Job Discussion Forums

[jimpellow]

I have to agree with Deats that your school is a mess. Your FAO/school is thinking only of themselves. Is there a valid reason why it can not be turned sooner? And if they give you one, is that really valid?

You would be amazed how many FAOs know less about the requirements and procedures than half of the people on this board. Not to mention they are Mainland Chinese, and hence pretty much self centered, who could care less about your vacation being destroyed.

This is why I suggested you should keep on them and have a willingness to walk. If you have any value to them, and every indication of your background and demeanor strikes me that you do, then they will not be willing to lose you over this.

It's sad that one has to be this way, but it is the key to survival and happiness teaching there.

[Shanghai Noon]

[Deats]

Have YOU ever applied for a Schengen or UK visa? I can 100% assure you they take your passport when you submit your application. They have your passport for WEEKS, if not months. They have rush services. The UK rush (a few days) costs several HUNDRED dollars more. The normal service takes up to 2 months.

I have experienced it a couple of times where they let you keep your passport and then when your visa is ready you return with your passport and you get the visa. But this is not normal, it is in fact very rare.

I have travelled to nearly 90 countries and on many occasions I have had my passport kept for a week or longer.

Nobody is making you apply for a visa. They tell you it will take a set amount of time and it is up to you if you want to WILLINGLY give over your passport. My current Russian visa took 7 days to process, so this 5 day rule is utter BS.

[ghost]

[jimpellow]

[dean_a_jones]

Here are a few thoughts based on my own experience etc.:

1) In terms of getting to travel in China, once your documents are in you will get something from the office processing your documents which will allow you to travel. Would also carry a copy of passport page and previous RP just in case, but not had a problem getting on trains/booking hotels with this form.

2) The bigger issue then is getting your documents sorted. As others have stated, when they will actually process documents ahead of their expiration may vary, but here anyway they seem to do it at least a month in advance. So you might explore this option. If you have already booked tickets, if you show proof of need to travel in advance they will usually process things faster (I have done so before).

The second issue here is the school being willing to actually do it early. As others have said, it is probably more about the FAO wanting to do everything at once rather than having to make multiple trips and do their job properly. One option is to fight with the school over this and insist on what you need. Another is perhaps to offer to do it yourself--get the FAO to prepare everything you need in terms of paperwork and show up to the office yourself with your photos, payment, tickets proving when you will need it back for the summer etc. You will then get said receipt and should be able to travel as needed before picking up your passport when it is ready and taking your flight in July. It is obviously annoying to have to do all this yourself, but might just be easier in the long run to do this rather than fight it out with the school (especially if you have already signed a new contract and have little leverage in that regard). I know you can turn up yourself and get this kind of thing processed, at least where I am, as other teachers have done this before.

Anyway good luck, hope it all works out.

[ghost]

[7969]

[ghost]

Told by the FAO today, that the Residence Permit can only be processed about one week ahead of the deadline on the Permit.

Was also told that they cannot do this one month early, and that those are the rules.

I have never taught in a country where the paperwork for Residence Permit eats into the agreed upon vacation time, so this will definetely be a first in that regard.

For those people not worried about going home during the 6 week agreed vacation time, no problem, but for those who have made plans and booked tickets for the entire duration of the 6 weeks, this situation can be considered very disappointing, and a surprise which one could not predict when one signed the original contract, because there was nothing in the wording of the contract which alerted one to the fact that the option to travel during the summer vacation period could be seriously curtailed.

Ghost in China

[wangdaning]

[ghost]

[Deats]

Well, now I know one uni where the teachers get screwed out of their holiday. It's a first.

I guess we all learn a valuable lesson from your misfortune:

1) Never book flights without asking your FAO your allowed leaving date
2) Before signing a contract ask how your paperwork will be renewed
3) Don't sign 10.5 month contracts - they are not only useless for pay, but also for your visa! At the very least insist you get a 12 month contract and no summer pay.

Personally I'd go nuts if I lost my summer holiday. That and my winter vacation are what keep me sane.

I hope they are paying you an awful lot of cash to compensate for this

[fchris171]

Just to add a bit more info on this for future users and to respond to 7969's comment.

My RP permit expires on the 20th of July and my renewal was accepted by the PSB without any problems almost 2 months early on the the 29th of May (in Beijing).

One other note though, on the application form there are a few options to choose from, 2 of which are 'renew' and 'extend'. To me these are both the same but my school chose 'extend' (with the dates being 1 year later)

[3701 W.119th]

I'll lose my passport for 20 days in my new city. This seems to be about the standard (max) for holding the passport - 20 days. Probably get it back much quicker, but plan for 20 days.

[7969]

ghost and I are at the same school and I've been working here since 2006, so maybe I can shed light on some of the issues here.

Vacation time at this school is, like most universities, generous. My vacation begins on 20 June and ends on 31 August. From 23 June till 9 July I'll be in Canada. On 13 July I'll be back here with everyone else applying for a new residence permit. Sometime around the end of July I should have my passport back and will have one more month to travel wherever. During the two or three weeks I'm without my passport I'm still free to travel in China, so the idea that our vacation is somehow being taken away from us doesn't make sense.

Showing up to renew a residence permit a few weeks or a month before it expires isn't always possible or feasible. Let's say you have an air ticket leaving China in early July 2015 and you want to spend the summer in your hometown. You've already signed a new contract expiring on 15 Jul 2016 and you apply for a new RP now and you get it. Now you're set to go home, but since residence permits here are only issued for a maximum of 365 days you now have an RP that expires in May or June 2016, which is before your next contract expires - 15 Jul 2016. At some point next May or June you're going to need to apply for a "bridge" RP to see you through to the end of your contract. And if you plan to stay another year (into 2017) you're going to need another RP to take you to the end of that contract. The PSB sees this as additional and unnecessary work and they don't like it when schools ask these favours. The FAO isn't keen to do this kind of early renewal for precisely this reason (and the PSB has given her grief about it in the past). Since most of the foreign teachers here have FEC/contract/RP expiry dates around the same time it's easier and better to just do them all at once at the same time every year. No-one to my knowledge has ever really had a problem with this procedure in the past. And an FYI, the local PSB doesn't process the residence permits. The initial paperwork is done here in Chaozhou but everything is then sent off to Guangzhou for final approval. Any local connections, or 关系, is pretty much useless since the approval of the RP is done in another city.