Last year, we at MSN Search in concert with Microsoft Research Asia sponsored a contest for a number of interns at MSRA last summer. We thought a great prize for the contest would be to fly the winners of the contest out to Redmond to come see the US and meet some of the people on the MSN Search team. I was on point to coordinate this.

Silly me.

So, most of us in the US don’t think twice about visiting most countries… usually the biggest hassle is getting a passport the first time. And typically, the biggest hassle of getting a passport is finding your birth or naturalization certificate and getting some photos taken. If you’re going somewhere exotic, you might need to get a visa… which involves getting yet more passport photos and sending in an application, photo, some money, and your passport (it’s scary the first time, but afterwards it’s fine).

Now, let’s talk about what it takes to bring three Chinese students here to the US for a week.

First off, as it turns out if you’re a starving student in China, chances are you haven’t had need to go out of the country, and thus need to get a passport. Getting a passport is a bit more of a hassle… you have to demonstrate some need to go abroad, as opposed to just wanting to go for vacation. And it takes a couple months to process. OK.

Then, there’s the US visa. It’s not just sending in an application, photo, and some cash — $100, which is rather steep for someone from China. The applicant has to then go to the embassy for an interview… presumably so that some consul can ensure the person isn’t coming to the US to work. And then, assuming all goes well, a visa is issued. And this too takes a couple of months.

OK, so the prize is delayed gratification. But that’s all, right? And we’ll ignore the US-VISIT program where they get their picture taken and thumbs fingerprinted. Well, turns out there are a couple other things I never considered when we came up with a trip to Redmond being the grand prize for some students. For example:

• How do we get them some US dollars in case they need something? As Chinese students don’t have credit cards (turns out, most people in China don’t use credit cards).
• How do we get them to their hotel? Turns out, students in China typically don’t know how to drive, so you can’t just get them a rental car. Getting a driver’s license in China is actually quite expensive
• Where do you take them for dinner? Remember the first time you used chopsticks? Chances are, it was a huge pain, and you may have asked for a fork to help eat. Well, when you’ve used chopsticks for 20 years, turns out using a knife and fork is every bit of a pain as using chopsticks for the first time.
• How do they call home? I’m sure there are cheap pre-paid cards for China or other places from the US, but I’d never investigated them. BTW, turns out that direct dial from a downtown hotel to China is rather pricey.

There’s a bunch of others, but this should give you the idea. Certainly an experience. I wonder if there’s a site in Chinese that helps explain these problems… or hey, perhaps a global site with tips in all languages for visiting. I suspect so, but all I could find was basic sites that didn’t provide any real information. Perhaps an opportunity for someone?

This entry was posted 2 years, 3 months ago on Sunday, May 14th, 2006 at 10:10 pm and is filed under Trips and Adventures. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.