Back in the USA

 I just took a look at the last time I made a post on this blog and I'm surprised it has been this long. I knew I'd missed a few, but it's laughable how much has changed since last I posted. This, of course, is exactly why not many people write blogs. The stresses of migrating around SE Asia and trying to plohavehrough the paperwork for the Chinese work visa has dominated my thoughts for the past six months and it really hasn't inspired me to turn my attention toward blog writing. At the very least, it has made it too difficult to start writing the blog as a new habit. I'm hoping the little coffee shop I've found around the corner from my new regularlye it easier to come in and blog on a regular basis.

But that's already getting ahead oonyself. I'm going to try to do a quick catch-up for what's been happening over the past six months. For anything before that, you'll have to refer to previous posts.

In January of this year, The Vietnamese government rescinded the policy that allowed foreigners to remain in the country during the COVID crisis. The policy had been quite generous, allowing foreigners who had entered the country after a certain date to remain in the country without renewing their visa for two years. The end of the policy, however, was announced with less than a week's notice, so I was caught off guard even though I knew the policy would be ending at some point. The policy was also ended before schools had reopened, so the school that had offered me a permanent job before the lockdown had not opened, so my only option on such short notice was to leave. At that point, most countries in the region had not reopened their borders. Further, the United States was at the apex of COVID transmission at that point, and airfares were prohibitively expensive.

So the only viable option seemed to be crossing the border into Cambodia, which had reopened for tourism. The details have been documented regularly since January in Untethered Livestreams, the YouTube channel this blog is meant to document. But to sum up quickly, I was able to leave Vietnam and spend two months in Cambodia (the maximum amount of time a tourist is allowed to remain in Cambodia). After that, I got a flight to Singapore and quickly made my way to Malaysia (Singapore is a bit too pricy for my budget). I spent the past few months in Malaysia working through the various paperwork requirements for a Chinese work visa. Eventually, I was ready to apply for the visa, but discovered that the Chinese Embassy and the consulates in Malaysia were still closed because of COVID-19, but the Embassy in Singapore was not. So I spent a few days in Singapore trying to apply for the visa only to discover that the general policy of Chinese Embassies and consulates is that a person may only apply for this type of visa in their home country.

So I've returned to US soil. I booked a flight to Saipan, the US territory closest to China. And I'm miserable. I fully recognize that it's a tropical paradise but, and I hate to sound jaded, but I've been in tropical paradii for two and a half years now. It's unbelievably pretty but, as is always the case with the US, the price of everything makes it miserable. I can't afford to do anything a normal person might do. I was paying more for one night in a hotel here than for a week anywhere in SE Asia (Singpaore exempted). Restaurant meals are out of the question in most cases. I don't really have a proper kitchen, nor the funds to stock one. Legal cabs (there are no ride hailing apps) here cost $15 ($30 if you're at the airport). I didn't bother to look at legal, longer term housing. 

Notice I added 'legal' to a couple of different things above. It's worth a side note that the only way I've been able to survive is to sub-let and call the underground cab service. This isn't because this island is worse than the mainland, it's because it's too much like the mainland. Everthing is regulated in a way that drives the price skyward. The real market price is only represented by the illegal services here, which is still more than it would be in a well-run economy. 

Which brings me to the main point I want to make in this post. Up until now, this year has been stressful because I've been trying to balance limited financial resources with the time it has taken to complete the necessary paperwork to get the Chinese visa. Now, however, I'm back in the US and I have an even more pressing problem: attempting to navigate the piss-poor American economic mismanagement that has caused the working class to struggle in the wealthiest nation the world has ever known.

And I assume this will be a running theme in the show: helping the American working class to wake up to the reality that there's something terribly wrong with our system. Something the Chinese system is doing right. Something that has caused their economy to develop into the fastest-growing today and soon to be the world's largest. All while the American economic system has squandered the wealth and position earned by the hard fought struggles of the previous generations. All while the United States has declined and the average American household has gone from a downright luxurious lifestyle full of hope and potential to one that considers barely surviving to be a success and still often doesn't. 

I want the show to be upbeat overall, and I have to admit that I intend to vent most of my frustrations and anger here, but this issue is certainly going to be the source of a lot of those frustrations.

Anyway, this is where I'm at now. I'm back in the United States, technically. Saipan is a nice island. The people are nice. But the economy is post-apocalyptic. I just left Malaysia, where there were ten 'help wanted' signs on every street. Here, there are more abandoned storefronts and buildings than there are occupied ones. And rents are still so high I would need to work two or three jobs just to make ends meet. I could barely survive here even with the job I have in China, and I'm really unclear on how I will be able to get there even if I can get the visa approved, which I suppose is the last thing to talk about in this post.

The only way I was able to return to the United States to apply for the visa through the Chinese consulates was to ask the school for additional (they've already sent me some money earlier this year) funds to fly here and get an apartment so that I could apply for the visa. But I've already burned through virtually everything they gave me and I haven't even applied for the visa. I'm supposed to have a refund for a previous flight that the airline canceled, but I booked it through Kiwi.com and they aren't even responding to emails. It seems unlikely that I'll be able to fly back on that refund. I'm not even sure I'm going to get it. On a long list of reasons not to fly, airlines can cancel the flight and never give you the money back. They're in complete control. I'm probably just out $1000. I seriously doubt I'll ever see that money back.