It’s probably not a good thing to get on the bad side of police officers in China. Actually, that’s probably not a good thing anywhere in the world. How is it that i managed to break the law and find myself painfully bored at the police station today?

Apparently there is a law here that says within 24 hours of receiving a new visa you must go to your local police station and get a new residence permit. I barely know how to order a meal so, as you can imagine, i’m not too up on my Chinese law. All i know is that last Thursday i got the new visa and my foreign affairs officer told me that it’s cool if i go on Monday to get the new residence permit. So, there i sat for two hours waiting for the boss to come from who-knows-where to tell me all that i did wrong. Fortunately, she spoke a little English and was able to scold me in a language that i understand. She told me it was my responsibility to come in to get the residence permit and i told her i only do what my foreign affairs officer tells me to do because i don’t know the laws.

I ended up filling out a form that explains that i broke the law. I had to write a short paragraph explaining why i broke the law. Then they showed me another form that they filled out and told me that it explains everything i did wrong and explains that this time i have a warning. If i stay in China one day later than what my visa allows then i will be fined 500 yuan (about $70). The boss lady took my picture (probably for her scrapbook) and then they went on with filling out the form for my residence permit.

Total time sitting around in the police station instead of being productive at home? More than 2 hours.

Lesson learned? Read a book on Chinese law and brush up on my language skills.