What's this line for....

The company Will works for shall remain nameless, but since he is new here, things have not gone exactly as planned - like having "the company" pay our rent with our relocation allowance. At this point I felt like a big American loser and had a mini-mental episode yesterday when I told Will - we just need to pay the nice man before he kicks us to the curb - reminding him of our past tenant who stayed in my house pretty much rent free for about 6 months until we took her to court, which she lost and then proceeded to file an appeal - and I digress. Okay, so I'm still a little bitter about that. So we decided to suck it up and just get a cash advance on our credit card for a few days until our relocation money came in.

I volunteered to go down to a safe international bank to get the $$ out. I thought getting there 10 minutes BEFORE the bank opened would be a great idea - but as I walked up, I see this line out the door of people waiting to get in. Well, since I rarely see a line in China (nobody is that organized and/or if you leave even the littlest space in front of you, that is enough for someone to walk in front of you and stand there - I've learned to decrease my personal space - A LOT).

The guard hands me a piece of paper (some kind of form) in Chinese. I shrug and get in line (the people at this bank speak English, so I figured they would explain what I needed to fill in). The bank opens, and I stand in line patiently, thinking I'm never going to get done in the 30 minutes I alotted before meeting with the landlord on the other side of town. Other people get in line behind me, but some go around and enter the bank. I sort of question this, but hey, I don't want to lose my place in line because believe me, there is no "saving" and there are twice as many people in line now. Finally, the nice security man comes to me with the English version of this form (this would have been helpful 15 minutes ago). I look down and it is an application for a Canadian visa. Shit. I shake my head no and the nice man takes me from line and ushers me in to the bank (the woman behind me that kept bumping me with her purse - ie no personal space - is quickly moving up - told yall there was no going back). I feel like a bone head for just standing there like everyone else in the herd, but how was I really supposed to know. Stupid foreigner.