I'M AN ALIEN, I'M A LEGAL ALIEN

It feels kind of old-school to be in a place where in lieu of the panopticon and broad internalization of state and social controls, you simply have the very interested eyes of the state following your every move. I have had to hand over no less than 12 passport-sized photos to various authorities since I got here and it kind of creeps me out that there are tiny images of my face in files all over the city. This week finally saw the completion of registration with the Chinese authorities and the attainment of an "X" visa, a process with a mind-boggling number of steps which our welcome booklet from school devoted a full seven pages to explaining. I have found myself thinking a lot about Milan Kundera's books lately and the way they described life in Czechoslovakia under socialism. There is something very vulgar and yet so commonplace about state intrusion into personal matters that he captures very well.

If this feeling was slight at first, it was put in boldface by the physical exam segment of the registration process. Visitors staying in China for more than 6 months must all pass a physical exam and in Beijing this is administered by the Sanitary and Quarantine Office, which in classic China-style is only open from 8am till 10:30am, Monday through Friday. Thus the week before school started, all the foreign students had to spend a morning crowded into a small waiting room which doubled as a processing area. We could easily overhear the nurses doing short health interviews, which mostly seemed to involve asking us loudly if we had syphilis. That was my first hint that the privacy and confidentiality taken for granted in the U.S. wasn't really done here.

After they took our forms, passport-sized photos, and cash, we entered a large room with about eight doors leading to smaller rooms where we had our blood pressure taken, heart listened to, height and weight tabulated, and blood drawn, all with open doors and lines of foreigners leading into them. I really cannot stress enough how strange it is to be in a line with strangers from around the world, holding a vial that will soon be filled with your own blood, and how effectively it makes you feel like China's bitch.

My roommate Jessica was with me at the Quarantine Office, and as usual, made the ordeal infinitely more bearable with her wicked and wry sense of humor. At this point we had known each other for less than ten days, but I was already very familiar with her "I can't believe this crap" expression, glimpsing it on her face as I entered the ECG room as she was exiting and she grumbled "you're gonna have to show em your titties." And indeed I did, being ushered in and directed to the table, told to lie down and remove my shirt and bra, fitted with plastic electrode thingies, given a print-out of my heartbeat, and sent on my way. It couldn't have taken more than 45 seconds and was so impersonal and awkward that we were all a little dazed as we proceeded downstairs for our chest x-ray.


At the final processing point we tried to turn in the ECG print-out, but were told that it was a 'gift' for us to keep. Wow, thanks!

Anyway, it is all done now, and now I have this:


Good thing too, since I'm boarding a plane in a couple of hours for Hohhot, the capital of Inner Mongolia. No, I haven't gotten in trouble with the police, but next week is a national holiday and we wanted to take a little trip. Since a couple other hundred million people had the same idea, we weren't able to book tickets for our first choice, Chengdu, where legend (and the Lonely Planet guide) has it, you can hold a panda (yes, HOLD a freaking PANDA!) for about seven U.S. dollars. Anything comes a distant second choice to that, but we are quite looking forward to grasslands and yurts.

And don't worry, finances willing, panda holding has been rescheduled for February.