A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall... (THE VISA NIGHTMARE!)

I don't think many of the private schools will bother with SAFEA procedures. ... Too many restrictions and rules and regulations, and licenses to buy, and palms to grease.

Certainly they don't want to and up to now many of them haven't. But my understanding is that doing is so has always been the only way they can legally employ foreign teachers. That's never been enforced; as always it depends who you know among the local officials, what favours are owed or wanted, et cetera.

But if Beijing pushes hard on this as part of a general cleanup, then local officials will have much less latitude and some schools will have to clean up their acts or die. My reading is that Beijing are already doing such pushing, but I cannot tell how hard they are prepared to push or how long they'll keep it up.

This is why most of them call themselves "training centers" in the first place.

I think most of them will either find other ways to get their foreign-labor licenses,

My understanding is that, at least for teachers, there are no other legal ways.

I don't really think much of SAFEA, anyway.

For one thing, I think that believing they have any inclination to or interest in protecting US is a very dangerous assumption. They very likely exist to protect the schools FROM us.

My impression is that much of their function is to protect China from us. They write the contract boilerplate, for instance, that forbids romantic involvement with students, also drinking, smoking or gambling with them. Their regulations require schools to provide health insurance; I think mainly to protect against loss of face for China.

And like many other national government agencies, it probably doesn't have much real authority at the local level.

Indeed.

I suspect SAFEA is in a category along with our contracts, or any other illusory phantasm of the rule of law in China: It's there to invoke when it suits our employers' purposes, and to ignore altogether when it doesn't. Even in the State schools.

If the rules and the laws had any real ability to clean up the sleaze, wouldn't they have already done so? At least a little?

But hey, maybe I'm wrong...

I know just what you mean, but I'm hoping that we'll see some de-sleazing as a byproduct of rule-tightening that they have decided to do for other reasons.

As much as Beijing pushes, the ads you see make me laugh. I mean they KNOW the rules are stricts, but they still don't offer work visa. And the ads are getting more day by day cause schools can't keep foreigners there. At the very end, who is going to work there? If only these training centers invested some money in actually getting the license for hiring foreigners and just charged them regular price or may be slightly higher. Then things would definitely be easy - legitimate and they'd still make a very good profit.

If only these training centers invested some money in actually getting the license for hiring foreigners and just charged them regular price or may be slightly higher. Then things would definitely be easy - legitimate and they'd still make a very good profit.

Yeah, if only. I get the impression these places dont fully understand what will happen to them this summer. My school doeant anyway.

Nothing out of the ordinary on the train trip back.  I was carrying perfume in a  bottle, plus all the normal powders and creams in bottles and tubes that women carry with them.We took water and beer onto the train.  We went through the x-ray as usual, my Swiss Army knife was in my backpack - no problems.  Not stopped at all. Haven't shown my passport to anyone since booking into the hotel  Totally normal so far.  Go back to Beijing on Friday night - will see what happens then.

Hi
I am Riz. I just joined Raoul's saloon a few days ago. Congratulations to me ! My this university has refused to renew my contract for the next year.My residence permit is good until 30th July 2008 and I have a few jobs in hand.I want to quote that text message that I received from this woman called Jane who is our liaison " I am sorry to tell you that the students in Foreign Language Deptt asked Dean Lee to change you and Dean Lee discussed with Dr Sun(Incharge of Foreign Affairs office) and Dr Sun told me to inform you that we cannot sign a new contract" ! My ! This is such a zigzagged way to refuse. Anyway this gave me a good laugh and I had shown that text to all my colleagues and they were equally amused.I have been teaching at this university for two years now. I think that I used to goof off and play games in the class last year and entertained 21 year old kids and they were 'happy'. This year I stopped entertaining them and started teaching.I did play language games few times but the students' motivated level was way down.
I briefly share my teaching experience with my new friends here.The university where I teach is a private one and it's got a huge campus and 35000 students.There's no such thing called Merit to enter this place.Any parents with loads of money can admit their children here so the stuff we get here to teach is just crap! majority of them have no idea if why had they chosen English as a major subject.I frequently notice the underlying activities in the classes I teach.

1-Sleeping in the class as if this is a bedroom.
2-Listen to walkman during the lesson.
3-Bringing boyfriends to the class for a little bit of physical pleasure like cuddling r kissing in the back seats.
4-Eating while the teacher passes instructions.
5-reading irrelavant books,mostly cheap crap semi-porn mags or love stories.
6-Ignoring the teacher and pretending 'not listening'.
7-Talking to other classmates loudly.

The students are our judges and specialist to inform the foreign language deptt if the teacher is 'good or 'bad'.There is a monitor and a spy in every class to report to the dean or the head teacher.Foreigners have no say but they have a right to remain silent because it's a business and our are supposed to entertain the kids in and outside the classroom.English corners are held every week to enhance their English speaking skills where we are surrounded by 200 students asking us VERY personal questions.

I would love to share more of it later my friends.It's 'interseting' to work here.
Cheers.

