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China's ongoing failure to give long term foreign residents ID numbers¹—especially as more and more computer systems and apps both require Real Name Verification and can't figure out how to program it for people with names longer than five characters or with non-permanently assigned passport numbers—is my current Major Gripe.

Easiest way to solve the hotel problem? Give me an ID card that looks and acts like something a front desk worker recognizes. 

中国一直不给长期居住的外国人身份证号¹，这太让人头疼了。现在越来越多的电脑系统和应用程序都要求实名认证，可是它们要么处理不了超过五个字的名字，要么应对不了非固定的护照号码，这简直是大问题。

想解决酒店入住的麻烦？给我一张前台工作人员一眼就能认出来、功能和普通身份证一样的证件就行。

Easiest way to let a cop penalize me for running a red light²? Give me an ID card.

Easiest way for one of the share ebike companies to buy short term insurance for me? Give me an ID card.

想让警察处罚我闯红灯²？给我一张身份证就行。

想让共享电动车公司能方便地给我买短期保险？给我一张身份证就行。

Easiest way to make sure I've paid my taxes without having to do substantial manual checking that all information relating to my 24 letter name has been entered the same across multiple systems? Give me an ID card.

Easiest way for Epidemic Prevention and Control to find me when I'm a close contact of a Covid patient³? Give me an ID card.

想确保我缴了税，不用人工费劲核对我那“24”个字母的名字在多个系统里是不是都输对了？给我一张身份证就行。

想让疫情防控部门在我是新冠密接³时能找到我？给我一张身份证就行。

No one knows why my Real Name Verification with China Rail stopped working last spring. I've been deleted from the system and reintroduced more than once. I've gone to ticket windows with my passport to have them try from their computers, talked to customer service, uploaded pictures of me and my passport again and again, tried changing how or if my name is capitalized and where are the spaces are, and it's still a no go. 

Which, in addition to the QR ticket code just not showing up at all and my needing to go through the manual service line at every station, also means that I can't choose my seat.

没人知道去年春天我在中国铁路的实名认证为啥突然失效了。我被系统删除又重新录入好多次，拿着护照去售票窗口让工作人员在他们的电脑上操作，联系客服，反复上传我和护照的照片，试着改名字的大小写和空格位置，可还是没用。

这导致的结果是，二维码车票根本显示不出来，我每次进站都得走人工通道，而且还不能选座位。

Doesn't matter so much on the high speed, but on a sleeper train, not choosing a bunk defaults you to the cheapest and least desirable top bunk. 

Even though the oldest train cars have lots of convenient hard points and nice big ladders, getting up there on a moving train is at lot harder at 43 than it was at 23.

高铁上倒还好，但卧铺车就麻烦了，不选铺位的话，系统默认分配最便宜也最不舒服的上铺。

虽说最老式的车厢有不少方便的固定点和结实的梯子，可在行驶的火车上爬上去，对43岁的我来说，可比23岁时难多了。

Since I'll be on this train for two nights and a day, I'm lucky, at least, in that the bottom bunk people on this train (unlike the one from Wubao to Beijing) are the kind of friendly folks that don't mind their upstairs neighbors coming down and sitting on their beds.

好在我要在这趟火车上待两晚一天，这节车厢下铺的人都特别友善，不像上次从吴堡到北京那趟车，他们不介意上铺的人下来坐在他们床上，真是幸运。

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¹ Even worse than merely failing to give us a unique 18 digit ID that passes checksum is that every foreigner who was ever employed in China after 2016 has already been given one on their Employment Card and they haven't integrated this otherwise useless number into anything other than that one system.

¹更糟的是，不光不给我们一个能通过校验的18位的识别号，2016年之后在中国工作过的外国人，其实在就业证上都有这么个号，可除了那一个系统，这号码在别处啥用没有，完全没整合起来。

² Not that I'm in the habit of doing this or anything else that gets traffic fines, but at least in Haikou, unless you are driving a car, they literally have no way of fining a foreigner.

²我没有闯红灯或者别的交通违章的习惯，至少在海口，除非你开的是汽车，否则他们根本没办法对外国人开罚单。

³ I'll try to remember to cross link this later on, but, in 2022, I missed out on an episode of being quarantined because—even with me proactively volunteering my information as a traveler in multiple municipalities and across provincial borders—I swiss-cheesed my way through every system and they didn't catch up with me until the evening of the last day I was supposed to be locked up.

³我之后会记得把这个内容关联过来，2022年那次，我本来该被隔离的，结果愣是没被找到。尽管我主动在多个城市和省份上报了行程信息，却像穿过奶酪的洞一样避开了所有系统，等他们联系上我时，已经是隔离期的最后一天晚上了。