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Bloodnose posted:I think the PLA is a good and effective military fighting force of whom I live in fear. Meanwhile there are guys with pro-quality cameras and telephoto lenses camped at the end of Yokota Air Base's runway every day. Hah.
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Oct 19, 2014 22:31
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Daduzi posted:No idea. They implemented it in 1990 and as well know absolutely nothing of any note involving students happened in 1989 so v Ah, no kidding. Thanks for this, interesting.
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Oct 20, 2014 00:14
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One full day in Hong Kong. What should I do or see?
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Oct 22, 2014 12:26
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Hmm, one foreign man in Hong Kong for one day? Overthrow the Chinese government in the morning and hit Guilin, hiking in the mountains in the afternoon before winning a few million dollars in Macau that evening. Sounds about right for a foreigner in Hong Kong.
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Oct 22, 2014 13:11
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nelson posted:One full day in Hong Kong. What should I do or see? Me. Which day?
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Oct 22, 2014 13:21
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simplefish posted:Me. I'm here now, tomorrow is the full day.
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Oct 22, 2014 14:48
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I'll be in China next week, staying for about two weeks. I have a ton of business to do and will be in Hangzhou and Shenzhen. Does anyone know of any easy access/quick rock climbing crags near these cities? This will be the first trip I'm taking my wife on, and I know she's going to get sick of pollution and factories and meetings, and will need to find something besides western bars and hotel lobby bars to do with her... I know West Lake in Hangzhou is all the rage, and we'll probably see it, but if anyone knows of anything less well-known I'd love to hear it. Especially temples and nature and shrines. I'm going to ask my business partners to arrange some things as well, but I wanted to ask here also. \/\/ Even with all the tea I drink in China I hadn't thought of that. I'll definitely add that to the list. Thanks. RizieN fucked around with this message at 16:48 on Oct 22, 2014 |
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Oct 22, 2014 16:31
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You can walk through the tea fields and stuff near Hangzhou, and they have a lot of good tea houses as well.
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Oct 22, 2014 16:40
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systran posted:You can walk through the tea fields and stuff near Hangzhou, and they have a lot of good tea houses as well. There's also a large wetlands area that's a nature preserve (XiXi National Park). Also when you go to West Lake, try the Longjing Shrimp and West Lake Vinegar Fish at LouWaiLou restaurant. It's a popular tourist trap, and priced accordingly, but the food is genuinely great. They also have Beggar's Chicken, but I didn't try that as it's really quite pricey for two people.
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Oct 22, 2014 17:27
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nelson posted:I'm here now, tomorrow is the full day. Ah, I can meet this afternoon but not tomorrow. PM or phone me if you wanna met up
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Oct 23, 2014 07:25
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Yet Another Visa Question: I'm doing my first HK Z (Employment) visa run soon, and apart from being all nervous about the prospect of failure and being stranded in an expensive city without much cash in my account, I've got a couple of questions that don't seem to be covered in the various stickied links, and/or may have changed since the guides were written. Any info would be gratefully received! First off, basic info: I'm a British citizen, I'm working for a poo poo-but-legit company (the 'poo poo' bit is leaving me to sort my visa out), so I've got the necessary documents for a Z visa. 1: The various guides I can find are pretty old (~2011 vintage), and nowadays there's official statements saying things like "You need to go back to your home country to get a Z visa", but as far as I can tell, no-one actually does this. Is there something specific I need to do to avoid that regulation, or does it just get ignored most of the time? 2: What are my chances of actually applying for the visa myself without an agent? Or should I just man up and pay out for CTS or something? 3: Speaking of which, has anyone got recent prince information from CTS about Z-visa cost for someone on the rich-country list? (US, UK, etc)
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Oct 24, 2014 06:18
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Your company must be total poo poo if they are making you do all this by yourself. That's weak. You are in China right now on another visa and trying to go to Hong Kong to get a Z visa? Is that correct? I feel like GuestBob could chime in here, I've been doing all the visa stuff with my office but we do everything in the States beforehand and have never done anything with anyone from the UK or in Hong Kong.
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Oct 24, 2014 06:25
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Atopian posted:Yet Another Visa Question: You should seriously consider quitting and looking for a real company.
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Oct 24, 2014 06:32
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Here's a blast from the past: Quit Your Job.
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Oct 24, 2014 06:49
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If I could go back in time a couple of months, that is just the advice I would give myself, but sadly this lack-of-helpfulness coincidentally materialised about 10 days before my current visa runs out, and about eight days before my flight to HK. :-/ So, I figure getting a work visa + reaidency permit with my current company, hunting down something better, *then* telling them to screw off might be the better plan... But yeah. Any thoughts on unassisted visa applications for noobs? EDIT: Yes, I'm in China on an X visa, trying to go legal now. Atopian fucked around with this message at 08:55 on Oct 24, 2014 |
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Oct 24, 2014 08:51
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Atopian posted:If I could go back in time a couple of months, that is just the advice I would give myself, but sadly this lack-of-helpfulness coincidentally materialised about 10 days before my current visa runs out, and about eight days before my flight to HK. :-/ When we were headed out of China this summer, our university was looking to bring in replacements and had found a few candidates who were currently in HK or Korea and the government in Zhejiang kept saying these folks would need to go back to their home countries if they wanted to secure the proper visa. Not sure if that was just government obfuscation or Zhejiang being weird, but there were definitely some roadblocks in the way. It hadn't been an issue for us because we came straight from the States. In any event, this should absolutely not be your responsibility.
