A medical exam like no other and becoming a ‘Foreign Expert’.

So in order to proceed to the next part of the immigration stage in China you must go for a medical exam. I won’t go into it in too much detail but it was pretty odd. I was hooked up to a machine that I thought was going to shock me, my blood was taken by a slightly mean looking woman whilst everyone was watching over my shoulder, people were walking around the corridors with their urine samples in flimsy little plastic cups (minus any sort of container lid of course),  the x-ray machine was in a warehouse room full of boxes and having just had some of my organs ultra-sounded (imagine that’s a real word) my mentor was called  in…I honestly thought that something was wrong with me. So, waiting patiently for some horrible news, I stood there for a whole 2 minutes until my mentor came out of the room…only to find out that the ultra-sound lady’s son went to our school…how lovely.

All this was ultimately so that we could get our residence permits in China. There are a lot of hurdles to get over and a lot of paperwork, but our mentors have been on the case for months now. Last week we got our passports back from the police station and we are legally Chinese residents so we’re in!!

Jake with our mentors, Joe, Alex and Shawn

But what is even more exciting is that we have now officially become ‘Foreign Experts’ in China with a certificate to prove it and everything (well until we have to give it back to the Ministry of Education when we leave the country). But we can enjoy the ‘prestige’ of the title while it lasts!