open during office hours and so I had to skip a morning class to drive over to the police station, we wandered into the right office and found the right man but unfortunately he was way too busy to fill out the form, but if we could get the form, he was the only man who could stamp it! the only man in lingxi who would condescend to actually fill out the form was in another police station in another part of town and also was now in a meeting.... Game over!
The next day we went again to the other police station to find him and walking into a police station with a big protected office were instantly invited to come on round and sit down!
At first he didn't know which form or kept insisting that we didnt need a form at all but eventually he understood and found the page we needed a copy of on his computer.
Wow! It was a list of everything about me in china, listing everything, every entry and exit, every visa, every hotel I had stayed in, he let us have a quick look, pretty scary stuff! (I even tried to snap a quick picture but the angle made it tricky, my travels circled in red).
With it found he pressed print and... Half the document came out! Doh, turns out the page was too wide for the page but because of the Locked down page we could change the view to make it fit! he spent a few minutes trying to sort it and printing a few more useless corners before looking at us a bit embaressed... I decided to put my IT degree to use and motioned to have a go! he left me so I took over the mouse and keyboard on the police terminal to try to get it to work, a few different methods were tried but in the end I took a few printscreens and stitched them together in paint to get the full page, a few dodgy joins but it looked ok printed on a crappy laser printer!
I noticed on the policeman's desk a folder, which I also snapped a sneaky picture of, which, as most things in China, had some English on the front, the English was:
"The silence often of pure innocence, persuades when speaking fails"
very appropriate for a police station don't you think!
With the document sorted we now needed it stamped but of course he couldn't do that, back to the main police station across town to find the man with the stamp who, after initially refusing to stamp anything, grudgingly stamped half of it a few times in a non commital way before saying the rest wasn't needed and so he wouldn't stamp it! Nevermind! Hopefully they will accept it!
After that i made it back to class just in time to give the last class before lunch, sorted! on to wenzhou!!
Elaine and i went to the local lingxi traffic office to ask about taking the test as international licenses don't apply here and was told no. Not in this small town I would have to go to the big city and bring my license, passport, visa and local police residency permit, all translated of cause!
The first problem was that although when I first arrived I had registered with the police for a local residency permit it had lapsed more than a year ago and we hadn't gone to get another. The police station was only open during office hours and so I had to skip a morning class to drive over to the police station, we wandered into the right office and found the right man but unfortunately he was way too busy to fill out the form, but if we could get the form, he was the only man who could stamp it! the only man in lingxi who would condescend to actually fill out the form was in another police station in another part of town and also was now in a meeting.... Game over!
The next day we went again to the other police station to find him and walking into a police station with a big protected office were instantly invited to come on round and sit down!
At first he didn't know which form or kept insisting that we didnt need a form at all but eventually he understood and found the page we needed a copy of on his computer.
Wow! It was a list of everything about me in china, listing everything, every entry and exit, every visa, every hotel I had stayed in, he let us have a quick look, pretty scary stuff! (I even tried to snap a quick picture but the angle made it tricky, my travels circled in red).
With it found he pressed print and... Half the document came out! Doh, turns out the page was too wide for the page but because of the Locked down page we could change the view to make it fit! he spent a few minutes trying to sort it and printing a few more useless corners before looking at us a bit embaressed... I decided to put my IT degree to use and motioned to have a go! he left me so I took over the mouse and keyboard on the police terminal to try to get it to work, a few different methods were tried but in the end I took a few printscreens and stitched them together in paint to get the full page, a few dodgy joins but it looked ok printed on a crappy laser printer!
I noticed on the policeman's desk a folder, which I also snapped a sneaky picture of, which, as most things in China, had some English on the front, the English was:
"The silence often of pure innocence, persuades when speaking fails"
very appropriate for a police station don't you think!
With the document sorted we now needed it stamped but of course he couldn't do that, back to the main police station across town to find the man with the stamp who, after initially refusing to stamp anything, grudgingly stamped half of it a few times in a non commital way before saying the rest wasn't needed and so he wouldn't stamp it! Nevermind! Hopefully they will accept it!
After that i made it back to class just in time to give the last class before lunch, sorted! on to wenzhou!!
Elaine and i went to the local lingxi traffic office to ask about taking the test as international licenses don't apply here and was told no. Not in this small town I would have to go to the big city and bring my license. cafetera express
ReplyDelete