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Oct 24, 2014 09:21
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Atopian posted:First off, basic info: I'm a British citizen, I'm working for a poo poo-but-legit company (the 'poo poo' bit is leaving me to sort my visa out), so I've got the necessary documents for a Z visa. 1/ Where you can apply for a visa completely depends on the paperwork your company is responsible for supplying. It also depends on the type of job you're doing. Is it teaching, or something else? The regulations for teaching differ, and employment permit comes from a different bureau if you're doing another type of job. 2/ You can get the visa in HK without problems, if you have all the paperwork (varies depending on job type), completely filled out, correctly filled out, in triplicate, and are missing nothing. See this helpful infographic for the foreign expert process.
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Oct 24, 2014 09:23
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Atopian posted:But yeah. Any thoughts on unassisted visa applications for noobs? You don't need much (work permit, visa notification, photos, passport) but you will have to go to Hong Kong or at least leave the country and come back in on a z visa. It's hard to explain but to get a residence permit you have to enter China on a z visa, there is no "switching over" in-country.
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Oct 24, 2014 10:58
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Atopian posted:If I could go back in time a couple of months, that is just the advice I would give myself, but sadly this lack-of-helpfulness coincidentally materialised about 10 days before my current visa runs out, and about eight days before my flight to HK. :-/ Which city are you based in right now? And when will you be in HK?
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Oct 24, 2014 11:41
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Whether or not you can go to Hong Kong to get your Z Visa probably depends on what it says on your work permit (maybe it's the invitation letter?). It will either say your home country or Hong Kong. When applying for the work permit, the paperwork is done online and the FAO should have the opportunity to select the place where you'll pick it up. This is from my experience from 2012.
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Oct 24, 2014 11:57
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Thanks for the info and links everyone! I found out today that my invitation paperwork does specify "Hong Kong SAR", which is a good sign. I hope. As has been pointed out, this whole episode isn't a great indicator of my employer's suitability to be, well, my employer. :-S In response to the other question: I'm based in Kunshan, near Shanghai, and I'll be in HK from the 27th to the 29th of October (next week). I hope. If I'm there longer due to a 'hilarious' paperwork problem, then it'll be cheap-rear end cardboard-bowl-noodle o'clock...
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Oct 24, 2014 13:27
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Atopian posted:If I could go back in time a couple of months, that is just the advice I would give myself, but sadly this lack-of-helpfulness coincidentally materialised about 10 days before my current visa runs out, and about eight days before my flight to HK. :-/ If you quit now, it will be easy for you to find other employment in China. Once you go through this residence permit etc process, you will need your current employer's authorization to legally find a new job. Good luck telling them to screw off and by the way can you give me a release letter before I go?
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Oct 24, 2014 15:09
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Ack! Hmm, OK, this is where I think very hard very fast. Thank you for the heads-up. At a slight tangent, which will hopefully not be relevant to this particular situation: how much trouble can a vengeful former employer cause for you with regard to release letters? Are they obliged to give them *eventually*, or can they effectively give you the run-around for as long as they want? Is there any cost to them for doing this, in terms of money / legal issues / bad reputation?
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Oct 24, 2014 15:48
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go read the ceciltron saga...
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Oct 24, 2014 15:58
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Atopian posted:
You weren't actually studying? If you're at a legit school, no matter how lovely, that's legal. Is your current employer sponsoring you in any way for the Z visa? If not, you're not going legal. Also that would mean you don't have to worry about your employer not releasing you; the release would have to come from your real fake sponsor. If they are sponsoring you, you need to be gathering material to blackmail your employer with.
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Oct 24, 2014 16:12
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systran posted:go read the ceciltron saga... Yup. It can go real bad, real fast.
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Oct 24, 2014 16:14
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I'm a saga now? Guess I should write up all my posts/ the whole story into one thing.
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Oct 24, 2014 16:25
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It was definitely a saga... If fat nerd culture hadn't appropriated the word, I would dare to say it was an epic saga
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Oct 24, 2014 16:28
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Saga is perfect because then I think of the Icelandic Njal's Saga and how the titular character is a lawyer who gives lots of terrible advice and then ends up getting his house burned down around him and most of his family.
