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[Teatime of Soul]

SAFEA licensed schools must buy their copies of the SAFEA contract. It is about 50 RMB per set.

The contracts come in sets. The sets have a serial number in red (usually seven digits) in the upper right hand corner.

The paper is high quality, manila color, and clearly watermarked on the front.

The copies are identical except the FTs copy has the English in the front half of the contract and the school copy is visa versa.

You will sign four times, twice under the Chinese text, twice under the English text contained in both copies.

Schools are only allowed to buy a few copies at a time to keep real contracts out of the hands of unlicensed schools.

[IanMWashburn]

Yep.

[louis.p]

Hello,

Seems the contract debate has been brought to a resolution of sorts. There is surely lots of variance.

I am at my mom's house, just back from a year in Taiwan, and I looked at her work permit from 1998. It is totally different from SAFEA work permit (I have a digital copy) and the other one I initially received -- some provincial permit.

Speaking of variance, there is massive variance in the period of time it takes EMS to send documents to the U.S. The SAFEA work permit, which was sent out right before my previous posting to this thread, sat in Beijing for seven days and just now arrived in San Fran!

If I had zero problems with getting a Z visa, I would be in Harbin right now. But I can't complain too much -- Seattle is great in the summer.

-- Louie

[North China Laowei]

Dear Louis P.,

I wish you so much well in all of your endeavors and am thankful that all of these administrative travails will soon be behind you.

Harbin is a great, great city, for sure...a tad cold in the winter but the people are great, the beer is great for sure, the food is great, more along Western lines than other places (meaning no snake, no strange oddities, etc., etc.,) and the dumplings are superb...plus the ice cream, the local brands, are light-years different than that which is offered elsewhere in the rest of China.

I found the Harbinites really direct, particularly when compared with other cities in China, and they don't mince their words, so to speak. INHO, they also tend to be noticeably taller and bigger than elsewhere in China, or at least that is what I remember.

Have a safe trip over and let us know how it all finished.

ncl

[arioch36]

Ian took more time then I will to make some good points.

TO CLARIFY:

OFTEN YOU SHOULD HAVE TWO DIFFERENT CONTRACTS. One is the SAFEA contract. As people pointed out it is on different, better paper, also, it is printed on smaller size paper.
Then you have a contract that the school may print on any paper. This contract usually (if you negotiate well, or they prepare well) has more details. If you do not have the SAFEA contract, it does not mean you are illegal. If you come on a z-visa, have the FEC and RP, you are legal.
This means you have the right to go to the SAFEA office to complain if you have a problem.
Can you go to the court, even if you are here illegally? No. You need to be here legally. But if you were here illegally, and are now here legally, you do have the right to take the fomer school to court, even if you were working there illegally (the school was also hiring you illegally). In the Chinese courts (yes, you can not generalize) the judges are trained to accept any signed documents. If you and the school signed a contract, and you claim the school did not pay you, they must show the receipts that they paid you.
For instance, your contract at the school where you worked illegaly says the school pays airfare. No proof that you were on the flight? SOL Save all receipts. A boarding pass might well not suffice. But if you have the credit card receipt and boarding pass of the flight, and the contract, the school must show the receipt of paying you, whether you worked legally or illegally...as long as you are now here legally. You will win in court on something like this.

Of course the worse schools that deliberately cheat you count on you never coming back to China