A separation

Recalling days in 2002 is painful.  That's why I hesitate to write them down.

The three-week buffer was short.  I was in panic, not knowing how to deal with the situation, nor how to face my wife and son.  My friends suggested me to call an MP.  My bosses Peter and Sara called for me the immigration office.  But the sending back decision was a final one.  The day eventually came when my wife and son had to go.

I was moving around as if I was a piece of wood.  My wife, however, patted my back and comforted me, "Don't worry.  It would just take a few more days to get a new visa to get together again." But it turned out not that simple.

The immigration office spent more than 2200 pounds for the single way flight tickets.  Their ordinary price for return were however only a few hundred.  My wife and son were seated in business cabin so that the jet crew can keep an eye on them easier.

A real illegal immigrant from Fujian province happened to be sitting beside my wife on that plane.  She was in quite dismay, murmuring all her expense of 20K pounds was then in drainage.  She also arrived in UK for just a few days.

When the flight arrived in Beijing, several cops came to the plane to meet the send-backs by the British government.  One of them yelled also at my wife.  The crew kindly explained to him that my wife was different.

After arrival, my wife went on to apply the visas herself.  The things then turned worse and worse.  The officers in the embassy were bad tempered, and impatient, asking my wife to go there again and again, asking this and that.  One time, one of them even throw the materials into my wife's face beastly.  I only knew this after.  I don't know the details about what they talked.  But dare they throw things like that, the officers and I can surely be enemies.

In order to get reunited and to have me keeping my career, my wife refrained.  Meanwhile, thinking about the new visa application procedure taking that long, I was upset.  I couldn't focus on my work.

It took almost a year for them to come back to UK again.  My wife and I are both exhausted.