Let me describe the rigmarole of getting my Chinese Visa, because it is worth complaining about.

To get a Chinese visa you have to either hire a special visa courier to drop off your paperwork, or you have to go in person to one of the six Chinese embassy/consulates. These are located in San Francisco, Chicago, New York, Houston, Los Angelos and Washington, D.C. The official webpage of the D.C. embassy is difficult to navigate and provides few clues as to what is needed in the visa application. I found the visa application on a courier's webpage, actually, and found the declaration form there, too. (I think the declaration form is because of the recent N1H1 pandemic, since all it requires is for me to state where I have been in the past two weeks. Easy: Bowling Green.)

The listed phone number -- (202)3386688 -- leads one into a maze of options. I was finally able to find hours of operation (which were out of date) visa fees (which were right, but incomplete since they made no mention of the $5 mail-back fee) expected turn-around time (which was out of date, they said three days, turned out it was six days.) I tried in vain for several hours at several different times of day on different days of the week to reach a real live human being, so that I could make sure they do offer mail-back service since Mom was going to be in D.C. to drop my application off. I failed to speak to a human being, so just crossed my fingers and hoped I had everything I needed in a pile. I filled out the application, the declaration, purchased a money order for the visa and a money order for the mail-back fee that I had read about on the section of the official website dealing with marriage certificate notarization. I put the whole thing into an envelope with a priority stamp on it so that my passport would be sent back to me.

My mom dropped all of my info off on the morning on a Tuesday morning and I got my Chinese visa in the mail exactly six working days later. It is a huge relief to have my passport back in my hands and out of the wily grip of inefficient bureaucracy.