Job Discussion Forums

[Burl Ives]

So I have waded the sea of misinformation that is the result of asking
any responsible person in any office in this wide and variously enforced
land. Now I want to know:

if you're going to be inside China and you will have to go from some
non-work visa to a work visa, would you choose to start with a business
visa or a tourist visa?

I suppose the answer is, start with the biz. So, any qualifications on
travel or housing that would apply to the biz but not the tour?



(Someone write a faq sheet, okay? I know the law will change every
other day but some basic starting pointers would have saved me two
weeks of heartache. But then, I listened to the fao...)

[MyTurnNow]

The biz doesn't give you any more legal advantages for working here than the tourist. The biz has a longer term but the turista is cheaper.

MT

[Roger]

Until recently, I had thought that a business visa was just another name for tourist visa, but then my overseas-born colleague told me he and his girlfriend had both had their F visa applied for by their training centre.
I told him he was still illegal. He knew it anyway.
New for me was that a business visa can be obtained within the mainland with the help of your employer. Of course, the PSB will probably not know that you are going to teach.
It is cheaper than the work visa, and it absolves the employer of trying to get your various permits. How you convert your salary into any foreign currency is your problem too!
If you have a tourist visa, your employer will wisely stay away from any PSB. YOu will have to book in a hotel the night before you apply for an extension (if that's what you need). This is because the PSB must have a record of where you staid in their jurisdiction, and your employer cannot accommodate you legally! It has to be a hotel!

[Burl Ives]

It may be naive but I believe the people handling my hiring are nothing
worse than incompetents swaddled in guanxi. They want me on a tourist
visa just because they don't especially want to rush an extension of my
current residence permit and possibly don't know how -- the school
is big enough that the foreign affairs office can largely remove itself
from contact with foreigners and slot actual teachers into the gopher-hirer
role. Teachers hiring teachers -- of course it's a mess.

I hope so anyway.

I'm busting out of my area, leaving Hunan and heading easterly, and I'm
really getting fed up with the blunt grasping bargaining that goes with the
meet-and-greet of scouting schools. I've about had it with being a smiling
beggar to skin-flint officers who dine themselves bored after motioning
through the interview that tests my supposed qualifications.

I like this school I've picked. Of course I'm screwed. My current school
set me up with a residence permit that expires a week or so into the
time I'd be hoping to find a new job. Screwed. It works that way.

At the risk of having just answered my own question, would a big public
university actually try to have me work under a tourist visa?

[JamesD]

Changing an "L" to a "Z" is something almost any university should be able to do easily. That's why many schools will have you come in on a tourist visa and just do the paperwork once you arrive. It's done all the time in the cities I've been to.

Changing an "F" to a "Z" is difficult in most PSB jurisdictions and is normally not an option.

[naturegirl321]

I've heard that you CAN work legally on an F, if the school is new, they must wait six or so months for the paperwork to go through so that they can issue Z visas.
Anyway, I'm hoping that it's true becuase that's what I'm doing. As for the changine money, my employer does that and it's safely at home in my account in the States.

[MyTurnNow]

[naturegirl321]

I rememeber reading someone that it takes six months. I can't remember where. Our school is half American and half Chinese owned.
Anyone else know anything about this six month thing?

[Roger]

What do you mean "it takes six months" for a NEW school to be allowed to get work visas?
It is crystal-clear by law: The school MUST HAVE APPROVAL FROM THE EDUCATION BUREAU to operate as a "school"; if they want to employ a non-Chinese person, obviously, immigration aspects come into play, and then it becomes the PSB's turf. The PSB grant such approvals once the education bureau has allowed the school to perate as a school (a political decision and a business decision too).

No school is allowed to hire people on business visas, full stop! They all do, but that does not make it any more legal!

A problem such as the SARS outbreak may be an excellent opportunity to rid the country of II's or any other perceived nuisances. Luckily, it has not worked this way so far - but it could have!

Once again, a business visa is the only legal option.

[naturegirl321]

I think that we are being called consulatants or something like that. Either way, we're in asmall town and the police and political people know about us, they even come to our school. Maybe china is a bit like South america in it's crystal clear laws.