the random oracle

I took for granted that I could go to Thailand and Japan during my trip here.  It’s actually quite amazing for two reasons: one is that China is being extraordinarily difficult about visas this year because of the Olympics, so to get a multiple-entry visa is quite a feat.  But more importantly, I can waltz right into Thailand and Japan without any visa at all and automatically be allowed to stay for up to 90 days.

As I discovered during this trip things are not so rosy for Chinese travelers.  Not only do they need visas to go almost everywhere (even Hong Kong which is technically part of the same country!), most places refuse to grant them tourist visas unless they’re taking part of a tour group.  And lest you think that wearing ugly uniforms and following a loud obnoxious flag-waving tour guide are the only drawbacks of joining a tour group, consider also that to go to America (and also the EU, I believe) they have to hand over their passport for the duration of their trip as well as pay a large security deposit ensuring that they don’t stray from the tour group during their stay.

Now I know how many of you love to travel with tour groups (cue crickets chirping) but this is outrageous.  I understand that the USA doesn’t want people to overstay their visits, but isn’t the deposit enough?  Why force people to join tour groups?  Do they really think that the number of Chinese people willing to pay $xxx to overstay their hard-earned tourist visa is any more than the number of Brits or Aussies or Japanese who overstay their automatic 90 day tourist visas?  I’m not saying that no one is going to take advantage of the situation to overstay, but overstaying is already a problem with other nationalities too.  It seems to me that this is doubly penalizing citizens of countries like China.

I didn’t realize this was even an issue until I started mentioning to friends like LB and MP that they should come with me to Japan, or they should visit me later in America, and all they could say was that they couldn’t get a visa.  That had never struck me as even being a problem before, but then I was in my privileged little American bubble and never had to think twice about going abroad.

It’s sad mostly because I meet so many people like LB and GXW here who honestly want to see what the West (and the rest of the world, too) is like on their own terms, with no desire to overstay their visits, and yet being unable to do so because they happened to be born in the wrong country.  Now I know many other injustices befall people because they’re born in the wrong country, injustice that are much more tragic than just not being able to visit Europe or America, but this seems like something that could be easily remedied by some better planning and goodwill on the part of the rich countries that have closed their doors on the rest of the world.