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Almond Crunch posted:Goonchat is the smartphone clubhouse right? i'm cooooooooming~ http://www.gokunming.com/en/ http://www.gokunming.com/en/blog/item/3106/rugby_tournament_the_inaugural_spring_city_cup Play rugby.
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Dec 5, 2013 13:45
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Is it really difficult for you guys to find good weed? Southwest wins again 
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Dec 5, 2013 13:57
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Post complaints about problems with patently obvious solutions, get patently obvious advice.
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Dec 5, 2013 14:17
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caberham posted:The utilities thing might be a scam. I know EF Hangzhou use to charge 300 kuai per person when the bill was only 100 ish. Yeah, really dodgy. Have you tried PMing other goons here your resume? I think a few people here might have a lead or two. gently caress me, is everything about EF a scam? Guy made it sound like I'd be paying utilities directly, but I'll just keep my eyes open and see what's going on. Otherwise, the other interview I have is with someone connected to a goon, so there's that.
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Dec 5, 2013 16:12
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YF19pilot posted:gently caress me, is everything about Yes, it is but that's just how things are normally done here. Be wary of the super sketchy and very obvious scams but remember that China is a sketchy, though safe, country in general.
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Dec 5, 2013 16:30
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edit: whoops
Ailumao fucked around with this message at 16:55 on Dec 5, 2013 |
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Dec 5, 2013 16:51
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In other news the cats in my office continue to own. Go office cats.
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Dec 5, 2013 16:53
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Magna Kaser posted:In other news the cats in my office continue to own. Go office cats. Dawww, lookit them cute fuckers. Aren't they gonna be sad when you leave Chengdu? I'm torn. I want to get a cat, because I'm a cat person in general, but I'm afraid of increasing my attachments to this place. I'm still afraid of committing to China, she's such a demanding mistress. Is there anything drastically different about keeping a housecat in china compared to north america? Do people use litterboxes? Do the cats just go in the squat toilets? My mind is full of these questions.
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Dec 5, 2013 17:42
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I have a cat here. It's basically the same, except you'll probably want to get food, litter, and other supplies on taobao. Yes they use litter boxes, and yes some people also toilet train them.
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Dec 5, 2013 17:46
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Litter can be kind of hard to find offline. I find that cat food is very easy to buy but the places that sell food often don't sell litter and the places that sell litter often don't sell cat food. Yeah, I know.
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Dec 5, 2013 17:49
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Cats are real easy to bring back if you are American. I brought the two I rescued back on the plane with me, and there is no quarantine or anything.
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Dec 5, 2013 19:50
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Magna Kaser posted:In other news the cats in my office continue to own. Go office cats. D'awww! I want one! In other news, got my uni acceptance letter coming to me, picking up my health exam tomorrow. I should be a-ok for when I chengdu come January. Just need to tell my work I'm quitting and it's pretty much all set! So, which one of you lovely chew goons what's to be my friend when I arrive? Also I tried joining the wechat group, it said it was full?
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Dec 5, 2013 20:59
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Magna Kaser posted:In other news the cats in my office continue to own. Go office cats. Is this Shanghai? Cute, man...
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Dec 6, 2013 02:32
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Okay, I know I'm not supposed to post about my job anymore but things have escalated to the point where I'm seriously considering quitting. My contract states that either party that breaks the contract (read: always me) has to pay 50,000RMB. Are these sorts of clauses legal/enforceable? The company is threatening me with withholding the "recommendation" paperwork as well. Or at least my piece of poo poo boss that nobody in the company respects is threatening me. There's a lot of other poo poo for me to vent about but I'm not going to. Just contract questions. Can they make me pay 50,000RMB if I quit?
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Dec 6, 2013 06:27
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That's an absurd amount of money and is totally unenforceable outside China and probably wouldn't work inside China either. They can make it impossible, or at least very difficult, for you to work in China again until you get a new passport number though.
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Dec 6, 2013 06:38
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Can you cite that? It would make me feel a lot better about quitting my job.
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Dec 6, 2013 06:53
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Post scans of your whole contract so we can be sure.