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Oct 24, 2014 16:38
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Atopian posted:At a slight tangent, which will hopefully not be relevant to this particular situation: how much trouble can a vengeful former employer cause for you with regard to release letters? Are they obliged to give them *eventually*, or can they effectively give you the run-around for as long as they want? Is there any cost to them for doing this, in terms of money / legal issues / bad reputation? Here's what I found out when I was there: Unless you have IRON-CLAD evidence that your boss is doing something MONDO ILLEGAL, I mean like, selling drugs to kids and stealing from the government, don't even try. They are teflon. They have better guanxi. They will always have better guanxi. But let's say for humour's sake, you've got something reasonable, like an illegal contract and employer-forged documents. You'll both get dinged. You see, it's your fault for signing an illegal contract, and, because you'll be illegal, you'll retroactively probably owe quite a bit of money for illegally working and residing in the country, not to mention being a party to fraud. That's the worst case. Best case scenario you are unceremoniously ejected from the country and made to pay some kind of penalty to the government. You can't win. Even if you get a lawyer, the likelihood is that you'll have to go through arbitration, through the labour or foreign expert bureau or whatever (my lawyer said, in perfect english "the first step to litigation is arbitration", which can take weeks, months, years, if at all. By that time you'll have certainly gone over your stay and won't even be able to effectively represent yourself or work elsewhere (your boss owns the permit for your labour, remember? They literally own your right to work in China.). If you want to get back at them, you will never be satisfied. The best you can do is badmouth them online if they treat you poorly, and spread negative word of mouth among expats. This may or may not be effective, depends on how popular you are. You can't beat China. I learned this, and I tried. I got my work visa switched to an exit visa and haven't looked back. Working in China means taking certain risks, it means not being certain about your situation, your employment, your legality, your welcome. It's an experience I enjoyed, but couldn't handle the existential horror of. I'm coming back to visit though. There's much less existential horror as a simple visitor. And the release letter? They're not legally obliged to do poo poo. Most of the time they'll demand money for it, and that's not even a guarantee they'll be releasing you with whatever document they give you, since you can't (I'm assuming) read Chinese or navigate legalese. Ceciltron fucked around with this message at 16:44 on Oct 24, 2014 |
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Oct 24, 2014 16:42
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Ceciltron posted:You can't win. I remember a number of us singing this refrain over and over at the time...
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Oct 24, 2014 16:51
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blinkyzero posted:I remember a number of us singing this refrain over and over at the time... Well yeah, of course, but at least now we know for sure. I mean right now there's an actual experience we can all base the "quit your job, you can't win" mantra on.
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Oct 24, 2014 16:52
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caberham posted:Which city are you based in right now? And when will you be in HK? Lol fart simpson posted:If you quit now, it will be easy for you to find other employment in China. Once you go through this residence permit etc process, you will need your current employer's authorization to legally find a new job. Good luck telling them to screw off and by the way can you give me a release letter before I go? This is great advice
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Oct 24, 2014 16:56
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Ceciltron posted:Here's what I found out when I was there: FYI TWM and I told you this literally half a year ago while arakan was urging you to sue. Let future goons know just to GTFO because 
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Oct 24, 2014 17:03
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learning from experience (体会到) is much more valuable than any other lesson (课程)
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Oct 24, 2014 17:11
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Sounds... scary. But yeah, in any case 'vengeance' for bad treatment wouldn't be on the cards beyond the previously-mentioned Internet Badmouthing after I GTFO. Although I doubt this company wants to shaft anyone too badly because they've got about 6 foreigners with negligible loyalty, so every time one of us has problems we all get nervous, at which point the management gets nervous and becomes more helpful (one foreigner quitting is his own problem. Two or three in a relatively short space of time? Management problem.) So yeah, my employer is sponsoring me for the Z visa, and I have documents in hand now (which is more than I had when I made my opening post), but they are providing *zero* help/guidance beyond that, other than "Go to HK and get a visa", hence my nervousness and questions here. My co-workers are variously American (who apparently have different stuff to follow, may be a cover for guanxi they don't want to share), previous-visa-fuckups whose examples I don't want to follow, or using-study-visas-for-years people whose example I *also* don't want to follow. That said, comments here about the relative difficulty of quitting before/after the Z visa have me thinking hard. In other news, since I lack access to the search function (but do have archives), can anyone link to the Terrible Tale of Ceciltron?
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Oct 24, 2014 17:15
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Buy search. It's worth it for the peace of mind. Especially when it comes to your livelihood
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Oct 24, 2014 17:17
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Ceciltron had a poo poo boss. Ceciltron told boss to gently caress off and ran away. Spoiler you can't do that in China and if you do keep running ceciltron was convinced to try to sue boss for release letter even though both broke contract but that doesn't matter as most contracts I've seen are written against the foreigner and if you break it you lose. Goons told ceciltron to just leave, one or two felt China was lawful and said sue but this was terribly bad advice I went looking for quotes but I couldn't find it and I'm lazy and it's time for bed. Bottom line is just check here if you're going to do something and then listen to what TWM says
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Oct 24, 2014 17:43
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goldboilermark posted:and then listen to what TWM says I'm not sure about the rest but this part is true. Always do what TWM says and then post about it here after plz, thx
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Oct 24, 2014 17:52
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China is lawful when it comes to large commercial contracts and lawyers. Or at least on the surface of things. For better or worse, you should still sue and post everything in the forums for us to marvel
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Oct 24, 2014 18:01
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