Job Discussion Forums

Songbird · Posted: Sun Mar 13, 2005 1:04 am Post subject:

Hey all,

Just to throw a spanner in the works (sorry!) I'm in Gansu Province, and I have been told that regardless of whether you're under the old system (which I am- got my visa Dec Cool

or the new, our Province refuses to give multiple entry visas for some reason. I'm not fully sure though whether you can just try to reenter with the new sticker (hey, we're still part of China too!) like anyone else. One of the other FT's here went to Thailand, Cambodia etc for the holidays in Feb, but she told me she had to apply for the reentry visa BEFORE she left, otherwise, yes, she would have been in quite the pickle when she returned!

bendan · Joined: 18 Jun 2004 Posts: 739 Location: North China

7969 · Joined: 26 Mar 2003 Posts: 5782 Location: Coastal Guangdong

i paid RMB400 for the new residency sticker i my passport in january. expires one month earlier than my old residence permit Sad

but that's a minor point. at the time i thought i was being shafted a bit, but once again, it seems not. my school has been quite honest about these things.

7969 · Joined: 26 Mar 2003 Posts: 5782 Location: Coastal Guangdong

Norman Bethune · Joined: 19 Apr 2004 Posts: 731

Old Dog · Joined: 22 Oct 2004 Posts: 564 Location: China

Dear Norman, Increasingly, I don't understand either. But, in earlier posts, I've pointed out that our FAO is not the best in China. While he's monumentally inefficient, etc., he's also as cunning as a sh*it house rat with gold teeth. Since retirement looms, I suspect that this sudden request for money for a service never before costing me a cent is part of the retirement fund activity, the FAO equivalent of the "benefit concert".

Anyway, the hour draws nigh. I'm supposed to meet him at 9 a.m. but I'll arrive at 8.30 and parley with facts and figures, etc. We'll see then the thickness of the hide of the creature. Naturally, I won't use the words "robber", "thief", etc. and we'll parley in terms of some third party having made a very great mistake or having been provided by a fourth party with out-of-date information.

Old Dog · Joined: 22 Oct 2004 Posts: 564 Location: China

All is revealed as through a glass darkly:

a. The process involved in applying for the new visa/rp was done at the local government Service Centre, a very slick "one stop shop" for all types of government business - PSB, Visas, Quality Control, Tax Office, Bank, China Telecom plus many, many more.
b. My presence was required because the regulations say that, at the first issue of the new visa, all applicants should be interviewed and the changes to the visa system explained. (I was half expecting a request by someone for English lessons for their son or daughter - hence the need for my presence.)
c. My old friend (met him once previously), the PSB officer in charge, came to explain in person.
d. My old rp was valid to late March 2005 and extending the visa to that date in 2006 was deemed to be one year or more.
e. I indicated that I'd only like "400 yuan's worth please" and so one year exactly would do.
f. Clerk and Head Man, my old friend, said - indeed insisted - that the new regulations say that "less than one year", 400 yuan; one year or more, 800 yuan. So I asked the Head man, whose English was perfect, if it were true that if I wanted a visa for 364 days, the cost would be 400 yuan but if I wanted it for 365 days, the cost would be 800 yuan. Yes, indeed, he insisted that this was what the new regulation says. This is the part that I saw through a glass darkly.
g. Anyway, 400 or 800, the school is paying. Our FAO had asked me to produce money because, thinking rich foreigners have tons of money lying about, it would save him a trip to the bank - and, in any case, he was pretty unsure about exactly what the cost would be.
h. Cunningly, I arrived with no money. Our FAO went to the bank at the one stop shop.
i. He was issued with a receipt for 800 yuan which he will "turn into money if someone approves".

I think the school was diddled of 400 RMB and it looks as if they will be diddled each year of 400 RMB because extensions are always, in my case anyway, for exactly one year.

When I say "diddled", I mean diddled by the "alleged" wording of the new regulation rather than by any ill-will on the part of the PSB clerk or Head Man.

The charge arrangement seems peculiarly Chinese.

KES · Joined: 17 Nov 2004 Posts: 722

Myy 400 RMB was for more than six months and I just used it to travel to Thailand and back.