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You've just got to really nong it up and learn to use the bus lines out of the city. Hell, in Beijing, I have to assume that just hiring one of those ripoff black market taxis that take people to the great wall and so on would be more practical than a car unless you're doing it every weekend or something.
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May 15, 2014 03:15
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I want to start commuting by speedboat (it's actually very possible) but boats cost far, far too much
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May 15, 2014 03:21
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simplefish posted:I want to start commuting by speedboat (it's actually very possible) but boats cost far, far too much I used to do this in high school sometimes for my after school job. It's a lot of fun until winter comes and you're routinely fighting 10ft seas at five below zero in a skiff twice your age and less than twice your length.  Fifteen years later and my balls still haven't thawed completely.In HK I bet it would be awesome though. The last time I was there, we were with caberham and he took us to the upper reaches of a SKY PALACE (your sister's, right, cab?) and while I was looking over the water I thought speedboat would be a pretty wicked way to get around HK. I wonder how restrictive Hong Kong's port authority is -- some American cities that are major shipping hubs (NYC, Norfolk) are reeeeeeeaaaaaaally bad about limiting where you can go and how.
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May 15, 2014 08:07
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Anything that involves Hong Kong bureaucracy is loving stupid and nightmarish.
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May 15, 2014 08:23
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You can easily sail around Hong Kong in a boat. I have been around the harbour a few times but I think you have to be as big as a yacht or something. If you guys are coming in end of may, I say we all rent a goon boat for 1000-2000 HKD a day and sail across the harbour and into some small outlying island. Start a camp and then do a bbq Yeah that sounds fun. Or we can just keep it simple and do a goooooooon bbq. synertia posted:Anything that involves Hong Kong bureaucracy is loving stupid and nightmarish. That's not true, your HKID was easy to get.
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May 15, 2014 08:38
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caberham posted:That's not true, your HKID was easy to get. Because i'm used to filling out forms in triplicate and bringing double copies of every legal document I have here. I even copied my tax forms to bring in.
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May 15, 2014 09:21
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The only thing that saves us from the bureaucracy is its inefficiency. That makes me think of Civ 5 which makes me think of how the narrator in Civ 5 also does the narration at the beginning of Ted Turner's Gettysburg. He also plays a Confederate general in the film.  edit: Obviously I meant that the narrator plays a Confederate general, not Ted Turner. Turner has a cameo as a Confederate colonel who gets killed during Pickett's Charge. 
blinkyzero fucked around with this message at 09:53 on May 15, 2014 |
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May 15, 2014 09:30
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Leonard Nemoy is better. The bureaucracy is expanding to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.
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May 15, 2014 10:06
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So a Chinese guy I met at work here in the States is asking me to teach/hang out with a tour group of 6-8 "youths" for 12 days (in Orlando). He says they'd want me to actually teach them for 2-3 hours everyday and the rest of the time would just be hanging out going to Disney and Sea World and stuff like that. If this is actually what happens (extremely unlikely, will probably end up being 26 kids and seven hours of class each day), how much do you guys think I should charge per day or per hour? Anyone know how much the families would be paying for this kind of trip?
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May 15, 2014 19:31
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"How old are they?" "They are youths"
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May 15, 2014 19:33
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May 15, 2014 23:27
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Cuatal posted:So a Chinese guy I met at work here in the States is asking me to teach/hang out with a tour group of 6-8 "youths" for 12 days (in Orlando). He says they'd want me to actually teach them for 2-3 hours everyday and the rest of the time would just be hanging out going to Disney and Sea World and stuff like that. fearcotton and I actually did pretty much exactly this last summer. The kids on our trip went to four American cities over the course of a week and a half and visited schools, saw the sights, did activities, etc. etc. The trips cost their parents about $6,000 each, I remember that. We were usually with the group for about four or five hours a day and the RMB compensation worked out to like $30/hour. The pay wasn't great, but it was easy as hell and basically just involved us giving tours of stuff we were familiar with and enjoyed anyway (like the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh) or acting as facilitators (I think our entire group would've died somehow on the DC subway or the Pitt bus system without fearcotton's assistance). We got to travel a bit with them too and stay in really nice hotels down in DC so that was cool too. If you have to do any legit teaching I'd definitely ask for more. We were pretty much just guides and chaperones. Actually teaching would make that a real job and probably fairly stressful.
