These are the rules

Shortly after I finished posting yesterday I received a phone call. Be ready in 30 minutes I am coming to get you. We had to go to the Immigration Police over my little snafu. Immediately. The company even sent a company driver to take us. And I have to say that was the cleanest car I have seen in China.

We met the guy again, he must be some sort of expeditor used by the company, and he took us to a new place. The Overstay office. We sat outside the office and he brought us a card to read. The penalty for my "overstay" could be 500 RMB per day and 3 to 10 days in jail. It did not use the word jail, but that was what they meant. Needless to say I was not the happy camper. I mean come on, I went willingly and gave them the passports in all innocence and came back right away when they figured it out. Whatever it was they figured out as everyone kept telling me everything was OK.

Then we had to sit for an hour. Waiting to see if I would go to jail. Because the expeditor dude does not exactly speak English real well. "OK, OK" was just not cutting it right then. Then everybody comes back and gives me my passports with the new Chinese Visa good til 2012 and tells me everything is OK. Then an hour later the company calls and tells Big Daddy big mistake, you have to pay a fine. No jail, but 1800 RMB, 200 a day for nine days. This made no sense. The number of days or the money. So Big Daddy did what any decent Norte Americano would do, he told them I wasn't worth that much money. The Chinese do not have a sense of humor.

So I did what any normal person would do. I had my Feng Shui checked. I have to sleep in the hall outside our apartment from here on and use black chopsticks. I think I will be like Carried Bradshaw and look for a big shiny black diamond instead.

By the way, the date thing on this blog is not working and if it continues I will start dating the posts and maybe whoever invented this thing.