"Lost" work permit

Hello everyone,

I would appreciate any sage advice anybody could offer for a little situation it turns out I'm having... I'll try to make this as short as possible: I had arranged for a half year contract at a university in Changsha for the spring, and everything had been going according to plan up until they mailed my work permit. I guess normally it would have had no trouble getting here to the US, but given the new year/spring festival or whatever (I'm not so well versed with Chinese holidays yet) it apparently never left China. The tracking number never got past Jan 29th, the day after they mailed it, with the item being "prepared for shipment."

Now I have found no way to contact EMS shipping from outside China, and I contacted the University to see what they could find out, and until recently the response had been "just give it time." Well now classes were supposed to start today and my most recent correspondence with the University is that they are "still discussing" whether or not to apply for a new work permit. Translation: Yeah you may not actually be coming after all.

So, I had been ready to go, like ready to go, and now it looks like I may be SOL. While this Changsha school wasn't exactly my first pick, it was university (which I wanted) and just a semester contract (which I also wanted), which would have prepared me for applying to schools I am more enthusiastic about in the fall. I guess my question is, what can I do now? I really don't want to sit around here for 6 months, but I am also not so enthused about teaching kids. Although I suppose I could endure it for a few months if I could finagle another, shorter, contract.

My other concern is what about the work permit? Will a different place of employment be able to apply for a new one for me, given the weird status of the other one?? I'm just flustered at this point, and kind of disappointed. Any advice would be helpful and appreciated...

I think all you can do is keep in touch with the university and hope it (the WP) 'shows up' soon; or, they apply for a replacement copy. Have you tried this site? -
http://www.ems.com.cn/english.html
It's the only one that would work for me when I was tracking my passport renewal.

As to whether another employer would be able to apply for a WP for you, everything depends on the province. Most likely not, at least, not until your current 'lost' WP and LoI are cancelled (which could take several months... if ever). Most provinces are on the national registration system for WPs & LoIs, and once issued, 'block' any other issuance. However, as of a year ago (this may have changed in the meantime) two or three provinces - Henan & Anhui for sure... and I can't remember where Hunan fits into the scheme - were/are not on the national system. You could/can apply for jobs in these and be issued a WP & LoI without cancellation of your current, 'lost' ones.

Confused yet? Welcome (almost) to China.

First thought: EMS is not good at communicating with outside postal agencies.

I did once buy a pair of shoes online--Blundstone boots, booyah!--and they were mailed "express" from Australia, due to arrive in two days. For a week after those two days had passed, tracking number checks with the original postal agencies said the boots were in Shanghai awaiting authorisation. The boots however had in fact been delivered in a timely fashion and were being held, literally, ten minutes walk from my house. For one week.

So, try checking the tracking number through the main China post website.

(Which, bizarrely, is right now coming up for me as either blocked or hijacked?!?!? )

I once lost all the documents I needed to apply for my Z Visa in Chicago.  There was no time to duplicate the shipment and I could not contact anybody in the Chinese Consulate; would not answer e-mails, the people who answered the phones were of no help at all etc.

In order to exhaust all alternatives, I faxed the consulate with the details of my situation.  Within two hours I received a call from the Consulate from someone who actually knew something. She told me to have my university contact her and I could then arrange a visit to the consulate and they would accept my application assuming everything checked out after her discussion with my uni.  All worked out well, but I did age a few years that week.