One of the biggest drawbacks to being Chinese is holding a passport which is regarded as the equivalent of the medieval leper’s bell and call of “UNCLEAN!” Travelling with my Chinese wife, I dread each encounter with immigration officials, as, impeccable though her papers always are, they still have “People’s Republic of China” on them (the worst problems we encountered were in Hong Kong of all places). Now my quasi-brother-in-law (i.e. the chap who’s going to marry my wife’s sister in November) is finding out all about it.
After an incredibly time-consuming paperchase, he has procured for his fiancée a marriage and settlement visa. Now he is, not unnaturally, trying to arrange a honeymoon. Only problem is, they’d have to spend half their time until the wedding sorting out the visa, and sorting out the wedding is going to take up quite enough of the time, thank you. So, my friend has gone on the Net to find places where Chinese people can go without too many tedious formalities. The results have been instructive.
The problem is, of course, that no nation wants to be seen as a soft touch for Chinese, fearing that they’ll find a billion or so of them on the doorstep. It’s less than twenty years since it really was like that in Beijing: word would soon get around about who had revised their visa policy, and the queues would lead round several blocks first thing next morning.
There are a few places in Africa you can go (Djibouti, Comoros, Ethiopia anyone?). Various islands in the South Pacific. In the Americas you are more or less limited to the Dominican Republic; in Europe to the holiday paradise of Kosovo. There are a few places in Asia, but not so many at the top of most people’s wishlists. Still, they do include Thailand and Sri Lanka. So all is not lost, and my sister-in-law will get a suitably exotic honeymoon.
I’d have settled for the Lake District myself. But I suppose it’s bloody cold up here in December.
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