6 Nov 2008

Bureaucracy

China is an absurdly bureaucratic place in some respects. Some hotels in certain restricted areas require all sorts of information, but plenty of it borders on the ridiculous and is just paperwork for the sake of it. So sometimes I take a little silent pleasure in making answers up.
At the bottom of the form is a 'Remarks' section into which I have inserted comments like
'I'm very tired of filling out poinless forms.'
or, 'It's quite cold here and the hotel staff and not terribly responsive or efficient.'
Under 'Occupation', you could write anything from 'Egyptian goat herder' to 'Olympic athlete'. I once put down Gordon Brown as my employer. Maybe some pen pusher might pull me up for this when I eventually leave the country, we'll see.

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