Job Discussion Forums

[Cubism]

I had a nasty experience this time when I arrived. Just nasty, with "the heat." It was their fault, a mix-up, they apologized all over themselves, but it seems to have rattled me. Since I'm over 60 now, am this nice FT with cheery good will and "ahimsa" (harmlessness/non-violence) written all over me, I can't imagine how this happened, I keep having dreams, etc.

Advice? Similar junk? Thanks, Cube

[Zero]

You just have to let go and let God.

[Lobster]

You really haven't given enough details to get any advice except for some vacant religious plathering. Where, what and why please.

RED

[johntpartee]

Stranger in a strange land, not too many people to relate to; breeding ground for paranoia. No matter how long you're here, how well you speak the language, how "oriented" you become, you will always be "the foreigner". It's easy to say "don't worry", way more difficult to put into practice. Not much more help than vague spiritual platitudes, but sometimes it helps to identify the source of one's fears.

[Cubism]

Maybe, Red, you haven't been truly paranoid yet. But you're right: too vague. Part of it is not wanting to discuss it, feeling threatened if you do. But -- it was a day-long deal beginning w/ cops at my PEK hotel door hauling me off to the station, picking up a female cop on the way. All along threats of jail for fraud.

I knew I was covered unless the fao/uni had pulled a fast one, and that's always possible. I decided if they deported me I'd enjoy a trip...

but in the squadcar, I noticed that z visas in our passports are in chinese, so it wasn't easy to just look it up and say, Here you go guys, what's the problem? also, they kept taking it away.

At the station. Hours, literally, of accusations and questions. Twice I just stood up & said thats it. but also friendly behavior from a cop or 2. i had noodles :& they let me make them w/ their hot h20. i wanted badly to read something; i brought my laptop but they hated that. after 3-4 hrs the fao showed & there was more talk (in chinese). I sat & showed every visa stamp to the fao until I'd found the correct one (z). She showed it to the head cop who said oh, we all made mistakes in this. I said i made no mistakes; I'm innocent, laughter, hand shaking all around. The cheerful cop delivered a lecture about how if i didn't do a good job he'd come & get me. all day just this stuff & I'd slept in the bkk airport for the previous 2..another story. many of us have had similar episodes. i think it's just the isolation that got to me? Thanks for your interest & help, Cubism

[Cubism]

It's a frail thing, personal safety; I/we can get picked up by the L1 heat for a mistake. I did. If nobody decides you're innocent, well, Whoosh....

cube

[Cubism]

I agree. This experience reminded me of something important I'd forgotten and still haven't brought to light: does that make sense?

Or another way of saying this, perhaps: I'm always uneasy about signing even a room rental agreement in Thailand, where I've lived for years. You're right: we're outsiders. In this particular instance, the FAO/uni seemed OK for a uni abroad, I'd received good feedback re them, but still...but if I consider it more deeply, of course it's, uh, an issue that's 61 years old now. (The issue? Authority over the person?)

Really kind advice from board members; I feel so much saner this morning. Thank you. Cubism

[Jayray]

If you haven't done anything wrong to merit such a confrontation with the Powerz That Bee, it's best to just wait for your lawyer, friend, FAO, etc. to show up. My experience with the police is that they don't go looking for trouble. **

Foreigners are required to carry documentation with them. I was stopped in a little town by a motorcycle cop and a guy riding on the back. The uniformed one spoke no English. The guy on the back did. He wanted to see identification. I had nothing on me. The guy on the back kept me there until someone in the ubiquitous black VW Santana arrived. More talk. I remembered that I had the FAO's business card and my lunch card bearing the name of the school. Apparently, the Santana cop radioed to someone at Ground Control who called the FAO. After forty-five minutes, it was over.

Sorry. Please carry ID with you. Bye bye.

That was it. Nobody I knew had ever been stopped like that before.

Another time, I had a very distinct feeling that I was being followed by a guy wearing a helmet and riding a bicycle. His bicycle had mirrors on the handle bars--- the kind you see on police motorcycles. I stopped to get a key made on a roadside kiosk. I stood behind a telephone pole so that he couldn't see me in his mirrors. He came riding by again and watched me in his mirrors. I crouched behind the kiosk, pretending to tie my shoe. He came back again and stopped about twenty feet away and watched me in his mirrors.

When I got my key made, I walked back in the direction that I had come from. I thought that I was losing it. I ducked beside one of those glassed-in magazine kiosks that was set up beside a gate which led to an open-air billiards park. Dang. He came back and stood in front of the gate, thinking that I'd gone into the billiards garden. I walked behind the kiosk and trotted among the various street vendors and took a turn into an alley that led back to the school gate.

I said nothing about it to anyone. One night, another FT and I were having a couple of beers, and I told him about my experience with the guy on the bike. He told me that he'd been followed twice by someone else on foot. Each time, the stalker was pretty persistent and followed him across the campus. He too thought that he was losing his mind and was reluctant to say anything about it.

This kind of thing happens. You just have to be careful and not overreact. You'll have more problems with the demigods behind the cash registers in the stores and the meal servers in your school.

** Results may vary.

[Splenda]

[Jayray]

[johntpartee]

I used to be paranoid until I discovered everybody really was out to get me.

[cormac]

Just prior to the Olympics I found that the police were cracking down more on foreigners and checking for identification. I was trailed a few times in Xi'an (within the city), and eventually stopped for ID. None on me except photocopies, which weren't good enough, so they brought me back to my apartment so they could check the actual passport and such. That happened a few times, and TBH they were fairly decent about it. None of them ever spoke English, and my Chinese is terrible. But there was no way I'd carry my passport around all the time. Thats asking for worse trouble. My rule of thumb is to be respectful and accommodating to them. Judging from friends in Xi'an, its the westerners that make a big deal of things that they target the most.

These days things are pretty quiet. been stopped once in the last 6 months, and that was in Beijing.

[Cubism]

So guess what the result of all this is? My year-long contract is not being honored.

I got only a 6 month resident permit. They're booting me out in 6 months!!!!

I figured that at at my decrepit senile age (61) this would be my last year in the prc; never occurred to me to spend a fortune and barely make it back: 6 months is a joke. i should've gone someplace and enjoyed myself. Lao or Nepal or someplace. Oh, this is disgusting. Details (uni names, etc) upon request.