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By now we all know that a visa extension is no longer a matter of bringing the right identity photos to the Public Security Bureau. What used to be a routine process is now a dangerous lottery, made all the more confusing because different PSBs seem to be following completely different application procedures and demanding different requirements, and the rules may change again next week.

My boyfriend, Chris, is one of the unlucky ones unable to stay in China. He is not a protester or an agitator. He’s teaching second grade, not selling drugs. He was working for a school who has sponsored his visa extensions in the past. He has never overstayed a visa or worked on a tourist visa, but he was not able to extend his visa. I can’t think of anything he’s done that would make him a bad candidate for continued employment and residence in China.

I’m told that visa changes, like everything else in Beijing, is “because of the Olympics”. This connection has not been made clear. Some say expats are security risks, likely to turn the harmonious games into a PR disaster. Others say booting the ESL crowd will free up foreigner-friendly housing, to be rented to Olympic guests at a Western price.

I’m not going to stay in China without Chris, so I’m going back too, as sad as I am to leave Beijing. I feel stupid about leaving, too. Over the last few years, friends and family members have asked me why I want to live in China, and I try to explain the wild excitement of my adopted home. Living in China lets me move between two completely different cultures, and see the perceptions Americans and Chinese have about each other. I don’t like everything in China, of course. I’m not crazy about the subway stampede, and I don’t know why it takes 10 receipts, 20 counters and 30 red stamps to make a purchase. But I’ve tried to be a bridge blogger, even if only in my small circle. For several months, I’ve been blogging Olympics changes and Fuwa sightings for Beijing Olympics Fan! I was invited to be on a few episodes of the BBC’s radio program World: Have Your Say to talk about the amazing progress being made in preparation for the Olympics (I’ve even come close to using that cliche about “China’s coming out party”).

After telling everyone what a long way China has come since they’ve opened their borders, I feel stupid having to explain that I’m coming home because, uh, foreigners have to leave for unexplained reasons. This change in rules is shady, arbitrary and frightening, and after trying to change the perception of China away from this stereotype, I feel like an idiot.

I’m heartbroken that Chris had to leave China, but the visa issues are bigger than my personal story. Many of the foreigners who’ve been unable to get or renew a visa have a lot to offer China. International students are having trouble staying over the summer, and I think foreigners studying Mandarin can contribute so much to international relations, business, everything. Real Chinese fluency is so important for cross-cultural conversation, and it breaks my heart that students who are devoting their time and talent to this language can still be asked to leave. Freelancers, musicians, possible investors, and employees for smaller businesses are also having trouble, or simply coming in on tourist visas, which defeats the whole idea of legitimizing a vague visa system. We all know ESL was due for a bit of a cleanup, but many talented and inspired teachers have been affected, as well as the unqualified drifters. I can’t understand how expelling the foreigners who’ve invested their energy and effort into China helps anyone at all.

When I first saw the Olympics countdown commercials, on CCTV9 in my old Yantai apartment, it was over 800 days to the Beijing Olympics. I’ve eagerly watched it count down, two years, one year, 100 days, and now that there’s less than a month to go, I’m leaving China. The Olympics will be on TV at home, but I don’t know if I’ll remember the Beijing games as more than the reason we had to leave China.

I was crying as Chris and I drove to the brand new Terminal 3 airport, past the new Beijing 2008 banners proclaiming the Olympic slogans Beijing Welcomes You! and One World, One Dream.

Beijing is welcoming someone, I guess. But it’s not us.

Photos courtesy of Meg Stivison at Simpson’s Paradox.

Two of my college friends are visiting us in Beijing right now, so we’ve been making the tourist rounds. Climbing the Great Wall, exploring the Forbidden City, eating Beijing duck and haggling at the Silk Market are all on this month’s agenda.

It’s still a bit bizarre for this Jersey girl to be a guide to Beijing attractions, but I’ve been noticing subtle changes in tourist spots over the past few years. In preparation for the Olympic visitors, Beijing is getting better English signage (or perhaps I’m adjusting, since my visiting friends saw plenty of photo-worthy Chinglish), more restrooms, more rubbish bins and some attempts at lining up. There have been changes everywhere, but when we visited Tiananmen Square, I was stunned at the difference.

