Driver's Test

Can you bureaucracy?

I went and took my driver's test today.... and passed! Phew!

There is only one "DMV" in all of Chengdu (where they get 300 new cars
on the road each week). It is about a 40 min drive from where we live
in the city. Thankfully the consulate sends someone to go with you to
make it through this process. Imagine a giant DMV, with grey marble
floors, steel and black leather chairs, and a big black score board
the size of an enormous flat screen TV with red letters and numbers
cycling through who should go to which window.

When we got there, we first had to go up for an eye and color blind
test. If you fail either of those you are automatically prohibited
from getting a license. Then you have to go downstairs and get a
number. Each person that helps you has to examine and read through
your paperwork. You wait for your number, to get to go to the counter
to talk to someone (just like in the US), you go to a different window
to pay your fee, and then back to the same counter so they can give
you a stamp to go to the testing area. At the testing area they then
send you to your little cubicle with a computer monitor and a mouse.
The test was ok until I got to a question that asked me if the sign in
the picture prohibited driving through... only there wasn't a picture
at all to look at. They just dismissed it and said guess, there are
100 questions and you can miss 9 with no problem. Then I started to
get nervous... 'cause what if I get a 90? Can I fight for that last
point? I shook it off and finally finished. It was ok.

Anyway, after you pass, you take your papers back to the counter to
get a number and wait again. You go talk to someone, then they give
you another number and you wait for them to tell you your card is
ready. All done.

I guess China or the US, the DMV experience is all about the
paperwork. Can you imagine what it would have been like if I had to
keep asking the next person where to go?

Now I can drive to the store or the school or where ever else I need
to go. This will really simplify things.
Michelle