Job Discussion Forums

[latefordinner]

Not sure what the maximum is on an overstay, but I came bloody close one year at 4500 rmb when my school couldn't (wouldn't??) renew my F or convert it to a Z (funny but the next school had no trouble getting me a Z) and the school leaders wouldn't return calls and kept me waiting for my overdue salary... well you can see where my suspicions come from. I admit, it's purely a subjective thing, but I always associate getting F'd in China with bending over to keep the boss happy.

In this case though, it seems that the boss him/herself is also bending over to keep others happy. That has also happened to me. It was a dark and stormy night, cold and getting colder as late autumn has a habit of doing, and I was teaching my usual class of semi-comatose uni students and exhausted business people when 2 uniformed gentlemen from the PSB visited my classroom. They quickly ascertained that I was teaching on an F, confiscated my passport, and left me with instructions to report to the central police station the next morning. Good-bye passport, I can't even leave the country on the next flight! As it went, things worked out and it was the employer who footed the bill. I suspect that is what is happening in your case. Possibly its just someone new in the local PSB flexing his muscles and extorting a bit of, umm, lets not call it bribery but involuntary munificence. That's what it was in my case, just low level extortion aimed at the school. In any case, the school may be the one facing the fiscal decision, but I was (and you might be) the one facing deportation. Gives one a rather personal perspective, no, being caught in the middle of a game that others are playing and no one's given you neither a score card nor a copy of the rules?