From Green to Red

The adventure begins!

I love my green card, but what I really want is a red passport.

Many people told me getting a green card was impossible.  If I'd believed them, I'd be sitting around complaining that getting one is impossible.  Instead, I applied for a green card and now have one.   People keep telling me getting Chinese citizenship is impossible.  I could believe them, give up, and complain about how getting citizenship is impossible.  Instead, I'm going to apply and find out for myself how easy or hard it is.

As my green card anniversary approaches, I've kicked the hunt for citizenship info into high gear.

My lovely wife saw an article about a girl who's family moved overseas when she was a baby.  While overseas, she ended up acquiring local citizenship.  Sometime after turning 18, she decided she wanted to move back to China and get her Chinese citizenship.  I was under the impression there would be a quick and easy path for someone in this situation.  When she went to get the application form, they told her she'd have to get a green card first, but that she wasn't yet qualified to apply for one.  If this is correct, she may have to wait until 5 years after she gets married to a guy in China.  Evidently my impression of this being easier for those of Chinese ancestry or even those who gave up citizenship as infants may be mistaken.  I do feel bad for her.  On the other hand, it's interesting to see that the citizenship application rules don't put me at as much of a disadvantage as I thought they might.

Yesterday we went to visit some of my old friends at the foreigner containment bureau.  There wasn't any line (the rain seemed to have convinced quite a few people to wait a day), so we went straight in.  All 3 officers seemed very surprised I was back, since I didn't need a res permit anymore and didn't need to bug them about the status of my green card application.

When asked for the citizenship application form and instruction sheet, one indicated that no one had ever asked for this form before, so he didn't know if they had any.  Another pointed him to what I guess is the "rarely needed forms" table in the back of the room (where green card application forms are kept) and this got us the newest application form.  The next issue was the instruction sheet, since the form didn't include a full list of supporting documents.  This turned into a document hunt (I couldn't see the screen, so don't know if he was searching local files or if he had to go digging around on the internet).  It took a few minutes, but instructions were located and printed out.

In the meantime, I was chatting with the officer who had the best English.  He wanted to know why I wanted citizenship.  I explained that my wife and daughter are here in China, as are most of my friends.  My plan is to stay here forever and become a happy and productive citizen.  A green card is really great, but if policies change at some point, cards can be rescinded.  Citizenship is forever.

Now comes the fun part.  Even my wife had some issues figuring out exactly what some of the questions exactly wanted. so we'll have to research them all very carefully so I can prepare proper and complete answers to each.  The good news is the documentation requirements appear to be much simpler than those needed to apply for a green card.  My wife thinks this is because they've already checked out much of the critical information while processing my green card application.

Less than a month until my green card anniversary.   I've been working to improve my Mandarin from extremely inadequate and am approaching very inadequate.  I've also been looking more closely at the citizenship application forms.

There's sort of an essay question.  It roughly translates to:

A written application report (detailed life and work experiences in China after having left the foreign country, the reasons for applying for Chinese citizenship, a statement under applicant’s free will for the application and renunciation of the original citizenship)

I could have made this a simple CV of work experiences and given some ordinary sounding reason about wanting to be a citizen.

Instead, yesterday afternoon I started writing without much of a plan.  I ended up primarily focusing on how I went from  an 8 month teaching assignment to resident to permanent resident and now want to be a citizen.  Normally, I'm too busy being silly to get into any serious emotional depth when writing.  I'm very pleased with it.  It ended up being a heartfelt love letter to China itself. 

Now I have to go back and add more about work.  I'm just trying to figure out how to put that in without reducing the whole emotional side of what I've written so far.

I guess becoming a citizen is a little like marrying a country, and I've got my marriage proposal mostly written.  I also looked up the forms I'll need to "divorce" the USA.

Sorry - no spoilers of the text available for now.  It would be my luck that someone would "borrow" my text and then it would look like my application was copied.  If (WHEN!) my application is accepted, I'll share some or all of it.

I have cleared my schedule for the weekend (other than possibly going out for pizza).  This weekend, all the paperwork is getting filled out.  Here's the short version:

Dear China,

I love you.  Please let me be a citizen.

EL mate, I find the Chinese folks to be very intelligent people. I have no doubt that they will know that you are a good person who will be an asset to their Country. Good luck with the paperwork this weekend!

Last weekend got us through filling out a test copy.  This weekend, we try to get all the live copies filled out.  I also need to go get a new ID photo with the proper receipt which somehow makes it a legal photo.

Unless something truly bizarre happens to delay me, I'm turning in the application on the 31st.  I've got zero data on how long it will take for them to decide if I'm accepted or not.

