Job Discussion Forums

MyTurnNow · Joined: 19 Mar 2003 Posts: 860 Location: Outer Shanghai

Call your Consulate. Now.

MT

ESLteacher · Joined: 30 Jan 2003 Posts: 82

MyTurnNow · Joined: 19 Mar 2003 Posts: 860 Location: Outer Shanghai

Never e-mail a consulate! Not just your visa, your passport could be expired before you get a response. Call 'em, please. And let us know how this turns out.

MT

Linda L. · Joined: 03 Jul 2003 Posts: 146

Passports are the legal property of the issuing government and not the person to whom issued.

Call your consulate immediately. Go to the local Foreign Affairs Office and notify them of your problem.

Do not hesitate. Do not email. Call or go immediately.

senor boogie woogie · Posted: Wed Jul 16, 2003 1:29 am Post subject:

Hola!

Go to the office of Elle and echo and demand the return of the passport. Do not move until they return it. Do not raise your voice or curse them, but stand up to their bulls##t. Tell them that you will refuse to work until it is returned to you.

In the aftermath of SARS, we foreigners are important.

SENOR

Lela · Joined: 02 Jun 2003 Posts: 56

Ditto..go get your passport....do not leave until you get it...be nice, be firm, but get it... take your cell phone and call the consulate in their office in front of them.... do you have your consulate number? This is a control/power issue....take charge.

ESLteacher · Joined: 30 Jan 2003 Posts: 82

Thanks for your comments everyone. As of this note i have spoken with the consulate and explained the situation. They are speaking with the company to find out what the holdup is with the return of my passport. I have also spoke with the company again today who told me that they are looking into retreiving my passport from the Office of Foreign Experts. What remains to be seen is if i will get my passport before the expiry date of my work visa (July 20th).

ESLteacher · Joined: 30 Jan 2003 Posts: 82

Latest as of this afternoon. The consulate told me to speak to Elle about when i get my passport back. After several conversations with Elle, Jack (the president of Hangzhou), Emma in Shanghai and finally Echo in Shanghai, i was told that my passport is in Shanghai.

Shanghai will not send it to Hangzhou where i work and live. I must go to Shanghai and give them money before they will give me the passport, is what Echo in Shanghai explained to me. Elle and Echo are making reference to the contract and saying that i owe them money for hours not taught since i stopped to work. If i pay them the money i get my passport back. Simple, right! I don't think so.

They have broken the contract in a big way when they told me that i must continue to work eventhough i would be an illegal resident in China. They said my work visa could not be renewed by the expiry date of my current work visa. The best they could do is July 25th (the expiry date is July20).

So, to sum it all up. The company had put me in a situation where they were forcing me to work, though i would be residing illegally in China at the time.

I said 'I WANT OUT !' Seeing this kind of management of the business and of the teachers put me at great risk as this situation has shown.

My next call to the Embassy will explain that the company paid me a sum, and when i refused to work because they were asking me to break the law, they blackmailed me for the return of my passport.

Tsk! Tsk! Shame on them.

Roger · Joined: 19 Jan 2003 Posts: 9138

You may have to go to Shanghai to pick up your passport. I do not know if you can wield a big stick and get things done, but you must act NOW. Who are Ellen, Echo? Where exactly is your passport? How long has it been with them, for what reason?
Here a suggestion: If you go to SH, book in at a hotel (the PUJIANG is a Youth Hostel with dorms that you can afford to pay!), and then go to the PSB and ask for an extension so you can stay safely for a few days longer. You may have to provide proof that you are definitely leaving mainland China, say a plane ticket or a boat ticket (to Hong Kong, for instance).
If you get an extension you won't be fined. If you do not book into a hotel you can't get an extension. Without an extension you will have to pay 500 RMB per day of overstaying!

Linda L. · Joined: 03 Jul 2003 Posts: 146

Run to your local PSB - do not wait to go to Shanghai because then they will claim they already sent your passport back to where you are now.

Then run to the local Foreign Affairs Office.

Between the two you will get results.

A trip to Shanghai will just find you chasing your own tail.

Wolf · Joined: 10 May 2003 Posts: 1245 Location: Middle Earth

You've probably learned this by now, but there's no legal stipulation saying that the school must get your passport. You could have it sewn inside your only pair of underwear that you wear at all times, for all the Chinese law cares.

I feel for you ESLteacher. By posting, I hope anyone reading learns not to give up your passport when teaching over here. I agree - don't go to Shanghai. I'd say involve the law. This sort if thing is supposedly against the law - we as foreign nationals working here in goodwill (ESLteacher obviously seems to have been here legally) ought to try to defend what rights we do have. Get them to expain to the PSBs that they want you to work illegally. Powersand that face right off.

Also, unless they pay your salry in advance, how could you owe them money for lessons not taught from what they've already paid you.

I hope all works out. I really do. Confused

ESLteacher · Joined: 30 Jan 2003 Posts: 82

I`ll be back shortly.

Linda L. · Joined: 03 Jul 2003 Posts: 146

ESL teacher went to Shanghai last Friday against better advice and now no word for 6 days.

Any bets on what happened?

ESLteacher · Joined: 30 Jan 2003 Posts: 82

I am now safely out of China, with my passport.....