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May 15, 2014 23:31
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Cuatal posted:So a Chinese guy I met at work here in the States is asking me to teach/hang out with a tour group of 6-8 "youths" for 12 days (in Orlando). He says they'd want me to actually teach them for 2-3 hours everyday and the rest of the time would just be hanging out going to Disney and Sea World and stuff like that. That sounds like a nightmare. Would you have any help corralling the youths?
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May 16, 2014 02:27
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Please be insured. Kids will probably get hurt or in trouble.
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May 16, 2014 02:46
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Cuatal posted:So a Chinese guy I met at work here in the States is asking me to teach/hang out with a tour group of 6-8 "youths" for 12 days (in Orlando). He says they'd want me to actually teach them for 2-3 hours everyday and the rest of the time would just be hanging out going to Disney and Sea World and stuff like that. I'm taking a group of kids to the US this summer for ten days and for everything, from prep to the housing to the visa to the plane ticket to transportation there to food, I think each kid had to pay 80k RMB. Not entirely sure. We are partaking in some international competition, because  loves competitions!, and then visiting some Unis. I am salaried, so is the guy going with me, and we'll just continue getting paid. No idea how much to charge for it, especially if you're just babysitting. We are in essence just babysitting while the kids are over there because they'll be with another organization or two the entire time.
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May 16, 2014 03:13
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I hope they give you a box full of those hats with the long rear end bills, a 2 meter flag pole to attach to your belt, and a loudspeaker and mic combo that you can hold directly inside your mouth to assist in directing their movements.
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May 16, 2014 04:46
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goldboilermark posted:I'm taking a group of kids to the US this summer for ten days and for everything, from prep to the housing to the visa to the plane ticket to transportation there to food, I think each kid had to pay 80k RMB. Not entirely sure. We are partaking in some international competition, because For 80k RMB that better include blowjobs, god drat.
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May 16, 2014 05:21
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VideoTapir posted:For 80k RMB that better include blowjobs, god drat. Those travel abroad things are always like that. I knew some people who paid upwards of 10k Euro to come to China and do an unpaid internship in Shanghai or something for like 5 weeks.
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May 16, 2014 06:16
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My favorite are people from the US who want to ~~STUDDDY ABROADDDD~ and they are "thinking Australia or the UK," then (their parents) pay like $25,000 to have them "study" a semester in London or Melbourne.
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May 16, 2014 13:18
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My favorite are the ones when I give an entrance exam or interview and they want to study abroad because the gaokao is too difficult. So I ask them if they think studying in a foreign country where they don't speak the native language as well and have less than six months to prepare for everything is a good idea and they just smile and say "Shen me?" We literally have a kid that my boss refers to as "the potato". It is a fat lazy kid who is a 12th year that will go to USA next year that can't speak a sentence of English. I asked him why he was going to USA (in Chinese), as the kid has zero desire to go, he actually has zero desire to do anything other than take up space and steal oxygen actually, and he said "to be successful". Good luck with that, kid. I'll see ya next summer with 200,000rmb less in your pocket. There are so many truly dumb people with ridiculous amounts of money in this country. Is there any logic in this at all? If I thought the SAT was too difficult I'm sure as poo poo not going to try taking the Portuguese uni entrance exam to study there.
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May 16, 2014 13:58
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goldboilermark posted:There are so many truly dumb people with ridiculous amounts of money.
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May 16, 2014 14:11
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Of course you wouldn't. You couldn't reasonably expect to "be successful" in Portugal.
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May 16, 2014 14:40
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you shouldnt try to convince rich people not to waste their money though, how else are we going to get it from them?
