Visa.

Know what, I’m actually overstaying here in China.

Apparently my visa has expired for almost 2 weeks and I didn’t even know about it. It was only this afternoon when me, Edwin and Lee Tong went to the visa bureau to apply for the visa that we were told that our visa had expired (long time ago, may I add). So at things stand we are left with three scenarios:

Best case scenario: Fudan University does its ‘communication’ with the authorities and the whole issue get resolved amicably, none of us gets fined or jailed or deported; we can continue to stay in China until end of the year and we will not be barred from entering the country again.

Middle case scenario: The authorities acknowledged us that we had some miscommunications with the school, so they count our overstaying days from the day the visa expired to the day we went to Fudan to register. That will work out to be a 2,500 RMB for 5 days of overstaying.

Worst case scenario: The authorities insisted that we were overstaying and even though we went to Fudan to register we are still overstaying no matter what, so we are all going to be slapped with a 5,000 RMB fine.

Whose fault is it that we are in such a state? To be honest, I am not even sure who’s responsible for that, but all I know is our situation here is pretty sticky. Of course I hope everything gets sorted out soon, but to be honest, I’m getting a little pessimistic over this. Even though I’m pretty sure that I won’t get deported back to Singapore, but then again, a 5,000 RMB fine is still very heavy, especially for a poor student like me. I mean, knowing that I’ll be able to continue to stay in Shanghai does comfort me somewhat, but the feeling of being an illegal resident feels very bad and scary.

That said, I’m not even worried – yet.

Anyway today’s Financial Markets lesson was very fun again. And the best thing was that I got to sit between two pretty cute girls! They seemed to be quite surprised that I:

1. Came from Singapore
2. Can speak Mandarin very well
3. Can read whatever the lecturer was writing on the blackboard
4. Look young even though I am close to 25

Out of the four, I was definitely more pleased with the last point. At least I still look young to some people. That has to be the only positive highlight from a pretty low day.

If one of these days you see me walking around in NUS before I’m supposed to, you’d know what happened.

Pray for me, ya?