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Dec 6, 2013 06:55
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GuestBob posted:They can make it impossible, or at least very difficult, for you to work in China again until you get a new passport number though. Oddly enough, no not really. It's a thing they can threaten to do, but in the end it's kind of a joke. With the right hookup, cleaning a black-mark like that is about 4000 or so and it never happened. The release papers, the only thing that matters is the stamp. To get around it, what you need to do is nuke your visa and just get an L or whatever. Again, use an agent... they'll pay off/forge who/what needs to be paid off/forged. About 2000~3000 depending on who/where/urgency. The 50k threat is not about money so much about loving you over. It opens up the opportunity for a civil case, which will be dragged out forever. As long as a civil case is open, you're kinda hosed and if served, they can take your passport and prevent you from leaving. With no ability to work legally, it can screw you over hard. If you quit, just move and cut off all contact with everyone even remotely involved with that place. If somehow they find you, refuse to sign for anything. This effectively quashes the bullshit suit as hassling you becomes more of a hassle for them and it just gets dropped.
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Dec 6, 2013 07:13
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Pro-PRC Laowai posted:To get around it, what you need to do is nuke your visa and just get an L or whatever. Again, use an agent... they'll pay off/forge who/what needs to be paid off/forged. About 2000~3000 depending on who/where/urgency. Mmmm. Henan SAFEA won't issue documents without a release letter from the last employer for anyone who has worked in China before, even if there is a an intervening visa or substantial period of time. I know we recently issued a letter for a past employee because he wanted to switch back to a work based RP with a new employer in Henan and he couldn't do that unless we released him even though the contract we had with him had ended a while ago and he had been somewhere else in the meantime. This may be a provincial thing.
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Dec 6, 2013 07:25
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Arglebargle III posted:Okay, I know I'm not supposed to post about my job anymore but things have escalated to the point where I'm seriously considering quitting. My contract states that either party that breaks the contract (read: always me) has to pay 50,000RMB. Are these sorts of clauses legal/enforceable? The company is threatening me with withholding the "recommendation" paperwork as well. Or at least my piece of poo poo boss that nobody in the company respects is threatening me. Good Lord, 50,000 RMB? I doubt that's enforceable, as everyone else has said. Our contracts stipulate a 3,000 RMB penalty for breaking them. I think that the amount of risk goes hand in hand with the power of the individual you're dealing with. It sounds like your boss is a shitbag whose reach ends somewhere around his fly. If so, you're probably okay. We'd never cross our employer, since the university definitely has the power to crush us if it felt at all inclined to do so. Good on you for wanting to stay here after this experience. I'd probably get soured on the whole country and leave if it were me.
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Dec 6, 2013 07:26
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You could always flee to Hong Kong if you're getting hosed over by the mainland system. Or maybe Macau. Anybody worked in Macau before? I wish I could work in Macau.
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Dec 6, 2013 07:37
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The purpose of those large breach penalties is not to actually charge you that money but rather to provide the justification for withholding your salary after you're fired.
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Dec 6, 2013 07:40
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Bloodnose posted:You could always flee to Hong Kong if you're getting hosed over by the mainland system. I really liked Macau. I'd be pretty curious to hear about any experiences people might have had working there. I think this came up a while back, but nobody had much to say on it. I'll admit that I was pretty enchanted by Hong Kong too. I guess sky palaces have that effect. Looking forward to going back in the spring.
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Dec 6, 2013 07:48
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GuestBob posted:Mmmm. Henan SAFEA won't issue documents without a release letter from the last employer for anyone who has worked in China before, even if there is a an intervening visa or substantial period of time. Release letter is just a stamp on a piece of paper. And this is China.
