How Hard Is It To Get A Chinese Visa in Kuala Lumpur?

When you’re travelling long term, visas — visa applications, visa runs, visa extensions — loom quite hideously large on your horizon. And, as we want to spend almost three months in China, the Chinese visa question was a big one for us.

Most specifically? Where to apply for our Chinese visa.

The Chinese embassy in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, has been known to issue 60-day visas. So has the embassy in Vientiane, Laos, where we’ll be headed once we meet up with H.

Our last attempt at getting a visa in Vientiane — our Myanmar visa application — began as a farce and ended in refusal.

So, superstitiously, I opted for KL.

It couldn’t go worse than our Timor Leste visa saga, could it? Or the Indonesian visa we applied for in Australia which, after a barrage of paperwork remotely sourced from the Red Centre, nearly failed for want of an envelope?

It couldn’t go worse than this visa horror story.

Could it? Getting a Chinese visa in Kuala Lumpur has to be easy, right?

We rock up to the Chinese embassy at the OSK Plaza, Kuala Lumpur, just down the road from KL’s Twin Towers, on a grey, cloudy, steamy day. It’s a big, gleaming building, the Bank of China investment operation proud on the ground level — a timely reminder for me, who still thinks of China as the mysterious East, a Communist nation hidden behind the Bamboo Curtain, that China will be the dominant nation of the 21st century.

For Z, China means something different. Shanghai, for him, is about MagLev trains that reach 430 kilometres per hour, the world’s tallest building, an urbanised, vast, tiger economy. It’s about a nation buying up land and assets — from water to mining rights — the world over.

For him, a child of the twenty-first century, though he knows about Mao, the Cultural Revolution, the rape of Nanking, Confucius, the Forbidden City, China isn’t the past, but the future.

Pretty much everything he owns is made there. The US debt downgrade wasn’t a shock to him, but a confirmation.

Still, it’s an eye-opener.

We make our way up to the visa service on the second floor, a pristine, orderly processing centre, and collect our forms. No hanging around at a metal grille fighting to get your number written in a book here. They have a ticketing system. It’s computerised.

“Are my photos OK?” (They’re Indonesian visa photos, shot on Indonesia’s regulation shade of red background to Indonesia’s regulation size.)

“They’re fine,” he says.

Blimey! They’re relaxed…

And, even if they weren’t, they have a photo booth off to one side.

I photocopy our passports and Malaysian visas, then work my way through the four sides of forms.

Addresses in China? We don’t have any yet. Our plan begins with a month in Shanghai, which will hopefully give us enough time to acquire sufficient basics in Mandarin for us to travel independently.

Should I fake an itinerary? Probably not. It’s a big place, China…

Travel insurance number? I don’t have that with me. I write down the web address.

Other foreign countries visited in the last twelve months? I itemise them: Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Australia, Timor Leste.

Job description? I check “Other”. I write down “Copywriter – independent.”

Employer? I fill in my old home address in London.

Other information? “I want to visit Shanghai, Beijing, Chengdu and Xian to introduce my son to Chinese culture.”

Should I write about learning Chinese? Probably not. An education visa is a separate visa and requires an invitation from a recognised learning institution. We’ll be studying at a small private school or with a private tutor.

Maximum desired duration of stay? “80 days”.

I’m not, actually, optimistic about getting a long visa. The life we lead — travelling the world as single mother and son, working location independently — doesn’t lend itself to easy explanation.

I take a ticket. Wait all of three minutes for our number to be called. Hand over the forms.

“You need to come tomorrow, 9am, for an interview with the consulate,” says the guy. Oh Christ…

I am incurably reminded of our Myanmar farce.

What are they going to ask us? I don’t have a worked out itinerary yet. I haven’t got a map of China, let alone a guidebook yet: there’s no point planning an itinerary when you don’t know whether your stay will be 30 days or 80.

We head to Kinokuniya, in the KLCC centre down the road, and pick up a guidebook and two cartoon books of Chinese history, hoping to prep some answers to tomorrow’s interrogation.

At the embassy the next morning, dressed in what passes for smart outfits for us, we approach the glass booth and the middle-aged gentleman who holds our plans for the rest of the year in his hands.

Is he going to ask about my financial status? My working plans? Do I need to provide proof that my son is my son? A permission letter from his father? I realise I haven’t brought any of my single parent paperwork with me.

“So,” he says. “This is your son?”

“Yes,” I say.

“Does he speak Chinese?” he says.

“Not yet,” I say. “Actually, that was one thing we hope to do while we are there. Learn some Mandarin.”

“OK,” he says. “I’m giving you the visa.”

Both our faces break out into big grins.

“How long?” I ask, tentatively.

“90 days.”

That’s it?

I can’t really believe it…

But when I return on Friday, there they are. Two beautiful shiny Chinese visas, stamped with the amazing, brilliant 90 days, and a picture of the Great Wall of China.

It’s an omen, I think. A good omen.