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eSports Chaebol posted:No but the point is that the CCP could try a lot harder to crack down on VPNs than they do but they don’t care. Saying "they could be worse" is not the argument you seem to think it is.
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Feb 14, 2022 04:14
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That's always the argument line. "It's not happening, and if it is it's not that bad, and if it is that bad, they deserved it anyway."
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Feb 14, 2022 04:19
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Megillah Gorilla posted:Saying "they could be worse" is not the argument you seem to think it is. calm down I’m not defending shelling parliament with tanks here I’m just pointing out that gu saying to use a vpn isn’t a big deal
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Feb 14, 2022 04:35
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eSports Chaebol posted:. it’s not a 1984 North Korea triple secret iron curtain regime. You do realize that (well aside from COVID restrictions now) you can like, just book a plane ticket to China? And Chinese people can go to other countries? You realise its actually after I get a reference from a Chinese citizen, apply for a visa, hand over my passport, wait 3 weeks, and pay several hundred dollars? Have you actually done this? Because I'm sure you haven't. It's not a triple secret iron curtain regime, it's an iron curtain regime. China is definitely hard to get to.
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Feb 14, 2022 04:43
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eSports Chaebol posted:No but the point is that the CCP could try a lot harder to crack down on VPNs than they do but they don’t care. it’s not a 1984 North Korea triple secret iron curtain regime. You do realize that (well aside from COVID restrictions now) you can like, just book a plane ticket to China? And Chinese people can go to other countries? The government can’t and doesn’t try to suppress everything; they just bluntly shape the discourse by censoring what most people see in public. Peng Shuai was unable to be reached for comment
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Feb 14, 2022 04:43
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How IS peng Shuai able to post?
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Feb 14, 2022 04:48
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Dongsturm posted:You realise its actually after I get a reference from a Chinese citizen, apply for a visa, hand over my passport, wait 3 weeks, and pay several hundred dollars? Have you actually done this? Because I'm sure you haven't. This is just immigration though? There are lots of countries that don't have a visa waiver agreement with the US too and have to go through a whole thing to get in the country.
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Feb 14, 2022 04:59
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eSports Chaebol posted:calm down I’m not defending shelling parliament with tanks here I’m just pointing out that gu saying to use a vpn isn’t a big deal  It's not a big deal for her because she's still got the foreigners pass on what you can do in the mainland. Most people on Weibo, like here, just think it was a dumb comment and shows her privilege a little more. What you get flat out canceled for as netizen PITY BONER explained is further down an undefined line, like drugs, sex scandals, or having the wrong historical understanding of Japan.
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Feb 14, 2022 05:02
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BrainDance posted:This is just immigration though? There are lots of countries that don't have a visa waiver agreement with the US too and have to go through a whole thing to get in the country. And most of those countries don't require a written invitation from a citizen. This detour into "China is an open and welcoming country" is very odd.
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Feb 14, 2022 05:11
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Aren't most of the more laborious visa requirements just mirrors of what Chinese citizens are required to do to get a visa to the respective countries?
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Feb 14, 2022 06:11
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Absolutely not. I can't think of a western country that requires a letter of invitation, or even proof of a round-trip plane ticket. Or asks which hotel you're staying at. And it better be a hotel, I don't know what happens if you're staying with a friend living there. And apparently now fingerprints?? Must be new. Going to a country without a reciprocal visa arrangement with your country always sucks, but mainland China is up there with Russia for not making it easy. And if you want a Z visa now to actually spend enough time there to get an idea of daily life, I think the process is still "lol get hosed" Horatius Bonar fucked around with this message at 06:55 on Feb 14, 2022 |
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Feb 14, 2022 06:26
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Horatius Bonar posted:King poo poo. https://twitter.com/jordyxcollins/status/1492888809561858055?s=20&t=TaCfgHn--Y2MO578P1HbEA no surprise here Say, how would you characterize Chinese vs North Korean censorship?
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Feb 14, 2022 06:45
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The Chinese aren’t shooting you or your family so that’s a step up
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Feb 14, 2022 06:55
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Dongsturm posted:You realise its actually after I get a reference from a Chinese citizen, apply for a visa, hand over my passport, wait 3 weeks, and pay several hundred dollars? Have you actually done this? Because I'm sure you haven't. Horatius Bonar posted:Absolutely not. to travel to north america, australia, the EU, etc... most people from Asia, Africa and South America have to do interviews, hand over bank statements, full itineraries with contact information. i'm not saying china isn't purposely more complicated to get into than most places, but of that sort of rigamarole is very much required for most of the world to enter the US or Europe, even for tourism pre-covid. citizens from countries like the US being able to just go anywhere is very much the exception. i went to germany years ago with some friends from china and while the americans and canadians could literally just buy plane tickets and show up at the frankfurt airport, our friends from China and elsewhere in SEA had to spend weeks doing paperwork to get a visa (which included bank statements and financial info) and had to show full itineraries on entry, and the women even got grilled by immigration on if they were pregnant/etc (the white women in our group did not get asked this). Ailumao fucked around with this message at 07:33 on Feb 14, 2022 |
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Feb 14, 2022 07:24
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Horatius Bonar posted:Absolutely not. And if you're there for a while, don't forget having to go check in with the police all the time. Perfectly normal.
