Two Weeks of Irrationality

August 16, 2019 to August 28, 2019

I woke up nice and late at the hotel and my friends said not to worry, just bring the bike to the front entrance and we'll load it into the back of the truck.

Husna was leading the operation on this one and she insisted on taking care of everything, especially the number one goal to reclaim my condo. They drove me to Pattaya and the truck just raced along and got there in no time.

The very first thing we did was talk to the juristic manager and arrange a room cleaning. The front desk girl who was on staff, Mon proved to be extraordinarily helpful and the cleaning was arranged on the spot. Husna had a good feeling about this girl and as we talked more and more it was apparent that the former manager Prateep had indeed cheated many of his clients. So I wasn't the only one. Still it was maddening because there's no law here and he can get away with it and there's no consequences.

We could only do one step at a time so Mon arranged the cleaning and got my utilities back on track as well as arranged a locksmith to change the locks and reclaim my keys. This was a major milestone and I couldn't thank Husna enough but she was very humble about it and said any time there's more problems just ask. And once it was clear everything was set, then off they went back to Chachoengsao.

I then re-settled into my condo and started the massive cleanup and inventory. Besides the room cleaning I had to deal with a whole bunch of things the female customer from Argentina had left behind. It was a complete mess and it was very evident she had left in a hurry. Once that condo was clean I basically got into a routine to bide time and wait. And wait. And wait.

The days would typically start with me going to this same place for breakfast and catching up on news and updates

I tried to get into some sort of routine such as a phone call to the visa center each morning and catching up on news at my favorite breakfast spot. But that routine quickly disintegrated as no updates would be found and I would end up just aimlessly killing time by riding around Pattaya or else lounging inside my condo and surfing Youtube on my smartphone. I was getting bored silly and it reminded me of the time when I stayed here for a month in 2015 summer after a collarbone injury.

[Update November 2022: It would also be a precursor to the covid pandemic and the quarantines, etc... all that idle time waiting for nothing]

Novana Residence. It's absolutely beautiful we need to admit

And there could be a lot worse places to be stuck no doubt

The condo was in many ways made for something like this as I could bide the time without paying for accommodation and without a passport. At the same time I felt more and more upset as the days went on with no information while the China visa center would happily hold my passport hostage.

I began to realize the absurdity of the situation: why am I putting in all this time and effort to go back to a country I don't even want to while I am waiting it out in my own condo now having successfully reclaimed? Furthermore, the end goal is to retire in Pattaya with a condo anyway, and here I am now somewhat doing that yet also wanting to leave this same condo and go back to a dreadful existence. Not only that, there are tons of roadblocks to going back to China anyway and I am fighting for something I don't even want yet anxious about being exactly where I should be.

Eventually CVAC called me again and asked me to go to the Chinese Embassy in Bangkok for an interview. While taking the bus, I lost my backup smartphone somewhere and gave up trying to find it. This was not going well at all.

Then the interview itself was a total bomb. They suspected I was coming to China to work and not for tourism and wanted to nail me on it somehow or catch me off guard with a question. The person in charge had already decided the outcome and this interview was simply a way to pass the verdict. It's a very typical Chinese way of doing things.

Basically the guy in charge would field questions in Mandarin to his female colleague. I can understand Mandarin but pretended not to, so then the colleague would "translate" these questions to me. I was asked everything from "What is your current job?" to "When did you arrive in Thailand?" to "How long were you in China before?" to "What is your future plan for work now that you quit your last job?"

They insisted I show some proof that I wasn't coming to China for work. I asked what that would entail and they said a contract of your next job assignment outside of China.

At this point it was really insane. It was almost as if God was telling me exactly what to do: use this opportunity to find a job outside of China

So I left the Embassy wondering if I should do exactly that: quit for real, sell this condo, do a long bike tour, and look for work somewhere else like I should have done at the beginning.

At that point I called my girlfriend and told her all that happened, this whole visa thing is a failure and I can't get back. We'll need to end this relationship. She was like no, no, cmon let's think this over, you're obviously very stressed. She proceeded to ream out this guy at the Chinese Embassy six days from Sunday. I later found out she was crying. Then I got all these other conversations from people who wanted to know why I wasn't back in China yet for the next semester.

So the next irrational thing I did was attempt to doctor a contract from some random school in Singapore by using existing contracts from several old jobs and cobble together names and logos. In the end it was a very professional Photoshop job and looked even better than a real contract. It took hours of work. That got sent in an email to the address that the Chinese Embassy wanted, but absolutely nothing came of it. This was despite me sending multiple emails and phone calls to confirm.

So absurd was it all that I could have actually applied for a school in Singapore and signed a real contract by now. Instead, I was doing all this pointless work to fight back onto a sinking Chinese ship by doctoring fake contracts. Not only that, it would potentially jeopardize my chances to apply in Singapore for real at some later date.

Finally I called the visa center for the last time and said "I want to withdraw my visa application. I'll pay whatever service fee there is, can you arrange this for me?"

They did this and said come to Bangkok and pick up your passport on such and such a date.

These two weeks had not gone very well, but the wisdom from my Muslim friends had me re-thinking a lot about the perspective.

Today's ride: 135 km (84 miles)
Total: 2,385 km (1,481 miles)

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