First Impressions of China – Round Up

Tags

Chengdu, china, First Impressions, Getting Married, Honeymoon, hong kong, round up, Shenzhen, wedding

First Impressions of China – The Round Up

Yesterday was the last episode detailing my initial visit to China and the tale of my marriage here. Here’s a quick re-cap of all the relevant posts (in order) for those who want them:

First Impressions of China – Hong Kong and Shenzhen

https://shardsofchina.wordpress.com/2012/01/04/first-impressions-of-china/

First Impressions of China – Shenzhen

https://shardsofchina.wordpress.com/2012/01/05/first-impressions-of-china-shenzhen/

Getting Married in China

https://shardsofchina.wordpress.com/2012/01/06/getting-married-in-china/

First Impressions of China – Chengdu

https://shardsofchina.wordpress.com/2012/01/07/first-impressions-of-china-chengdu/

Getting Married in China – Paperwork (Part One)

https://shardsofchina.wordpress.com/2012/01/08/getting-married-in-china-paperwork-part-1/

Getting Married in China – Paperwork (Part Two)

https://shardsofchina.wordpress.com/2012/01/09/getting-married-in-china-paperwork-part-2/

First Impressions of China – Chengdu (Part Two)

https://shardsofchina.wordpress.com/2012/01/10/first-impressions-of-china-chengdu-part-two/

First Impressions of China – Chengdu (Part Three)

https://shardsofchina.wordpress.com/2012/01/11/first-impressions-of-china-chengdu-part-three/

Getting Married in China – Round Two in Chengdu

https://shardsofchina.wordpress.com/2012/01/12/getting-married-in-china-chengdu-round-2/

The Honeymoon (Don’t Blink) – Chengdu

https://shardsofchina.wordpress.com/2012/01/13/the-honeymoon-dont-blink-chengdu/

and finally…

First Impressions of China – Hong Kong Revisited

https://shardsofchina.wordpress.com/2012/01/14/first-impressions-of-china-hong-kong-revisited/

Thank you – dear readers for dropping by and reading my material. If you’d like to get daily updates on this blog, then please use the subscribe by e-mail button on the left hand side of the screen or follow me on Twitter – @ShardsofChina. Your comments are always welcome too and I’ll try to answer each one personally, thanks again. Nick.

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The Honeymoon (Don’t Blink) – Chengdu

Tags

Champagne, Chengdu, china, Honeymoon, Just Married, Red Wine, shopping

Our first honeymoon may be the briefest in the history of the world. Zhang Min had to travel back to her home town and look after her mother as soon as we could collect the translated marriage certificate from the notary. So we had precisely one day and one night in Chengdu to celebrate our union and then she’d go back and I’d fly to Hong Kong.

After eating a rather average chocolate cake in Starbucks we went shopping for the afternoon as the Panda Sanctuary only opens in the mornings and it was too hot to be hiking up mountains to look at temples. I must have walked a thousand kilometers in tight circles as we wandered round and round the crowded, tightly packed malls of Chengdu.

The Chengdu Art Academy - where the artists are (obviously).

My wife is one of life’s natural shoppers, she loves to spend hours in clothes shops trying on everything and buying absolutely nothing. So while she does that I try and work out where the nearest exits are so I can sneak off for a cigarette. If she does find something she wants to buy, I am angrily summonsed back to the store to pay for it. Fortunately for me the only thing she actually wanted was a pair of jeans and in Chengdu these were cheap as chips compared to shopping back in Saudi.

Then we went for a wander under the railway to a local art village. Unlike the art village in Shenzhen this place specialized in authentic works of Chinese art produced by the people there. Most of the paintings weren’t to my taste and even those that were would never have survived a trip round the Far East with me, so the only things I bought were two copies of Chairman Mao’s little red book with plastic covers and translated into English. For these I paid the princely sum of 40 RMB for the pair and an hour’s ticking off from my wife for over-paying. I couldn’t see the point in haggling over something that cost two pounds, but apparently I’d embarrassed her by not even trying.

I do remember that the Champagne was Moet and actually tasted real (fake champagne is no rarity in China as I've come to learn since).

Then it was back to the hotel for a shower to wash off the stickiness of the humid day and to drop off our purchases before we went out to dinner. I picked a Singaporean-Western fusion restaurant, which I no longer remember the name of and the food was good if unmemorable. I think my recollection is somewhat blurred by the fact that I first bought a bottle of champagne to celebrate, and my wife hated it and insisted I also bought a bottle of red wine. Zhang Min’s not much of a drinker, so in the end I drank both bottles less a small glass of each which left me comfortably numb enough, that the scolding over spending more than a month’s wages (for her parents – not me) on a meal didn’t bother me at all.

Then she walked and I staggered hand in hand back to our room at the Kempinski and some of that special honeymoon happiness that I don’t need to detail here.

