Not Easy to Hustle

I’ve studied on line.  I’ve filled out hours’ and hours’ worth of online forms.  I have contacted an official Russian agency that can issue a travel permit.  I’ve written them eight or nine times because each email back, fosters another question.  Do I use these hotel’s you’ve listed on my application?  What if I have other hotels I intend to stay at?  Do I really need original copies of these forms? 

I have gone ahead and bought flights in and flights out of Russia as instructed.  I have bought traveler's insurance, because this is also required.  Passports?  Check.  Copies of Passports?  Check.  Copies of Chinese visa pages, on and on.  And I am in Shanghai this week and the next, so I have figured out how to process all this in Shanghai.  Go to the consulate, submit the papers, and come back a week later, unless you need to rush things. 

I teach at 1:00PM.  Print out and collect all the papers at my university and by 10:30AM, I’m on my way, in a Di Di, I’ve secured, over the bridge across the Suzhou Creek,  into Hangkou where the Russian Consulate is located. The building is imposing, of course, with two guards out front.  I am sublimely confident as I approach the first and tell him I’m here to submit my visa application.  “Do you have an appointment?”  “Yes.” I said vamping.  “I did so on line.” Which is partly true.  He asks my name.  I am not on the list.  You cannot enter.  Usually you can hustle in China.  But armed consulate guards are not easy to hustle. 

 They give me a number.  It doesn’t answer. They show me a buzzer I can press.  Someone answers, speaks Russian, and hangs up.  All my preparation, and my confidence fades.  A gentleman whom I can only assume was Russian walks out of the consulate, I approach him.  He, bless his soul, treats me like a human and tells the guard to let me in.  They let me in.  I head upstairs to the place where visas are applied for an wait in line. 

After a not insignificant period of time, as I inch closer and closer to my teaching time, the solitary man behind the counter is done with the Chinese guy and done with the Russian woman who has a baby with her and he asks me if I have an appointment.  I reply feebly that I clicked the button on line.  He is closing for lunch.  He recommends I go to the Russian visa processing center.  I’ve heard of this place.  A kind woman shows me a card with the address printed on it.  I see.  OK.  A pyric victory, this, my storming of the consulate. 

Outside I flash the mean guard a cocky look, notwithstanding the fact that he was right.  And find a cab to take me back over to Sichuan Road near the Waitan. 

Monday 5/28/18