Fapiao

Nobody told me I'd have to become an accountant once I moved to China.

In a word? Fapiao.

It was the second word I learned once arriving.

Ni hao (hello) and fapiao (receipt). At least they rhyme?

Less than 36 hours after arriving to Shanghai I was at Ikea getting some essentials for my place when the people with me quickly blurted: "Don't forget your fapiao!"

I don't know how many times in those first few days and weeks I had to remind people I'd just arrived and I had NO CLUE what they were talking about! Not that much has changed since then, but I'd like to think I've learned SOME things at least!

Fapiao. Loosely translated? Special receipt.

Not so loosely translation? A specific receipt the government requires certain companies to use so they can see money is being spent in China and not going back overseas.

An even better translation? The bane of my existence while in China.

Knowing what I know now, I can safely say this:

1. Had I known I would be sick so much the first couple months I would not have come.
2. Had I known about fapiao I would not have moved here.

Imagine: A world where April 15th is at the end of EVERY. SINGLE. MONTH.

Here's how fapiao works:

Collect the fapiao. Each month I need a certain percentage of my paycheck to be proved by showing fapiao for both a WRE and an Article No. 54 form. Don't ask me what the difference is and why we need two different ones. Don't know. Don't care. I just do what I'm told. I bet many of you didn't realize my curiosity and obstinance was subdued so readily! Move to China and that's what happens: I cease to ask "why" unless it's work or health related - much to my boss's dismay at times!

I know the important stuff:

• I'm to do it.
• If I don't, I lose a lot of money each month.
• It's China.

Thankfully either the WRE or Article 54 you can purchase fapiao for. This will be my third month of submitting fapiao and I still have to ask which form I can buy receipts for! I mean, it's illegal and all but apparently so is my scooter and nearly every other scooter on the road. As is driving on the wrong side of the road, going when the light is red, driving outside of the scooter lane, and so much more. And THAT'S just one example. I sometimes wonder what is really, really REALLY illegal here. I'm told it just depends on the mood of those in power that day. Perhaps. 

Last week, on our lunch hour, a coworker took me to this not-sketchy-at-all store to buy fapiao. We stood there like the nice foreigners we are and grappled not with the ethics of purchasing fapiao, but whether or not we should push in front of the people trying to push in front of us. 

My coworker is nicer than I and just kept saying, "Oh let them pass we will take longer." Meanwhile, with the amount of people we let pass it took us triple the time! I am unashamed to say my tip to other's is: "Elbows out folks. In basketball you plant your feet. In China you plant your hands on your hips and elbows OUT so no one gets past!" 

It's cultural emersion after all!!

There are only certain things you can collect fapiao for. Food, laundry, rent, childcare, transportation, communication, and a couple other things. Basically half of the things you can collect fapioa for I don't even have bills in that category. That's not helpful. 

The fapiao I buy is communication fapiao. Don't ask me how they get it. Don't know. Don't-care-as-of-right-now. I'm told taxi drivers will go sell all their leftover fapiao as well. 

Fapiao comes in many forms too. I prefer transportation fapiao because it either says "taxi" on it, or is has a picture of a subway train. Of course that's usually one of my fewer receipts. Because life can never be simple!

There are other options: forgo fapioa and lose 25% of my paycheck; turn in as much as I can; spend a ton of money eating out and such; get friends who don't need to turn in fapioa to save those for me, tell them I'll thank them with dinner or something. I'm still looking for those!

To prepare for end of the month fapiao:

1. Save all non-fapiao receipts that can be turned into fapiao and go back to those stores at the end of the month to collect fapiao.
2. Always ask for fapiao and be prepared for questions you cannot answer because you do not understand them or their question...or anything other than you're to just get fapiao and turn it in. Also be prepared to wait for FOREVER, to be ignored and forgotten because it's easier that way, to loudly insist on fapiao, and to sometimes decipher when to just say forget it.
3. Write on the back of each fapiao the moment you get it. Because that's entirely practical and possible....
4. Make sure to have separated your WRE and No. 54 receipts. Still haven't gotten that one figured out...next month?
5. Determine how much each receipt was. If it's in characters, bring some yummy treats to your Chinese teacher and ask her to go through them for you.
6. Separate the receipts into their respective categories.
7. Mark them. ALL of them.
8. Initial them. ALL of them.
9. Glue or tape them to paper. ALL of them.
10. Fill out forms.
11. Turn in.

Now....imagine being the person who has to go through all this insanity. Like, how many receipts do you think fall off the paper? What if one is not initialed?! The HORROR!!! Do they have to tally up each total as well? 

I do this every month because those who have been here for a long time say it DOES make a difference in our paychecks. But, when I turn it in the boxes at the end of the selected day for that month, I walk away breathing a sigh of relief while wondering if it really did anything to help.

I'm told if you do it wrong then you get an email from the school's HR department. I've yet to get an email from them so I've either slipped through the cracks, have miraculously become amazing with numbers as well as Chinese characters and have been doing it perfectly, or God is blinding the eyes of those doing the paperwork. 

I'm choosing the latter.