Getting Married in China – Chengdu – Round 2

Tags

Chengdu, china, Getting Married, Marriage Certificate, Notary Public, registry office, Wedding Reception

My wife finally made it back to the hotel around 10 that night, and yes; things had all gone to plan. She was now the proud owner of an amended Chinese ID booklet that should allow us to get married in the morning. Nonetheless I didn’t sleep easily that night as you can probably imagine.

In the morning, Zhang Min was quite adamant that I would not be wearing a suit this time round. So I fulfilled a childhood wish of getting married in a heavy metal t-shirt (Pain’s – Cynic Paradise to be precise) and jeans. My beautiful bride to be wore a cute stripy top and jeans too.

My wife and I (after getting married) at the Starbucks in Chengdu - where we had what could reasonably called our "wedding breakfast"

And so with a certain amount of joy and trepidation we made our way back to the registry office. We arrived early and the building hadn’t opened yet so we joined another nervous couple on the steps of the office, and I chain smoked my jitters away.

Then the moment arrived, with absolutely no ceremony the doors were flung open and we were into room number one. I’ve been told that it’s a good idea, if you want to get married in China, to bring photos of the two of you proving that you’re a real couple and not sealing a sight unseen Internet deal. This did not prove to be the case, and instead we were asked to take a seat while a bat faced lady took our photograph for our marriage papers. 10 RMB lighter (that’s about one British pound or a dollar fifty) and 5 photos heavier (my wife hates these photos as she says they make her look old, they don’t) we were ready to face room number two and marriage.

The lady in the registry office in Chengdu was the finest person I met on my initial China trip; she spoke fluent English and was enormously helpful and professional throughout. She talked us through the process, essentially we both had to fill in a form – on the top half of each form we had to write all our own details (passport number, address, date of birth etc.) and on the bottom half we had to fill in our partner’s details. Given that I don’t write Chinese and my wife doesn’t write much English –we swapped over half way through and just filled our own information on each.

The final proof that you're married in China, the wedding certificate - my wife won't let me put ours online, so these are somebody else's.

Then you each sign both pieces of paper, whilst the lady prepared our wedding certificates we had a nice chat with her about living in Saudi Arabia. I think she’s still the only Chinese person I’ve met who had any curiosity about my life before China at all. Then five minutes later we had our little red books and were about to ask for directions to the notary public (so we could obtain English versions) when the nice woman in the office announced that if we just popped next door the guy from the notary was in the building at the moment and he could handle the paperwork there.

I left a donation of 100 RMB for the registry office (getting married actually costs nothing – and you can even bring your own photos if you can get a better deal than 10 RMB elsewhere) and we bounced into the notary’s room, handed over one of our little red books and 150 RMB for the translation and agreed to pick up the papers from the notaries office in the morning before my wife left to look after her mother and I flew back to Hong Kong.

Then we went off to have a wedding breakfast – in Starbucks, where we hassled some nice foreign stranger to take a couple of photos of our just married selves.

First Impressions of China – Chengdu Part Two

Tags

Chengdu, china, getting married in China, Kempinski, marriage, registry office, wedding

In the morning, we were both excited for our big day. We’d got good directions for the registry office in Chengdu and we ploughed through a great Western style breakfast in the Kempinski without really stopping to taste it. My wife may be Chinese but unlike many of her country folk she’s in full agreement that sausage, egg and toast beats congee and noodles any day of the week.

In the madness that ensued over the two days, I forgot to take any pictures of the registry office, so the photos here are all places in Chengdu.

Then it was off to the registry office, we jumped in a taxi and set off for the back streets of Chengdu. It was only five minutes from the hotel and when we arrived, I wasn’t overly impressed. The office is in a grim, communist style building with all the warmth and joy of a morgue. Inside there were two or three other couples waiting to get hitched as well. One of the strange things about weddings in China is that absolutely no-one attends the ceremony apart from the bride and groom, so there were no joyous parties of well-wishers just nervous pairs of people sitting and waiting.

I was also, as my wife had made quite clear that morning, completely over dressed for getting hitched here. I was the only person in a suit, which had seemed the appropriate choice and everyone else was in jeans and t-shirts. I would be receiving a lecture on my fashion faux pas at some length later that evening but for now Zhang Min was as excited and nervous as I was and we both waited quietly on a bench next to everyone else.

Chengdu really is lovely, there's no escaping that.

Looking around it was clear that despite the surroundings, somebody had once tried to spruce up the interior for the occasion but now the wedding hangings were clearly 20 years old or more and covered in dust and cobwebs.

You have to admire Chinese efficiency and as the whole process takes about 5 minutes, unless you have an idiot laowai in tow we were into the marriage office very quickly. And then it all began to go wrong.