Assuming I get through this, I'm going to see if I can get the US Consulate to share a little more info on how to give up my US citizenship.  There's a set of forms and I'm supposed to fill out the proper ones for my situation.  I've read them and am not sure exactly which ones I have to fill out and which ones I can skip.  I want to get that straightened out and have the correct ones ready.

Would be interested in knowing how that worked for you. I've been married now for nearly 5 years.

Would be interested in knowing how that worked for you. I've been married now for nearly 5 years.

Have you been outside of China for 90 days or less each of the last 5 years?  If so, you're getting very close to being qualified to apply.

Some of the specifics are set locally.  Run down to the same office that handles your res permit applications.  Ask for several copies of the permanent residence permit application form AND a copy the instruction sheet.  The instructions will contain all the local variations of required documents.



And I finally succeeded in something new.  I forged my signature.  Not "forged" as in forgery, but "forged" beaten with a hammer until it assumed a recognizable and functional shape.

The only thing harder than reading Chinese is writing it.  I now know why DaShan picked his name.  It had nothing to do with the meaning and everything to do with the ease of writing.  If I'd realized I was going to ever have to actually sign my Chinese name on any important documents, I'd probably have picked a name which was easier to write.   Oh well, I like my Chinese name and plan to keep it.

In any event, I had 8 copies of the Chinese citizenship application form and managed to successfully sign 7 of them in Chinese and then in English.  This seems like overkill, other than one detail.  They want 3 of them.  Not an original and 2 copies, but 3 signed and handwritten originals.  Now my lovely wife gets to copy everything else into the proper boxes 100% correctly and has 7 chances to make 3 with no errors. 

After that, it's a trip to the printers for the essay (came to 2 full pages in Chinese) and copies of a few required documents.  My home printer isn't bad, but I want these to be as perfect as possible.

Friday is Application Day.  It looks like we'll have it all together in time.  Then I get to spend an unknown amount of time waiting for an answer.

Our cat decided to supervise the process of getting the documents filled out.  A few errors happened, but due to the extreme helpfulness of having a feline supervisor, 3 perfect ones were created.

Good luck EL!

Everything's printed out except one document my wife will pick up on Friday morning.  My photo has been taken and will be collected today or on Friday morning.  The instructions didn't specify a size, so the photos will be printed in 2 sizes.

Drop off is scheduled for Friday afternoon.  For grabbing the application, we dropped into the correct office unannounced.  For this, I think I'll need to take a number at the front desk on the first floor.  I wonder if they even have a category for Citizenship Application in the list of choices.

加油！and good on ya. We will keep our fingers crossed here.

I'm trying to think of Friday as a learning experience. 

The bad news is that my application never got to the other side of the desk.

The good news is that although it appears that no foreigners have yet to apply in Dongguan, there have been some returning Chinese who have reapplied for Chinese citizenship with mixed results.  Based on rejections at the city and provincial level, modifications were needed to my application to improve its chances of making it all the way to the top.  I was also told that no one yet has gotten one of these turned in on the first try.

The work portion of the essay is being redone more like a CV.  The closing statement that I'm doing this of my own free will has been duplicated at the beginning.  A single paragraph about why I want to be a Chinese citizen has also been added at the beginning.  Now those who don't wish to read the whole thing can quickly and easily find the most critical required parts.

There were some very minor errors on the application form itself and I was told that perfection should improve my odds.  More blank forms were provided.  I've managed to sign them all and my lovely wife is busy filling them out while trying not to make any mistakes.

Schedules have been juggled and the second attempt will be made on Monday afternoon.

  Good Luck 

All the best EL! I wouldn't have your patience.

That was an interesting way to spend a Monday afternoon.

We got there a little before 3.  There was a huge line.  Regular res permit applications can take awhile to process, but some people also had family members, which add to the pile of documents to be checked.  One guy had his wife and 3 children, so kept one of the officers tied up for over an hour.

A little before 4 pm, I got pulled out of the queue (there were only one or two people ahead of me) and I was assigned to wait for the officer who was familiar with my case (aka, the guy who was so skillful at finding flaws on Friday).

My lovely wife and I had spent all weekend doing corrections and the effort paid off.  He looked, asked questions, looked some more, and was actually quite surprised to find nothing to keep the application from getting numbered and accepted for consideration.  I'm guessing these usually take 3 or more tries to get across the desk, and mine made it in 2.

A second officer confirmed that no full foreigner had ever applied before in Dongguan.  Only an unspecified small number of former Chinese citizens wanting their nationality restored had ever done so.

The best estimate (guess?) of the time I now need to wait for an answer is about 1 year.

Applying costs 50 RMB.  If accepted, I need to pay another 200.

For comparison, if I'm accepted, I'll have to pay the USA over 2000 US dollars to let me go.