A community magazine showcasing extraordinary foreign talent in America
Creative Migrations: Lavender Au
Lavender Au is a writer and food blogger based in Beijing who discovered her love for food during her time in China. Her writing spans many subjects, from trans people in China travelling to Thailand for surgery for The Dial x Foreign Policy, to a high-profile case of sexual harassment for the New York Review of Books, and an interview with Fan Bingbing for Kinfolk.
She chronicles her conversations with new and old friends over a good meal, and interviews chefs in Beijing on their favorite home cooking recipes, which she shares with her growing number of followers on RedNote. A longtime friend of Wen-You Cai’s, the two discussed Lavender’s experience as a British National living in China, and the visa processes it took to continue living in her happy place.
Find Lavender on Instagram and RedNote @lavenderzuofan.
WYC: How long have you lived in Beijing?
LA: I first lived in Beijing from 2015 to 2020, and moved back in 2023. In between I was in the UK and Hong Kong.
WYC: Why did you choose to move to Beijing?
LA: Beijing is my happy place.
WYC: How did you discover Beijing to be your happy place?
LA: It’s just a feeling, right? If half the people you know have left because of Covid-19 restrictions and even still you want to go back there. Beijing is where I have adventures, but it's also where I have really good friends.
WYC: Do you feel that more so than in other places?
LA: I have a lot of good friends in London, but I don't really have adventures in London. I'm someone who needs novelty, but I also care about relationships a lot, and I have old friends in Beijing so it makes a real difference. The comparatively lower cost of living means I feel freer to pursue my personal interests. If I had stayed in London, I’d be under much more financial pressure to pursue a linear career. My career in Beijing has been characterized by random, happy collisions.
WYC: Did you already feel this way in 2015 when you first moved to Beijing?
LA: No. At that point, I was choosing where to study Mandarin, and I was choosing between Beijing and Shanghai. I'd been to Shanghai before, and then it was actually my dad who said, “Well you already know Shanghai and your circle is all humanities people…why don't you go and discover some engineering science people?” So I went to Tsinghua.
WYC: Throughout your years in China, what visas have you been on?
LA: I’ve been on student visas and work visas. I do know that a lot of foreigners live in China on tourist or business visas. Tourist visas require you to leave the country every 90 days. It's just kind of annoying.
WYC: What was the process of getting the work visa?
LA: So you need an invitation from a company in China and then you need to have had two years of work experience, a health check, your degree certificate, and proof of no criminal record, all notarized. I had a [visa] agent who dealt with things on the company side, so there’s some things I don’t know there, but it was pretty cheap to get her help–about four thousand rmb ($550 USD). Things that you didn’t have already, the agent was able to help you with. I had to gather most of the documents and have them notarized myself, but the agent handled the application.
WYC: What kind of notary? Is it a notarization in China?
LA: In the UK. And then the documents need to have an apostille. When I got to China I had to convert the visa into a residence permit, so I had to take some trips. My residence permit is valid for two years.
WYC: What will the extension require? How do you renew your residence permit?
LA: So I haven’t actually extended it yet, but I hear it’s fairly straightforward once you have the permit. I think the most difficult part is getting the permit, but once you have it, renewing it is easy.
WYC: You can stay as long as you live in the country?
LA: Yeah, I could stay in China for the whole two years as long as I am still working for that company.
WYC: While you were going through the process of applying for this visa, was it pretty straightforward?
LA: I’d say it is fairly straightforward, especially having an agent helps. Compared to what people tell me they need for the US for instance, I feel like it’s actually better and more straightforward. They’re very particular about pictures fitting a certain format, so there was a point where I had to go and get pictures taken again.
WYC: What happens when it expires?
LA: I guess I’ll talk to my agent and ask how to extend it.
WYC: Was it easy to find an agent for this?
LA: One of my friends had a contact.
WYC: Overall what are the expenses of applying for this visa, aside from the agent fee?
LA: I’d say the visa is about £200, then the notary was around £150 for two documents, then I had to get my police [background] check for about £50. Then the health examination, which I did in China, was about 600 kuai, and it all adds up to about £800 ($ 995 USD) since I used an agent.
WYC: So the agent takes you through the whole process from beginning to end?
LA: Yeah, she’ll tell me what I need and then she’ll also fill in things on the website. The visa application is both online and offline. Some steps you need to do in person, some require filling in online forms. She also helped me pick up my passport, I think.
WYC: Do a lot of people in China have similar visas as you?
LA: Yeah, the people I know are all on work visas. I started getting things together in July, and then I flew to China at the end of September. I think it was in November that I finally got my residence permit. I couldn’t leave China when I was waiting for my residence permit as they had my passport. They give you a yellow piece of paper, which you can technically travel within China on, but I didn’t try.
WYC: So the whole process took less than half a year. Can you renew your residence permit indefinitely?
LA: I think so, if I’m still working at my friend’s company.
WYC: Do you have any obligations to the company?
LA: [in a sarcastic tone] Work well, be a good worker…
WYC: Okay, moving on. [laughs] Do you feel like this could be similar to a permanent residence in China?
LA: No, so there’s a list of conditions or circumstances in which you can apply for permanent residence. For instance, if you work in Zhongguancun, like the sci-tech part of Beijing, or you’ve made some huge contribution to China, or you marry a Chinese person.
WYC: Is there anything that you would like to pursue living in China that would require a permanent residence to do so?
LA: I actually don’t know how it works for things like buying a car, for instance, or sending your kids to school or buying property. If I was thinking about doing any of those things I would look into this further, but I can’t drive and I don’t have kids.
WYC: So essentially under your current lifestyle, there’s no necessity for it?
LA: I don’t think so. It might mean that I wouldn’t have to renew my visa, but apart from that, no.
WYC: Do you feel like you have a sense of community in Beijing?
LA: I have really good friends, but I wouldn’t say I have a community.
WYC: Do you feel like you have a sense of connection to the local culture and community?
LA: I’m very interested in exploring Chinese food, and towards the end of my first year in Beijing I started to meet people in that field and have some really good conversations, even if we only met for the first time. So that is definitely a shared interest. And I like going to cultural events. There’s so many things going on in Beijing.
I am Chinese, and I can speak Mandarin. So I think I definitely feel differently than friends who aren’t Chinese. It does feel more like home. Do I feel integrated? I don’t know, Beijing’s just home.
WYC: Between Beijing and London, where do you feel more at home?
LA: London is very familiar. But for me, nothing really changes. And Beijing is also very familiar. Because it’s where I’m living my life, I can see more things happening and so it just feels more vibrant to me. I would say both are my home.
WYC: Do you think you’ll continue to live in Beijing?
LA: For now, I don't see any reason to leave.