The usual process is that you arrive, have your photograph taken together (for the marriage certificates) and then go fill in the paperwork. Because I was foreign however the office wanted to check out our paperwork before they’d let us have our photos taken.

The smiling and extraordinarily helpful lady behind the counter reviewed my papers first, and she announced happily that my papers were just fine and could they just check my bride’s to make sure?

People stopping for a drink of tea in Chengdu, having a much nicer time than I was that day.

Then disaster struck, a quick glance through Zhang Min’s stuff and there was a lot of head shaking and then an apology that we couldn’t in fact get married today. I don’t mind telling you that I went through a state of inner panic – while the wedding itself was going to be cheap and cheerful the preparations surely were not and if you don’t get married within a couple of months of doing the whole notary thing – you have to start again.

What was wrong? Well it turns out that though Zhang Min had brought her National ID and her divorce papers, she hadn’t her ID updated to reflect the divorce. My heart sank, I was expecting the rectification to take days or even weeks and we hadn’t got the time. The evening before, we’d had a phone call from Zhang Min’s father – her mother was in hospital and he could only stay with her a couple of days before he had to get back to their farm to make sure it kept running. This meant Zhang Min needed to return to her home city, a smaller Tier 3 place about 4 hours from Chengdu, to look after her. So we’d already had to cancel plans for a honeymoon, but did this mean that we also weren’t going to get married.

The Kempinski in the day time, not quite as pretty but it was a fabulous hotel.

The nice lady in the registry office urgently explained that this wasn’t any reason to panic, I think she must have seen my eyes start swimming with anxiety. All my wife had to do was go back to her hometown, go into the police station and get it changed and this could be done today.

So with sinking heart we left the registry office, took a cab to Starbucks where I was left outside sipping coffee alone as my wife jumped in a shared taxi and headed back to her hometown…

Getting Married in China – Paperwork Part 2

Tags

Canadian Embassy, china, Chinese Embassy, Diplomatic Quarter, Getting Married, London, Paperwork, Portland Place

The next morning it was off to the Chinese embassy, and after a heavy night on the sauce I was in no mood to brave the underground so I took an enormously expensive cab ride instead. Another 30 quid gone to prove that I’d said I was single.

The Chinese embassy in London, what a wonderful building and what amazing service inside too.

When I got to the embassy there was a small queue outside and it looked like that I’d get seen quickly when it opened. The embassy is in the heart of the diplomatic quarter of London, and the whole area is gorgeous. Massive old buildings detailing which country was in residence on a little plaque on the front of each, it’s days like this that remind you of why England is simply the most beautiful country on earth.

Riyadh’s diplomatic quarter (for example) is a dump in comparison, the buildings may be big and impressive but it’s all rather spoiled by each embassy being surrounded by armed guards and the lack of any sensible access to any of the buildings. It’s difficult even for a taxi to get into the area, and thus getting out after an embassy party is the stuff of nightmares. Particularly when you’re drunk (which is of course illegal in Saudi) and there are hundreds of you spilling out into the boiling hot night in search of transport.

The DQ in Riyadh, it does the job but it's nothing like the beauty of London.

Having said that, access to beer in the Canadian embassy in Riyadh was a god send and it was only a shame that they ran out of alcohol halfway through the night as every thirsty expat in the city went at it like a teenager on their first night out.

Inside the Chinese embassy in London, it was great. A really efficient and extraordinary pleasant security team divided people up by their needs and then pointed us in the direction of the room we needed. Mine was at the front of the building and sunlight shone through a huge window making it seem light and airy, particularly for a government building. When I arrived there were only a couple of people in front of me in the queue and I was sure that I’d have most of the day to explore London.

When I finally got called to the counter, it seemed that disaster had been waiting for me after all. The middle aged Chinese counter chap needed three photocopies of my documents and I hadn’t brought any. I looked behind me at the rapidly swelling queue and began to despair of leaving any time that day.

Portland Place in London, the Diplomatic Quarter - every building is just superb. Well worth a wander round, don't be put off by the armed guards they're on your side.

Then I had a shocking revelation, the Chinese embassy is there to help. This is very unlike the British embassy in any given nation, where they’d have sent me away with a scolding to “get my act together” or some such. He directed me to a photocopier tucked away in the corner of the room, which was free to use and held my place in the line so I could get my business finished quickly and efficiently. What an amazing moment! If this had been my own embassy, if they’d have deigned to have a photocopier they’d have charged me ten pounds a page or something equally ridiculous to use it. Instead my introduction to China’s officialdom was perfect, well organized and customer oriented.

I skipped back from the copy machine with a song in my heart, handed over the documents, paid another fee (about 30 quid), collected my receipt and a promise that the stamp (to prove that I had said that I was single, to a notary public and that the foreign office agreed I’d said it) would be ready in two or three days. And then I was back out in the open air on a May morning with London at my fingertips.

