Bob
Lucky, CH
The Case
of the Chinese Notary Public
You don’t often think of
notary publics until a particular need arises,
specifically the need for one to watch you sign a document
and then attest with a stamp of some sort that you are in
fact the John Doe that affixed his signature to the
document. Perhaps a small fee will cross the counter, but
then you are free to go, to take your notarized document
and wave it in the face of anyone who doubts the
authenticity of your autograph. It may seem a small thing,
but the work of the notary public is just one of the
sources of the grease that keeps the clogs of bureaucracy
churning in most of the civilized world.
Chinese civilization is the
oldest continuous civilization in the world, so we are
taught in some schools, but just as it must be pointed out
that the Mayans and the Incas were able to develop
civilizations without benefit of the wheel, it must be
said that the modern Chinese have managed to get by
without notary publics. In a country of over one billion,
there are fewer than twenty thousand notary publics. Do
the math. That’s less than a grain of rice in a barge full
of rice. (I’m not good at math.) The whole country of
Japan has fewer lawyers than New York City, so I’ve been
told, but that’s nothing compared to the paucity of notary
publics in China. To complicate matters, what they call a
notary public in China doesn’t really do what notary
publics in the rest of the world do.
I paid a lot of money to
find that out.
Recently, trying to buy
property in Malaysia, I became a victim of a fraud. The
legal system there is trying to help me rectify the
situation, but I have to do my bit at this end, which
means filing complaints and signing statutory
declarations. These forms need to be notarized. The
American Consulate in Shanghai won’t help me as the forms
are not from or for America or China. Of course, the
consulate doesn’t answer its phones or reply to e-mail
inquiries its recording politely requests you send. I had
to go to its website and other disgruntled American
citizens to learn that.
My only recourse was fly to
Malaysia or try to find a Chinese notary. I wish I had
booked a flight. Through friends I found a firm of
notaries who would not agree even to look at the documents
until they had been translated into Chinese. I explained
slowly and clearly and eventually very loudly that what
was in the documents was of no concern to them. They
merely needed to verify that I was the person who was
signing them. I would bring my passport, my Chinese
driver’s license and a wad of money. My reasoning, which
made sense to me and the Chinese person helping me, fell
on unreasonable ears.
So, off to the translator
the documents went and sat until I wired about $20 into
his account to show my sincerity. I suspect the translator
was married to the notary public’s cousin. Dealing with
unfamiliar bureaucracies tends to make me paranoid and
cynical. Claiming some urgency, I was able to get the
translations done over a weekend. As I was charged by the
character, I’m glad that Chinese is a fairly concise
language.
Now, again with help, I
called to make an appointment with the notary. “How long
will it take?” Well, that depended on the nature of the
documents and how long it would take to read them. My old
reasonable argument once again failed to impress, and
another obstacle was thrown in my path. I would need to
bring an interpreter with an official identification card.
For a small fee, the woman who helped me get my driver’s
license, agreed to do the job. We went the afternoon
before a holiday and sat in traffic for an hour, plenty of
time for her to tell me what a good driver I was. I was
gracious, but knowing she bought her driver’s license
through an uncle and has never driven in her life
tarnished the compliment.
At the office of the notary
public, it was decided that my documents could be
notarized. I explained through the interpreter that I just
needed my signature on the English-language documents
notarized. Of course, of course. I sat at a desk and
signed and dated all the documents as well as the Chinese
translations. This ritual cost about $100. Then I was told
that I would have to have another document translated
($15), a page explaining who I was and where I lived, who
the interpreter was and her ID number, and that I had in
fact signed all the documents in the presence of a notary
public. Everything could be picked up in a week. That was
about a week too late for my lawyer in Malaysia. So we
made a deal.
Four days later, I picked
up the documents, but only the Chinese translations had
been notarized. The Chinese notary does not notarize
signatures, only documents, and only Chinese documents.
Fingers crossed, I had DHL whisk them off to Malaysia,
where they were immediately rejected.
I’m looking into flights
now.
Bob Lucky
Hangzhou, China