On my first visit to Tiananmen, in 2006, I was mobbed by sellers of paper kites, postcards, bilingual maps. It was sensory overload, but in a delightful, uniquely Beijing kind of way. Hawkers offered discount tours to the Great Wall, pulled Mao watched out of their jackets, or quietly offered my male friends special services. Families munched on dumplings or fruit as they walked around. I spoke to lots of “art students” who really really wanted to take me their exhibit.

But yesterday’s visit was much quieter. The sellers of postcards and Mao paraphernalia are all gone, from the square itself and the pedestrian access tunnels under the street (I bet transit guru David has a much better word for those!). It seemed like no one was eating, although there were a couple parked vans selling chips and drinks. No one tried to drag me to an art show… ok, i didn’t really miss that bit. A smaller, milder crowd milled around taking photos.

This wasn’t the first time I’ve seen guards posted at every entrance to Tiananmen, but last time they waved us through, and only stopped a few people with large bags, probably to make sure they weren’t carrying in kites and postcards and maps to hawk in the square. Yesterday, we were all stopped, and our camera bags and purses were examined by a polite guard. There was nothing invasive or unpleasant about the process, one of the guards saw my Mandarin phrasebook in my purse and put my Chinese conversational skills to the test! But it’s a huge change from the Tiananmen carnival three years ago.

A trip to the Great Wall is planned for the next blue sky day, and I’m really interested to see if the Badaling vendors have been moved on as well.

Meg Stivison is a former Jersey girl now living in Beijing. She moved to Yantai, Shandong province in 2006, with plans to spend a year teaching ESL and exploring a new country, but got hooked on the amazing pace of change in China. She’s fascinated and amused by the clash of East and West in everyday expat life, and is pleased to join the discussion at CNReviews. Meg has written on computer gaming and game culture for Bleech magazine, WomenGamers.com, and others, with a personal blog at Violet Eclipse. (Sorry, China residents, it’s on Blogspot, if you have trouble, try using this link instead.)  I’m pleased to have Meg guest blogging on CN Reviews — I am a Meg fanboy! - Elliott

Instead of learning to ask where the bathroom is located or what time the train leaves, my most vital Chinese questions are “Where’s the net cafe?” and “How much per hour?”When I lived in Yantai, the net bar down the street was my link to my friends back home (and, uh, WarCraft), but it was completely different from the air-conditioned hangout with wifi and coffee drinks back home. Chinese net bars sell computer time by the hour, and most also sell juice, soda, candy, snacks, and instant noodles, the Chinese equivalent of a Hot Pocket. You can also buy cigarettes, smoking isn’t just permitted in net bars, at times I think it’s mandatory.

The library-like silence of an American net cafe is gone, replaced with the usual thousand-decibel cellphone conversations, Tudou or Youtube videos, and shouts from the boys playing CounterStrike. It might not be the most conductive environment for working, especially when compared with the headphones-wearing crowd back home, but the cheery shouts of videogame victory don’t need translation. It’s familiar background noise to a gamer far from home.

My local net bars in Yantai and now in Beijing, are almost entirely populated by the stereotypical young, male gamer. Young men in desperate need of a haircut, staring blearily at the screen for literally hours or even days on end, is a familiar sight from my college days. Gamers ignoring the outside world are hardly unique to China, but the situation is especially focused in China.

First, Chinese teenagers spend their weekday evenings doing homework for the next day, and cramming for exams. Weekends are a little better, but there’re still hours devoted to homework and exam cramming, as well as squeezing in any extracurriculars like English class or piano lessons. There just isn’t enough time to kick back with a few hours of blowing up your friends online!

On a national holiday, my studious friends have an uninterrupted vacation to get some serious gaming in. The intense attention span that students used to cram for exams is now turned to World of WarCraft. I can’t blame them… I definitely spent my share of spring break and winter vacation time sitting in front of the computer. But a few days of solid gaming, coupled with a steady diet of candy bars and instant noodles, can take a physical toll.

Why aren’t there girls? Is it the smoke? Is it the trash-talking over shooters? I wonder if home computers are up to the task of blogging and QQ, but gamers (usually male) need the net cafe’s PCs for system-intensive games, and the chance to blow up their friends in person. I have seen women in ‘net bars, even playing games, but like girl gamers in the US, they’re a rarity.

The packets of sunflower seeds replacing a tall cafe mocha is just decoration. For a gamer in a strange land, a teenage boy wolfing down his snack in a hurry to get back to his game is a recognizable scene. There’s no culture shock in the virtual world, or the gaming subculture. Some things, it seems, are universal. What’s the Chinese word for pwn?