Getting Married in China – Paperwork Part 1

Tags

china, Foreign Office, Getting Married, Greenwich, I am Single, London, Milton Keynes, Notary Public

While the process for tying the knot here in China, is pretty simple assembling the paper work wasn’t as simple. Living in Riyadh made the whole thing complicated from the start as it meant I’d need to fly back to the UK to do the legwork, as it wasn’t possible to do it in Saudi.

Greenwich is a genuinely lovely place, however I didn't see much of it while I was chasing paper round the country.

The first step on my journey was to visit a notary public, and I flew into London so that I could spend some time with my little brother and go to a notary around the corner from him in Greenwich. The fee for the visit was a fairly reasonable fifty quid, and all I had to do was sit in front of a very nice lady who warned me of the strict legal implications for telling porky pies, and promise I’d never been married before.

Well it really doesn’t get much easier than that, and so the whole thing was over in ten minutes and she printed a couple of nice notarized documents that essentially said, I’d said I was single.

I saw plenty of the transport hubs though, this station is remarkably modern and clean compared to much of the tube network.

After that it was a mad dash across London to get on a train to Milton Keynes, which is where the Labour government in their wisdom had decided where the foreign office should be moved to. I hate Milton Keynes, I’ve been there are a few times before and the depressing American grid system combined with featureless architecture has done a good job of keeping me away from the city except when I’ve been working there.

Even in this rather impressive photo from the air, you can see that Milton Keynes has all the charm of a fifty year old fat Geordie on the pull on a Saturday night.

I arrived in Milton Keynes just before lunchtime and it seemed sensible to jump in a taxi to get to the foreign office. And true to form the cabbie took my fare without indicating that the office is less than 2 minutes’ walk around the corner, and I’d have got there more quickly and much more cheaply on foot. The bar steward. So five pounds lighter and a whole lot wiser about thieving taxi drivers, I popped into the building and was immediately relieved of all things electronic by an extremely pleasant security guard. You aren’t even allowed to have your mobile phone on inside the place.

It’s worth mentioning that the security guard may be the most pleasant public servant I’ve ever encountered in the UK. He was genuinely engaging, respectful and kind, it’s one of the few moments I’ve ever really been proud to be British. Foreign visitors must love him.

The station in Milton Keynes, possibly Britain's ugliest, complete with licensed criminals driving cars.

Then it was into a fairly featureless room, covered in crappy plastic chairs bolted to the floor, the obligatory “wait your turn” ticket machine and a row of little windows with employees scowling out behind them. It wasn’t much of a wait, and I turned over my paperwork (and another 30 quid) so that the foreign office could stamp it, to say that yes, really I said I was single. Then I had to wait a couple of hours to get the form back. I went outside and it being Milton Keynes there was nothing else around of interest, so I popped into a 7-11 (or something like that) got a four pack of beers and some cigarettes and sat outside drinking and chain smoking until I got my form back and headed off to London once more.

It was late in the day when I got back so I had some time to spend in the pub before commencing the next part of the paper trail.

Getting Married in China

Tags

British Nationals, china, chinese, Getting Married, Malaysia, UK, US

It wasn’t what either of us had planned, getting married in China. It just turned out to be the only viable option. My wife had been living in Malaysia and as we both love that country we’d have liked to have tied the knot there, but there’s a 28 day residency requirement that made it completely impractical with my job in Saudi.

We looked at the UK, no problem apart from she’d need to stay 28 days and I’d have to fly in with her and register the marriage. Then go back to Saudi, and come back for a final 14 days before the wedding – again utterly impractical.

If you get married in China, your marriage certificate is one of these funky little passport style books. I'll show you mine in another post.

Then we examined the rest of the world and in each and every case, either her “Chinese-ness” or my “British-ness” made the whole deal either impossible or ridiculously time consuming and often financially unviable too.

So then we finally looked at China, firstly Hong Kong (another no go, the same rules perhaps unsurprisingly as the UK) and it turns out getting married in China is a doddle. Or at least somewhat easier than anywhere else, as long as one of you is Chinese (it is possible for two foreigners to get married in China, technically, but I’ve never heard of anyone who’s made it through the bureaucratic hoops to do so).

All I needed was a sworn statement from a notary public promising I’d never been married before (which I hadn’t) and this needed stamping by the foreign office and the Chinese embassy in the UK. And all she needed were her divorce papers and her national ID.

Once you have that all you have to do is rock up in the town in which the Chinese partner’s hukou (national identity card) is registered and you’re away. Of course in the end it wasn’t quite that simple but life rarely is, but that story is part of my “first impressions” series and doesn’t belong here.

(Please note, this is true for British nationals other nationalities need to follow the process for their own country – in the majority of cases this will be the same. But there are exceptions – US nationals spring immediately to mind, so please don’t use this as a guide to planning your own wedding here).