Job Discussion Forums

[EnglishBrian]

I'm curious. I'd never even have thought it was an issue sending a scan (or photocopy) of my passport. What's the fear? Is your passport number supposed to be a secret? Can a low res. scan be used to make a fake copy of my passport? I don't get it.

[Gregor]

I think I made it pretty clear that I was talking about China, not the rest of the world.
That said, few people would contest that the world is completely insane, but that's quite beside the point.

Darkhorse and everyone else, y'all can be as pissy as you want. The fact remains that if Judyas wants a job, in China, with an employer who insists on seeing the passport page, she's not going to get it - no offer, nothing - until she complies with the perfectly reasonable request of sending the scan.
It's doing her (him? I got the impression it was a her) a disservice by advising her when you don't know anything more about it than she does. If you don't like how things work, as anthyp pointed out, you're just going to have to find a job elsewhere.
But more to the point, as EnglishBrian pointed out, what's the big deal? There really IS none. Your P.C. ideas are just going to have to go out the window if you're planning on leaving your native (politically correct?) country. And that's pretty much all there is to it.

[darkhorse]

[Gregor]

To obtain a Chinese working visa when you are overseas,
You need to produce an official letter of invitation from the Chinese government. A letter of invitation from a fly-by-night school is not going to allow the applicant to get the visa (which he or she must do before leaving their country of residence - if you come to China on a tourist visa, you will have to leave the country to get it changed).
The fly-by-night school CAN, however, obtain the official letter of invitation from the government by showing their license to employ foreigners, and then showing the teacher's paperwork and credentials. The letter of invitation is not the actual visa, and doesn't mean anything except that the teacher can then GET the visa. Which will then be issued in the teacher's country, naming that school or employer. If the school gets the letter and you don't use it, that's fine. There could be a thousand letters of invitation floating around for that one teacher. Once a visa is issued, the other letters become invalid.

If you are going to be so paranoid about ID theft that you won't even show people your passport, then you really shouldn't bother getting a passport or leaving your country in the first place. There are millions of opportunities for people to make an illicit scan of your passport. Do you want a job with that fly-by-night school? You are going to have to entrust your passport to them at some point, anyway, at which point they can scan every bloody PAGE of the thing before turning it over to the proper authorities for the legitimate uses.
The point is, there's nothing you can do with a scan of a passport (regarding ID theft or whatever) that you couldn't do with ANY passport scan and your photo.
Anyway, if THIS is a problem, then you are FAR too squeemish to deal with the other requirements. The passport scan is going to look like NOTHING once you've had to sign the Chinese government foreign worker contract, the school's contract, and either paid for a comrehensive medical exam (including x-rays, an EKG and blood work) in your own country, or else waived your right to do so before you come to China (because it's so expensive) but instead sign a letter stating that, if you don't pass the medical exam in China, you will be sent home at your own expense.
This is all par for the course for any school that doesn't have guanxi with the immigration authorities.

But there you are, to answer the question about what a Chinese employer would do to get the paperwork started.

Now let me preface this next part by pointing out that the Chinese authorities have changed the laws (or the enforcement of those laws) so much, and so inconsistantly from province to province, that even sometimes the people in the immigration offices themselves are not quite sure what's going on. I know and freely admit this. But it is why I stay on top of it as much as I do.
OK...
Y'all will have to forgive me if I DO come across as a bit pissy. It just gets frustrating to have to deal with this ridiculous red tape from the Chinese officials and then, at an opposite front, contest every ignorant but well-meaning teacher who wants to protect all the newbies from the clutches of the evil DoS or seedy, swarthy foreign employer. If you don't know what you're talking about (and questions like Darkhorse's last one indicate quite clearly that at least HE does not), then leave it to those who DO. Please. Or, newbies, at least consider the source. Someone who hasn't taught in China doesn't know any better than YOU do! And even those who HAVE taught in China, if they didn't get their working visa as recently as March 2005, their information is hopelessly out of date.
(One suggestion RE: specific questions about Chinese immigration, go to the China forum - we're happy to deal with newbies there, as well.)

I agree that China is being unreasonable about this, especially considering the huge demand for foreign teachers of English. They are eventually going to price themselves out of the market, so to speak (leaving us teachers already here to possibly double our salaries??). In the mean time, though, if you really want a job, or you really want to come to China, this is what you'll have to do. It can be done. It just seems like a lot. It's a hassle, but once you're here, you're good to go.

"Identity theft." From a passport scan. Man, oh man. WAY too much TV.

[darkhorse]

[Chris_Crossley]

[Gregor]

The last two posts seem to underscore my main points:
One, that there are huge differences from province to province, two, that employers with some sort of guangxi (which, in this context, means friends in high places, a.k.a. clout) have it a lot easier than those who do not, and three, the laws have changed a lot, very recently.

I have no idea why or how anyone's employer can do what mine cannot. See points one and two. Before 2003? Hell, before April of this year? See point three.

There is also confusion about the visas. An L visa is a tourist visa. The L stands for Lu You. An X visa is for students (Xuesheng), and so on. F is a business visa and Z is a work visa, but the Z visa doesn't seem to exist anymore. When I got mine renewed this year, I lost the green book and the Z visa and those were replaced with a visa-looking thing that, upon closer inspection, was a foreign resident's permit for a year, which allows me to work.

You all get the point, I hope. It is just a mess at the moment, unless you have the guangxi to hack through the red tape, and I do not have that, unfortunately.

[falseidol]

My $0.02:

The first time I went through the job app process, I ignored requests for passport scans or photos on the oh-so-idealistic basis that I'd prefer to work for a company that didn't use photos to screen out non-white candidates, and didn't have any special trouble finding work.

These days, when replying to jobs ads for China that request a passport scan, I send one with the numbers blurred out, with a polite P.S. about my having done that to avoid confusion about paperwork, and that I'd be happy to provide the unblurred version if requested (only to be honoured when given a valid reason, of course!). Nobody's kicked up a fuss so far, and it keeps me from worrying about any of the issues identified in this thread. Obviously I have no way of knowing if this's caused me to lose out on jobs, but it's working for me.

[Super Mario]

Pity you see China as a "last resort", as its nothing of the kind!
Its standard for them to make sure you are who you say you are and that there aren't any issues that would stop your entry into China, so a passport is the easy option for employers.
Howevernot getting info back in return re: the things you need to know isn't kosher, even for a last resort employer!

PS Chinese schools are notorious for this, but express genuine surprise if you get annoyed.

[Aramas]

Perhaps it will take a couple of weeks in Guantanamo Bay being sodomised with baseball bats, urinated on by retards and having one's genitals chewed on by alsatians for some people to realise that it is unwise to give out one's personal details to all and sundry.

A passport scan, complete with number and personal details, is a saleable item. Hell, even an email address is a saleable item. If Sheik Yerbouti's youngest son decides to blow up a few infidels while travelling on a copy of your passport, then you can expect a certain amount of inconvenience before the torturers figure out that they have the remains of the wrong guy. I know of Australians that have spent several days in US prisons before being deported, simply for having the same name and nationality as someone with a criminal record. Imagine how you would fare at a Middle Eastern airport with the same nationality, name, date of birth and passport number as a 'suspected terrorist'.

Still, if your idea of a big night out is to have strangers tie you up, attach electrodes to your pink parts and beat you until you crap your pants, then you might actually enjoy a free cruise, plane ride and whirlwind tour of disused eastern European airfields. By all means send copies of everything to anyone who asks