Nevertheless, there does exist a white-collar contingency in Anhui, of which my friend, who we’ll call Ms. Li just in case, is one. Since leaving Anhui, Ms. Li’s life has been punctuated by abrupt changes and adaptations, but being resilient, she’s managed to keep her head above water. Recently, her immediate future was solidified by a rushed marriage to a very well educated ex-diplomatic service officer, who, having become fed up with working in the foreign service, moved to Shanghai and to work for a gargantuan state-owned enterprise (SOE).

Why is her marriage to this man of letters relevant, you ask? It is important because his employment has put him in a decent position to apply for a Shanghai hukou (pronounced hoo koh), or what could be called, for all intents and purposes, “Shanghai citizenship.”

Hold the phone. Aren’t they already Chinese citizens?

Yes, they are. Nevertheless, the way it works in China is that you belong to the place where you’re registered, and your registration holds giant implications for what you’re able to do legally. For more on the specifics, see the previous post on the hukou system, which Ms. Li has called “one step short of slavery.”  You’ll see why in a minute.  She was born the daughter of rural bureaucrats in Anhui, thus garnering her an urban registration in her backwater home county. Had she wanted to, she could have remained in her hinterland home and held down a stable government job. However, being the up-and-comer she is,  Ms. Li pursued an opportunity to attend school in the nearby metropolis of Nanjing, and due to relatively relaxed registration regulations was able to finagle a registration there upon graduation.

After a while in Nanjing, she decided to she’d rather throw in her lot with the big city crowd and took the two hour train ride east to see what she could make of it. When she first got to Shanghai, she obtained, owing to her status as a four-year degree holder, a “Residence Permit.” Think of this as the equivalent of a green card. It gives you some privileges, but it has to be renewed every year, and who knows when they’ll tell you to screw off and get the hell out of Shanghai.

While we’re reeling off details, here are a few other amusing facts. In order to get married, one must return to the hukou-issuing locality of the would-be husband to process the marriage. In Ms. Li’s case, that required flying to Beijing, as her husband had already attained the other Holy Grail of hukous, Beijing Urban, during his five years of foreign service. To sum it up, a woman from Anhui and a man from Jiangsu who met in Shanghai were required to travel 600 miles to Beijing in order for the state to recognize their marriage. Also, God forbid you ever lose your hukou or ID card while away from home, since you’ll need to return there if you ever need to get a replacement. Want to travel abroad? You’re going to need a passport, and for that you’re getting on the bus back home too. What we’re interested in today, however, is how Ms. Li actually goes about getting one, and this, my friends, is where things get wacky.

Every year the Shanghai city government establishes quotas for new hukous that look something like: X number to this government agency, Y number to that one, etc. Also on the list are Z number to employees of certain colossal SOEs, and a much smaller amount to extremely qualified applicants working in other companies. Of course if you’re pals with certain high-level types, you can circumvent the quotas.

So back to Ms. Li, who, as an employee of a smaller foreign-owned representative office, could never dream of applying for a hukou on her own, even if she worked in Shanghai until she was 90.  However, her husband falls within the quota system so she can apply as an “accompanying applicant” on the coattails of her husband, the “primary applicant.”

How do they go about applying?  First, just to have the Shanghai government consider their application, they must provide a couple simple documents, including:

1. A filled-in “Shanghai Hukou” application, a truly gargantuan document full of all sorts of questions about the applicants and their jobs.  One section is called “government face,” on which Ms. Li has selected “the masses.”  The other two options are “party member” and “Communist Youth League member.”  Another is “Nature of Employer: Government Bureau, Government-backed corporation, corporation, or high-technology corporation.” There’s no “other” section on there. Only cogs need apply.

2. A labor contract valid for at least three years from the date of application, certified for validity by the local Labor Bureau. This means that a company has to be willing to take a three-year risk on her, which usually means they can make her take whatever conditions over a three-year contract they want.