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Dec 6, 2013 08:12
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blinkyzero posted:Good on you for wanting to stay here after this experience. I'd probably get soured on the whole country and leave if it were me. I've said it before, I was quite happy to sign the contract to come back. Teaching three days a week at my real site and having to do oral English in some suburb so a party cadre can tick a box on his report card and increasingly restrictive company policies has just snowballed into a really bad relationship. This has all happened in the last 4 months and I signed my contract 7 months ago. Arglebargle III fucked around with this message at 08:56 on Dec 6, 2013 |
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Dec 6, 2013 08:53
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Hello, I'm currently working in Thailand and will be traveling back home for a little while in March. I heard about this 72 hour visa and I got a little information about it in the SE Asia thread, but I thought I should ask you guys. I put together a flight on Air China's website that's basically a multi-city itinerary from Bangkok to Beijing and then Beijing to New York 2 days later. Is this OK to do? Is that considered a stopover even though it's technically two different flights? It's all on the same airline, on the same itinerary, so I figured it's probably just as good. Last thing I want to do is wing it, especially with a new policy like this. Also, when I did a forum search, one goon said that it was pretty straightforward, you just need to show proof of onward travel and have a hotel reservation. That's the first I heard (in my limited research) about a hotel reservation - can anyone confirm that? Thanks for your help
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Dec 6, 2013 09:28
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It's fine you just need an outbound ticket to prove you are leaving within 72 hours. Lots of goons pass through. Beijing is fun
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Dec 6, 2013 10:05
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Fall Sick and Die posted:The purpose of those large breach penalties is not to actually charge you that money but rather to provide the justification for withholding your salary after you're fired. Quoted for truth. It's a pretty much tried-and-true Chinese management technique - make sure your workers are always paid several weeks/a month behind so that when they leave you can keep their pay. It also causes a strong psychological motivation to not leave - doing so would essentially be admitting that you've wasted a month of your life for no reason. For example a terrible boss (let's call him Steven) might hire teachers for a probationary period (let's say two weeks) then as a salaried employee but suddenly a month into the job you find out that you're not getting paid until next month, and by the way you're only getting full pay for the last two weeks because the probationary period was unpaid. So then you slug it out another month, collect the paycheck, and it's less than promised. Because your work isn't up to par, you need to be doing a better job, but if you can do XYZ then next month we'll pay you full salary. At this point you can either stay or tell the owner to gently caress off, but there's a strong psychological incentive to not admit that you've wasted all this time. Because if you spend a lot of time doing something, it must be important to you. Plus Steven says you'll get full salary next month if you buckle down and do XYZ. Of course from Steven's perspective, even if you quit he still wins because you just gave him six free weeks of labor, so gently caress you guy. There's no loving way he's going to pay you that last month's salary. Have a good time finding a new job and waiting another month to get paid. Dipshit managers can get away with this sort of thing with their Chinese employees, so they try to do this with foreigners too. It helps to keep in mind that loving people over is pretty much what China is all about. Literally every aspect of Chinese society is based on a solid foundation of assrape. There are managers who don't try to screw you over, but they're just being pragmatic because foreigners are difficult to deal with.
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Dec 6, 2013 17:55
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Be Depressive posted:Quoted for truth. It's a pretty much tried-and-true Chinese management technique - make sure your workers are always paid several weeks/a month behind so that when they leave you can keep their pay. It also causes a strong psychological motivation to not leave - doing so would essentially be admitting that you've wasted a month of your life for no reason. Yeah, our paychecks have a full month's worth of lag, just like everyone else who works for our university. We've never had a problem being paid properly or on time (well, "on time" by  standards anyway) and we have a fantastic relationship with our boss, but even then I don't doubt for a second that we'd have no chance in hell of seeing that money were we to leave his employment, even if the split were amicable.Be Depressive posted:It helps to keep in mind that loving people over is pretty much what China is all about. Literally every aspect of Chinese society is based on a solid foundation of assrape. I have super conservative friends back home who've never so much as left the States before (Canada doesn't count) who try to tell me that you can't trust the Chinese because they are clearly like ants controlled by some kind of hive mind, and this is why communism took hold so well here. When I hear this, I don't so much close my eyes and think of England as I do  and consider the reality of mainland assrapery.
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Dec 7, 2013 03:26
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Pro-PRC Laowai posted:Release letter is just a stamp on a piece of paper. And this is China. Your experience may vary but hand on my heart we had to do this. Also, the Mandarins at SAFEA have started reading the submissions made on the online "So You Want to Give Some Dude a Work Permit" system properly.
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Dec 7, 2013 03:28
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Be Depressive posted:It helps to keep in mind that loving people over is pretty much what China is all about. Literally every aspect of Chinese society is based on a solid foundation of assrape.
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Dec 7, 2013 03:58
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GuestBob posted:Also, the Mandarins at SAFEA have started reading the submissions made on the online "So You Want to Give Some Dude a Work Permit" system properly. What does this mean?
