If It Has a Red Stamp, It’s Official.

In the USA, police officers carry a badge and a gun and are most often male. In China, they tend to be women carrying a rubber stamp and a boatload of red ink. At least that's what it seems like to me.

Today I had to go to the police station to apply for my residency permit, now that my health check and foreign experts certificate have cleared. Going to the police station in China doesn't really carry the same connotations that it does in the USA.

Here the police station is really like a huge government building. It's where you go to pay taxes, get your passport and drivers license, register in town, and find a job! It's one stop shopping for Chinese public services.

I walked into the building past the job line. From how it was explained to me, it seems less like an unemployment office and more like a head-hunter – apparently you go there to register as unemployed, tell them what type of job you are looking for and they basically assign you a job. There is still an interview/hiring process that is left up to the company, but this government service will actually find you a job.

I had to go up to the 4^th floor to process my paperwork. I filled out a few standard forms… name, birthday, passport number… but they also made me fill out a form that asked about my resume, hobbies, and family members. Why the Chinese government would care that I have a little brother named Jeff and that I like to read and SCUBA dive is beyond me.

I sat in a chair for 20 minutes while the police officer flipped though my residency paperwork and stamped everything with a red stamp. She stamped about 1,000 pieces of paper. Passport copies, health forms, foreign expert card, and hundreds of pages that had nothing but Chinese writing and red stamps.

They love to red stamp things here in China. Restaurant receipts. Grocery store receipts. Taxi receipts. And all government documents. They stamped the shit out of those papers.

Also, they actually keep track of foreigners here in China. When you give a hotel your passport to check in, it's more than a formality. You are entered into "the system." They knew at the police station in Haimen at 8:30 on Monday morning, that I checked into a hotel in Shanghai on Saturday night. Very interesting.

I should have my passport back with my residency permit by next week. I will be an official and legal resident of China.