3. A recommendation letter from the “primary applicant’s” work unit.

4. Marital Status Certificate. In Ms. Li’s case, this means her “Married without Children” certificate. Also acceptable: “Married with Honor of Having Birthed One Child” certificate, or “Single without Child” certificate.  Also valid documents but not likely to help her get a hukou: “Married but Having Exceeded One-child Policy” certificate, “Single but Birthed a Child out of Wedlock” certificate, or “Married but Birthed a Child out of Wedlock” certificate.

5. Copy of their current Shanghai registrations.

6. The couple’s original ID cards plus copies.

7. Copies of the couple’s current hukous stamped by the controlling local government. Ms. Li needed to return to Nanjing for this, and her husband to Beijing.

8. A completed “Relocating to Shanghai to Take Care of Difficult Family Circumstances” form. This needs to be stamped by the Human Affairs Bureau in Nanjing where she’s registered, her current company, and her husband’s work unit. Basically they have to make up some reasons that sound somewhat close to believable and get three parties – who nobody is really going to go look into – to sign off on it.

9. A certified copy of her and her husband’s diplomas. These are checked by local government agencies under the Human Affairs Bureau for validity.

10. A “Bringing Talent into Shanghai” application form from the primary applicant. This is basically an explanation for why the applicant possesses a skill set that will add value to Shanghai. Ms. Li’s husband’s talent is fluency in Russian, which is why he was hired. This also is stamped by his work unit.

11. A “Certificate of Qualification for High-level Technical Jobs” for her husband. This comes from the Labor Bureau.

12. “Certificate of Good Health” for the “primary applicant.” Makes you rethink the famous poem from Ellis Island. “Give me your qualified, your healthy, your well connected, and allow me to profit from their toils.”

13. A “Personnel Transfer Letter” and a “Certificate of Attitude toward Government and Work Assessment” from the local government of her current registration, Nanjing. These consist of the exact same content in two different but equally hilarious letters. I’ve translated them below for your stupefaction.

14. The couple’s “Residence Registration” issued by the local police station where they live in Shanghai. This is just so they know where everybody lives at any given time.

15. Anything else the application processors ask you for. One website that helps people prep for applications says, “You can download a list of required documents from the Shanghai Human Affairs Bureau website, but in reality the process is much more complicated than the official line, and you’ll often end up turning in a load of other documents if you want to succeed.”

If you’re like me, at this point you might be empathizing more with Joseph and Mary for their biblical return to Bethlehem to participate in the Roman Census.

Now, for your edification and amusement, please read the following translation, which I will remind you is required now, in 2009, and is not from the 1950s:

Certificate of Attitude toward Government and Work Assessment

Comrade Li loves her ancestral country. Her stance on government is firm. She’ll ceaselessly seek to make progress. She is devoted to protecting the leaders of the Chinese Communist Party. She upholds every directional policy of the Party. She earnestly studies and implements scientific development approach of the “Three Represents.” She positively participates in government study and cares about the nation’s big issues. She has a strong patriotic sense in addition to a sense of responsibility toward her people. Comrade Li loves to work. She works hard and meticulously, always yielding relatively good results. She ceaselessly seeks perfection and has already attained distinct achievements. Comrade Li is thoroughly and wholeheartedly opposed to Falungong and all other reactionary cult organizations. In addition, she earnestly exhorts her family members and friends to realize the true nature of cults and has in her thoughts and actions drawn a clear boundary between herself and them.

May this serve as testament to the above!

XXX Neighborhood Office, XXX District, Nanjing City, Jiangsu Province

May 28, 2009

The “Personnel Transfer Letter” is identically worded except with the addition of a final line: “We agree to release Comrade Li!”  And that really says it all: they own you, and without their permission, you’re not going anywhere.  What’s more incredible is that the people described in this article fall easily within the top 10% of China’s wealth sphere.  They drive a Chevy sedan.  They go out for pizza on the weekends.  They lead lives that the other 90% of the population couldn’t conceive of, yet this is is their road to full citizenship.

So now it’s waiting game.  Ms. Li and her husband have their application entered, and the government will respond to them sometime within the next 3 to 6 months, probably asking them to bring more and more documents until the decision comes down.