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Dec 7, 2013 13:20
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Woodsy Owl posted:What does this mean? In translation: the Chinese workers at the State Administration for Foreign Expert Affairs have actually started paying attention to at least a few of their own policies. I think, at least. My GhostBob vernacular is a bit rusty.
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Dec 7, 2013 13:45
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I'm thinking of picking up a cheap Android tablet here. Is it possible to download apps using Google Play? Do they even come with Google Play installed? How hard would it be to root the tablet if it's sort of a no-name brand? I just want to read PDFs on a screen larger than my iPod Touch.
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Dec 7, 2013 15:20
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Woodsy Owl posted:I'm thinking of picking up a cheap Android tablet here. Is it possible to download apps using Google Play? Do they even come with Google Play installed? How hard would it be to root the tablet if it's sort of a no-name brand? Many big-name chinese-market android devices (notably Samsung, not sure who else) do not include the Google apps, including Play. The cheap stuff, particularly off-brand reference-design stuff, usually does; and often comes rooted out of the box. You can get some brands sold in the west (and thus with english-speaking support communities) in China for almost as cheap or actually as cheap as fly-by-night Chinese brands. (For example: Viewsonic) As for rooting, there are instructions for many Chinese tablets; and if the specs are identical between two of them, it's a fairly safe bet they're similar enough that the same instructions would work; and rooting isn't all that dangerous re: bricking these days. Every time I've hosed up (which was repeatedly, due to having loving obscure revisions of two different phones which required half the procedures from one well-documented revision and half from another) I've been able to try again. Check the price of the exact tablet you want on Taobao before buying anywhere that isn't Taobao, and don't pay more than a few percent over that. You can get good hardware in a lovely case for ~800 kuai, and good hardware in a good case for ~1000. VideoTapir fucked around with this message at 15:32 on Dec 7, 2013 |
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Dec 7, 2013 15:28
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VideoTapir posted:Many big-name chinese-market android devices (notably Samsung, not sure who else) do not include the Google apps, including Play. The cheap stuff, particularly off-brand reference-design stuff, usually does; and often comes rooted out of the box. You can get some brands sold in the west (and thus with english-speaking support communities) in China for almost as cheap or actually as cheap as fly-by-night Chinese brands. (For example: Viewsonic) Can you install Google Play or whatever App marketplace? If you don't have Google Play, then how can you install new apps? The reviews for the ViewSonic I was looking at say it doesn't have a Google marketplace installed... edit: I've chosen which one I'm gonna buy. I'm going to go downtown to some of the large electronics department stores to see if they have it in stock, if not I'll just buy it from 360buy (it's the same price as TaoBao). Woodsy Owl fucked around with this message at 16:26 on Dec 7, 2013 |
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Dec 7, 2013 15:52
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Woodsy Owl posted:Can you install Google Play or whatever App marketplace? If you don't have Google Play, then how can you install new apps? The reviews for the ViewSonic I was looking at say it doesn't have a Google marketplace installed... It depends on your rom; once you're rooted (maybe if you're not? I don't recall) you can install them from APK, but you may not be able to register your device without some bizarre login voodoo which you can't do without circumventing the firewall. The way to go is to either get something that already has it installed, or install Clockworkmod Recovery and install them from a zip file. The latter has worked without a hitch every time I've tried it. If you're buying on Taobao, if you're capable of asking, ask the seller if they're installed. If you're buying in person, just ask to have a look at the thing. I looked at a Viewsonic tablet in Zhongguancun (with stock Android) and it had Google apps. The retailer may have installed it, though.
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Dec 7, 2013 16:07
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Note that on many Chinese brand Android devices, even if you install the Google Play store apk, it's literally impossible to add a google account without rooting, so you can't actually use the Play store
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Dec 7, 2013 17:03
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In general, how strict are hotels on maximum occupancy here? I sort of imagine they wouldn't be too concerned.
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Dec 7, 2013 17:06
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MeramJert posted:Note that on many Chinese brand Android devices, even if you install the Google Play store apk, it's literally impossible to add a google account without rooting, so you can't actually use the Play store I'm not so familiar with Android and Google Play or whatever. Do you need a google account to actually use the store? Is there an alternative store? What about if you use a VPN to connect to the store instead? Any idea what the cause of it is?
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Dec 7, 2013 17:15
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