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May 16, 2014 14:42
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Arakan posted:you shouldnt try to convince rich people not to waste their money though, how else are we going to get it from them? By force.
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May 16, 2014 14:45
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Smash the state, eat the rich
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May 16, 2014 14:46
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goldboilermark posted:My favorite are the ones when I give an entrance exam or interview and they want to study abroad because the gaokao is too difficult. Few of my friends in university were mediocre high school students who were abysmal with their hkcee (think middle school to high school entrance exams). They manage to boot straps themselves and get into the provincial university or do one year of community college and transfer over. Of course they are considered as miracles but the gao kao or the brute force memorization style of learning just doesn't mesh well. On the other hand math education in Asia is amazing.
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May 16, 2014 15:10
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caberham posted:Please be insured. Kids will probably get hurt or in trouble. Yeah this is actually really important. Make sure the kids have travel insurance. The summer before we helped out, nobody listened to our recommendation that everyone have travel insurance and one of the students got sick. Had to go to the ER and the headache/expense of it was staggering, of course.
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May 16, 2014 15:16
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Check the minimum insurance requirements for F-1 Students and make sure they get plans that meet those requirements. The people I deal with at work come on J-1 visas, and the insurance requirements for them are a joke. Every Chinese person always asks, "Which plan is cheapest?" They buy the cheapest plan, then they get hurt/sick/pregnant and come back to me saying, "My healthy insure not covering my sickness, you help me please!" Here is a good email I got: quote:
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May 16, 2014 15:22
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You should totally help that guy cheat the heck out of insurance.
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May 16, 2014 15:25
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Ah yes, systran the non-insurance-agent's classic "pregnant occasionally" email. One of my favourites. But seriously, this stuff matters.
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May 16, 2014 15:26
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Us hongers are not stingy with insurance , heck we got garbage premium investment linked insurance (fees over 50$). Heck my company even insures us once we cross into China. We treat Shenzhen like mad max containment thunder dome. Systran, tell the guy to get bent. Actually it would be fun to save his email and forward it INS and report him for immigration fraud.
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May 16, 2014 15:28
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This is actually a more recent email than the one I showed earlier, he used "pregnancy occasionally" exactly like he did in the previous email though! Guess he's using the same machine translation website as last time! edit: I actually feel really sorry for this guy in some ways because his English is basically non-existent. I KIND OF don't feel bad though because you are supposed to speak English if you come on a J1 visa, and the consulate is supposed to enforce that, but they don't. So basically he slipped under and got here with no English ability, and his Mandarin is loving FULAN style that I can barely understand. I told him when his wife got pregnant that he may want to consider just going back to China early to avoid potential complications since he wouldn't have any coverage for anything relating to the pregnancy, but he stayed and then his wife had complications related to the pregnancy which he'll have to fully cover out of pocket. angel opportunity fucked around with this message at 15:32 on May 16, 2014 |
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May 16, 2014 15:29
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So for 12 days where I'd probably be missing around eight days of work, where if I did work I'd make 800+ dollars, I was thinking 2500-3000 dollars, though I'm emailing to get more information.
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May 16, 2014 15:44
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Yeah, I remember last time you showed his email here. His English is really bad. 
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May 16, 2014 15:45
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I dunno, MY WIFE IS BLIGHTEN OVUM and PREGNANCY OCCASIONALLY are some pretty poetic turns. He must be using a machine translator designed by Walt Whitman.
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May 16, 2014 15:52
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Walt Whitman is dead.
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May 16, 2014 15:58
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You know, I almost added "MeramJert: yes, I know that Walt Whitman is dead" to the end of that message, feeling as I did 100% certain that you would post exactly what you have now, in fact, posted.
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May 16, 2014 16:08
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He's dead as a doornail.
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May 16, 2014 16:17
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Whitman is among these people.
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May 16, 2014 16:22
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He certainly has company. If you're human, there's a 95% chance you're already dead.
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