Have you ever heard of SAFEA intervening in any situation on behalf of a foreign teacher? I never have.

Have you ever heard of SAFEA intervening in any situation at all? I never have.

I had a buddy who, a couple jobs back, shirked him of all his benefits at the end of the year (about 15,000 RMB). So he called SAFEA.

**Whichever party asks for deliberation, pays the deliberation fees.**

His school had a ton of guanxi he didn't know about, and they convinced the SAFEA to keep it in deliberation, but keep finding setbacks, or troublesome wording, or chickens that were more fascinating to draw out the process such that the SAFEA bill - for my friend - came to reach, surprise, 15,000 RMB.

The school then paid his benefits, after SAFEA concluded that the school was at fault.

Sooooo ... yes ? They DID help him  ? Well - they ruled in his favour ?

The latest rumour: I hear tell that the fuzz are seeking out foreigners who have not registered their latest place of resident.  The fine: 5,000 RMB! 

I'm at Qinghua Daxue at the moment and haven't registered. Maybe someone else did for me, but I haven't been asked to hand over my passport to anyone.

Noting abnormal on the train either and I brought bottles and powders in my luggage - no searches at the x-ray, nothing on the train.

I guess no news is always good news...

For the multi-entries...hard to say. There is no uniform law on this stuff. Provinces can be different, Consulates can be different, Visa Officers can be different (The Chinese corps diplomatique  seems to just HATE it when you wake them up to do trivial little BS things like issuing you a visa...)...yesterday can be different from today...

My current Spouse Visa ( ) was only available with one entry. I only have it to re-enter with because I was already in the country when it was issued...

The latest rumour: I hear tell that the fuzz are seeking out foreigners who have not registered their latest place of resident.  The fine: 5,000 RMB!

Our wise Walloon friend brings up an excellent point for a change: Please make sure you know the rules. It's your responsibility to know what they are...under Chinese law, you can quite easily be prosecuted for things you had absolutely no idea about.   Obeying all the rules in China, at least those concerning visas and residence and work...well, I can't possibly recommend strongly enough that you follow ALL of them or don't try to be here...not the way things are right now. We'll try to help you as best we can...but the situation is becoming chaotic enough that I'm not sure ANYONE knows what's happening any more.

Bear in mind that even a lot of the admins/managers/FAOs of schools, normally your guides on these matters, don't really know what's going on or what must be done.

No...more than usual, I mean.

Anyway. A lot of stuff that the cops have turned a blind eye to in the past, is getting closely scrutinized now. The mood is downright ugly. Get legal...or get packing...

One of the high-powered boffins planning on coming to China for the conference I am at, couldn't get a visa  from the Chinese embassy in the US.  You can no longer just send your visa application in with the money.  You must go in person!!  How many Chinese consulates are there in the US?

The answer is found easily in our woefully underused and underappreciated Links pages...

China has one Embassy (Washington DC) and five Consulates in the USA: Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, New York City, and San Francisco.

Addresses for them can be found...well, you know...

I think I'm on a spouse visa, at least we asked for one year multiple entry visas for myself and the kids and they gave us two year multiple entry visas  - RESULT! But this was in London in January, before all the antics started, and I think it helped that it my Chinese hubby went to apply cos I was working. We have to leave every six months but I figure that's a good excuse for a holiday, we don't have to leave for any length of time, I went to Hong Kong for a couple of days in April and got back in fine.

I am going today to register our new address, we forgot till now but seeing the post above reminded me - thanks! As far as I know there has been no trouble for foreigners here so far (although an expat friend had to say goodbye to her Filipino ayi as she couldn't get her visa renewed), maybe cos we aren't too close to any Olympic sites, and I reckon they have got bigger things on their mind for now. Fingers crossed it will stay that way.

Yeah...I'm hearing that some groups are having more trouble getting visas than others.

Filipinos...I think as part of the long-running political feuds between China and the Philippines, largely over certain oil-bearing South Sea islands. It's too bad...I think Filipinos are some of the coolest people in China. And I admire their women-folk.

Germans, because of the large Turkish population residing in Germany. Turks of course may be inconvenient when visiting their disgruntled Uygur cousins out in Xinjiang, whose ethnicity and language are very close to their own. No added comment...some of the German guys we get in the Shamrock are really cool, but for the most part the German and English-speaking communities in Suzhou, both quite large, are like oil and water. They just don't mix.
And I'm sorry...I don't mean to offend...but I find most German music really...creepy...

Well….

Tomorrow morning, Monday, I go to HK with the hope / expectation of getting a new visa, I’ll pay two nights at me hotel here in Shenzhen & expect to be back in China Tuesday evening with either 30 more days or… 5.
From a few reliable sources I hear the 90 day L visa with double 30 day entries is nearly simple to get, even for Americans. Essentially a 2 month visa.

Last week I wrapped up a lot of my life things in case I get turned down & Need return to me home country to reapply…

If they give me the visa I’m good until August…
If they say no `Go… I will.

I’ll report back when I get back.

Good luck. Aloha...