Let the Adventure Begin [Part I]

There’s just too much to this adventure to fit into one day’s reading, even if I manage the Reader’s Digest version of the story. Unless you are in China as a businessman or diplomat, the visa issued by the government is an “L” type [tourist], and specifies how many times you may enter the country for how many days at a time while it is valid. We have 90-day multiple re-entry visas good for one year. They’re the best that are available to us at the present time. What this means exactly is this: every 90 days we need to exit the country, get our passport stamped in another country, and return to Hidden Treasures.

We had been planning on a “visa trip”; and as the date approached, Saturday, October 23 would be the least disruptive to our school schedule and other household needs -food shopping and medicines for the kids. What we had not calculated into our planning was that Typhoon Megi would be in the South China Sea. The nearby ferry from Mawei, PRC to Matsu, ROC [Taiwan] was not running Saturday, October 23 due to high winds and rough seas.. So we were on to Plan B: call Sunday and see if it is running on Monday morning. Yes, the ferry is running on Monday morning. The driver arrives at 7 AM, and we are at the ticket counter as soon as it opens at the Mawei Port Authority. The agent doesn’t speak English, but I know he is telling us we must wait because his desk calculator shows we have now been 91 days in China from our July arrival date. So we wait while others purchase tickets and proceed to the departure hall.

The ferry leaves in about 20 minutes when the agent signals for us to follow him to an immigration and customs office. We sit at a table where I can see an official filling out forms on a computer in the inner office. An older woman sitting with us has a similar problem, and she is anxious about missing the ferry. It didn’t require any language between us for her to communicate her angst.

Almost everyone is through customs and on to the ferry when we are again following the ticket agent back out to the line through security and customs. After the customary customs check however, we are again herded back to the big table in the immigration office. Please sign these three pages of documents, and seal the signature with a red fingerprint. Gotta have that red ink with an official document. Finally onto the ferry, which leaves a few minutes behind schedule.

The seas are still rough, and the pitch and roll has the predictable result for many of our fellow passengers. Thankfully we were exempted from direct participation in this purge. The sight and sound bytes were vivid enough in themselves. We arrive at high tide, and step ashore into a brisk wind and light rain. Customs was routine, and we were at our favorite Matsu spot in 10 minutes: the harborside 7-Eleven Store. We can get something to eat while we wait for the afternoon ferry back, and the weather is not at all inviting for a walk up the steep craggy hills behind us.