Bear with me as I get this out of my system...

As I travel often throughout the former Communist world, I have a lot of opportunities to compare the various bureaucratic procedures in the several countries I moonlight in, monitoring -- as I do -- how they've been improving since '89.

A little anecdote would suffice...

My company's Creative Director and I have recently paid visits to our respective People's Republic of China Embassies (I in my adoptive Czech "Republic," she in her native Romania) to obtain our obligatory Middle Kingdom entry passes. Allowing me just a few beats of your time, I thought I'd contrast our two different embassy experiences in highlighting how far (or behind) these two countries have come since Wall Fall.

Notes on ADM's Visa Odyssey at the PRC Embassy in the Czech Republic:

• the Consular Section was clearly marked at street-level and the complex was easy to find.


• when submitting my application, the entire procedure -- queueing up, organizing the list of required documents, handing them over to the clerk, deciding on a date for a return trip back to the Embassy for pick-up -- took no more than twenty minutes. I've been told this was an anomaly -- with the standard situation involving a serpentine snake of a thing which trails all the way out the compound onto nearby Pelleova street -- something I'd noticed myself when I returned to retrieve my passport. Still, it's those first impressions which count and -- fakjo -- this was a good one.


• the queue moved fluidly. Czech people are typically extremely well-behaved when it comes to this sort of thing. There was zero need for the famous Chinese "sharp elbows" or raised voices. I was startled by how mellow the whole scene was, compared to the sordid tale I'm about to recount shortly.


• the Czech clerk doing application intake was a gem. She chose to converse with me in the Queen's English and her high British accent -- a speech affect I normally find cloyingly sickening amongst younger Czechs (why fight it? America is our chief sponsor, quit the pose) -- her overall diction, and her vocabulary were sensational. This, in my opinion, is the new breed of Czech citizen: confidently multilingual, possessing an ability to smile freely, and, moreover, completely professional in the performance of her/his duties. Bravo to this woman for putting on the good show.


• the reception area was immaculate. The johns were spotless. There's even a for-pay coin Xerox machine in the waiting area for those who need to do last-minute copying. They were even serving fresh coffee and sticky buns, which I thought was a very nice touch. Okay, so I'm kidding about the coffee deal, but otherwise everything came up roses.

The Chinese appear to be very serious about making an impression on the Czechs with their local diplomatic presence, and I've been doing some thinking as to why (I note, these are strictly my personal views, not sanctioned in way by the Chinese authorities, nor have I been told such things by local Chinese contacts). Given how Czechs traditionally support global underdog movements of any kind -- note the mass demonstrations against the Janjaweed in Sudan's Darfur region, Grassroots Missile Defence Protests, their unswerving support of the Tibetans, and countless other causes with the notable exception of scant support for the Palestinians -- I can see how the Chinese are keen to employ "soft diplomacy" in Prague with an aim to gently persuading the Czechs to see their side of things. Given the large numbers of locals who were waiting to be served on my pick-up day, I think the strategy's working.

Now, let's compare how things went down for "the Double E" (aka 2xE) in Boo-Koo (at the PRC Embassy in Bucharest, Ceauşescu's Former Playground here -- by the way, I think The Conducător looks stellar in his wiki page profile shot):

• during her second visit to the Embassy, there was a near-fatal collision across the street as a wayward car went careening into a nearby dealership.


• crusty former Communist loyalist women have managed to keep their Embassy positions despite there being younger, better-looking, and more linguistically-talented, university educated replacements on offer. The former had no idea what the correct sequence of required documents were and did no better than to merely badger around applicants like The Double E by throwing their ample weight around and/or engaging in intimidation tactics with virtually zero customer service orientation. To wit, Andreea told me she was hustled back and forth from the Embassy like cattle at least thrice in order to fetch some allegedly "missing hotel vouchers" and all manner of other assorted bureaucratic dreck. There were no clear instructions (in the national language, mind you!) off the main PRC Embassy in RO page. Andreea had to use her personal guanxi networks in order to source the remaining required forms and this despite the fact she will be travelling with a so-called "Western" colleague who himself carries a bona fide Canadian passport...Chinese spun gold by any other name.


• the Embassy's signage is terrible. Instructions are poorly given. Chaos reigns everywhere in the reception area.


• her single-entry visa, at $75, cost more than my double-entry pass at 45 EUR. She couldn't even obtain a double-entry pass unless she had proof of a future subsequent entry.


• there are no metro lines which run anywhere close to the Embassy grounds. The historically close ties between The Chairman and Ceauşescu ensured that the Chinese would have an enclosed diplomatic compound far from the Romanian factory-toiling bun-in-the-oven-baking hoi-polloi.

Call me a conspiracy seeker, but my take-away from The Double E's Embassy debacle is that the Romanian state aims to do everything in its power (even on the grounds of foreign consulates) to keep its people hogtied to Romania, stymieing their well-intentioned travel plans by erecting all manner of artificial -- even egotistical -- roadblocks. As if Romania is signalling to its own people: "If I can't (afford to) go, then you can't either! Take that! I'll destroy it for all of us."

Therefore, what is the Czech take-away from all of this?

Personally, I think we do far too much complaining in this statelet and undervalue how truly progressive we are in comparison to our post-eighty-nine neighbours -- despite being one of the more corrupt nations in both Europe and the world. When we grouse, we ignore the obvious successes of how eagerly we've adopted new techologies (egs. metro tickets and taxi requests by SMS), new methods of doing things, not to mention beautifying our capital city to the extent that she remains the ultimate dreamcatcher for all and sundy the world over.

Think about it...

So the next time you feel a bitch session coming on. Be grateful for what you have...because things could always be like in Romania. Woof-woof!









More wild dog snaps on offer here... (all images courtesy of Jiggle -- sorry, but I don't say the G-word).