You should write a book.
I have heard this many times in the past months.
In January 2022, I left Kyiv, Ukraine to get my China work visa. 10 days later, Russia invaded Ukraine. All of my belongings and my cats were still in Kyiv, and my hopes to return to Kyiv were smashed.
In March, I flew to China and my cats were rescued. They traveled from Kyiv to Poland to Slovakia.
In April, I was stuck in Shanghai during their city-wide lockdown. In May, I got to Shenzhen and finally finished quarantine. In June, my cats arrived in China.
That’s the short story.
My move to China was one of the hardest moves. The effort with paperwork, the time consumed, and the money spent was just the icing on the cake. To backtrack even more, I applied and was accepted my new, and current, position of a Regional Learning Support Coordinator for my organization in December 2020. With this new position came a new placement in Shenzhen, China.
Starting in February 2021 I began working on my visa paperwork as well as finding a pet relocation agency to help me with the cats. I adopted my cats in Ukraine and this would be my first overseas move with them. I needed an agency to help me with this process. In the end, I needed the agency to make sure my cats arrived in China. Without them, I would have had to adopt them to a new family.
The visa process for China is not easy. I had to have notarized originals of my teaching certificate, diplomas, and background check. On top of this, China was having strict control of their borders due to the Covid-19 pandemic and requiring additional letters of invitation, that had to be approved by the appropriate government agency, in order to receive a work visa. Ukraine was also difficult and the Chinese Consulate in Kyiv was not offering work visas, even if you had the approval, because of the pandemic.
