Canadian living in Japan - Chinese visa

Hi, I'm Canadian and living in Aomori, Japan (far away from Tokyo) and I need to get a temporary visitors visa to visit China. I emailed both the Chinese embassy in Japan and the Canadian embassy in Japan only to have them tell me that they can't help me at all, with no hint of where to look. And I just came back from checking out 2 travel agencies to only have them tell me that they can't do it for foreigners.

Can anyone help me out?

Thanks.

The travel agencies are lying. I got numerous visas from mine. They probably don't know how to do it, Japanese just give you an answer like that if they don't know how to do something. Go to a big agency like ATB, KNT, or JTB.

I'm not sure why you got the answer you did from the embassy. I live in Tokyo, so went directly to the embassy last year before I went to China to apply for a tourist visa. I received it within a few days with no problems. You may want to try contacting the embassy again or go through one of the travel agents that mainly deals with non-Japanese, like No. 1 Travel or A'cross Travel.

When do want the visa for? Right now the Chinese government is very reluctant, actually unwilling, to issue visas valid beyond September 2009. The Asian Games and the 60th anniversary of the PRC are the reasons.