SZ home. I feel like making pancake now, but MAN is having sore-throat. How?

Foreigners who work in SZ are treated a bit differently, both good and bad.

People here are more friendly to westerners. For me, a Malaysian Chinese who looked not much different from the local Chinese have not receive any special treatment, therefore I live like native Chinese. I got to experience how the people here talk very loudly in public transport, I got pushed away from the bus door when everyone is squeezing to get on to the bus, I got to hold my breath when people walking in front of me spit on the walkway and a lot more that I would not go through if I’m not here in SZ.

My experience of getting my work permit is definitely the most bumpy compared to other foreigners that I know of. I got hired when the immigration restriction for Olympics was still in place, I have to go through the complicated application cycle, I even went back to Penang and work from home for a short period of time until I finally got the invitation letter that issued by the government and I flew back here to continue the work permit application. The whole cycle took about 2 and half months.

And now, my colleague who needs to renew his work permit are free from these complicated process due to the economy downturn and the government wish to bring in more opportunity, therefore they simplify the process. I was the unlucky one.

The Immigration Officer visited me in the office recently. They said visit but it’s actually spot checking whether I’m actually an employee of the company or just faking myself as employee to get a residential permit. I shown them my work permit that I brought with me wherever I travel to within the city, and they request for my passport which I didn’t bring along.

Officer: Can you show me your passport?

me: Sorry sir, I don’t have it with me, I left it at home.

Officer: Why didn’t you bring it? You should bring it wherever you go.

me: Oh, I did bring my work permit but not the passport, I’m afraid that I lost it. ( I was meant to say got pick-pocketed, but I managed to “brake”.)

Officer: Did you bring money with you?

me: Err…Yes.. (I wasn’t sure why the question.)

Officer: Don’t you afraid you lost it, why are you still bringing it along.

me: … (wtf, money can earn again and I’m not losing it all at one go, but losing my passport gonna bring me into trouble, you know?)

This entry was posted on Monday, June 15th, 2009 at 6:24 am and is filed under Life in SZ, Me. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.