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Feb 14, 2022 08:38
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I guess the point is it's not "just get on a plane, a visa is literally free" Like, I would if I could. I miss it there, posting so much because a few days ago I left my rice out overnight and remembered this thread.
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Feb 14, 2022 09:48
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its like 150 usd equivalent for richer countries and 50 usd equivalent for poorer countries for that visa, in addition to the questions, lol
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Feb 14, 2022 09:50
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It's the covid restrictions now that are the barrier for me. If you know a way to get around them as a tourist I'm all ears.
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Feb 14, 2022 09:57
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there are none. and i did a fuckton of research about whether there are any closest i heard of is payin a snakehead to get you into yunnan from vietnam
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Feb 14, 2022 09:59
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All this visa talk is making me so glad for my Australian passport. Makes it so easy pretty much everywhere in the world. So many "Visa Waiver" countries. YAY me and the country that both my parents emigrated to. And whilst I never had to get a tourist visa for China, I have had to get working visas for there multiple times. And it was a pain in the arse each time, requiring lotsa stupid paperwork and extra fees. But not excessively more than other places I have gotten working visas for.
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Feb 14, 2022 10:11
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you can basically tell that south korea is the only country to go from poor to rich under the liberal democratic world order because the passport went from absolute dog poo poo to really good
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Feb 14, 2022 10:14
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My wife's Taiwanese passport has gotten better just since I met her in 2009. Getting into the United States is a nominal fee and online registration, far less hassle than the interview process she used to have to go through.
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Feb 14, 2022 10:35
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ah poo poo forgot about taiwan in the china thread lol theres also spore and hk, altho hk was always richer
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Feb 14, 2022 10:41
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Yeah I lived in Taiwan for two years mostly because the visas were easy, just go visit HK or Tokyo or something a few days every 3 months and good to go, get paid under the table. Didn't plan to stay as long as I did, but it was just too good.
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Feb 14, 2022 10:47
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On 90 Day Fiance this season, they finally have a Chinese cast member. He claimed that at the last minute he couldn't get a visa to go to Singapore to meet his 400-pound Idahoan inamorata. My partner and I had fun speculating as to what he did that was so bad he couldn't get a Singapore visa until he admitted he was just scared to catch COVID in the US and die without health insurance. Which, fair. But at first we were like "omg they're not gonna let people out anymore!" (it's been a boring couple months hiding from Omicron; we take what excitement we can get).
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Feb 14, 2022 11:19
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Coffee Jones posted:https://twitter.com/jordyxcollins/status/1492888809561858055?s=20&t=TaCfgHn--Y2MO578P1HbEA Yahoo Sports cites Reddit as the source, but there are just a screencap of the original posting by Lylynperä followed by a screencap of comments in Chinese. I don't get it? Fwiw this hasn't been reported in Finland, which I would expect would happen.
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Feb 14, 2022 11:32
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Megillah Gorilla posted:And if you're there for a while, don't forget having to go check in with the police all the time. Hahaha I forgot about that experience. Went to the local police station because I didn't want to get my friend in trouble. The "local" building was some megastructure that would have dwarfed anything in Sydney at the time. Went to the counter to register, waited a bit, and a more senior officer came out, told us that I was registered and that we shouldn't come back again. I was pretty sure that was how it was going to happen, but my friend firmly believed that obeying the government was the duty of every citizen and that following all the rules and regulations would guarantee a happy and untroubled life. Friend has got a bit wiser since then.
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Feb 14, 2022 14:07
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Finding it p hard to contribute to this thread when my twin positions "it's not as bad as people say" and "...but it's still bad" are both taken.
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Feb 14, 2022 15:52
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Russia does all those things for tourists, too. I lol-cried when my visa agent told me that I had to rewrite and resubmit my 4 page application on 2 sheets, front and back.
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Feb 14, 2022 16:03
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My crazy college roommate claims to have been locked up in Sheremetyevo (sp?) Because she failed to properly bribe a Russian visa lady while using a stolen visa. I think she was lying but I suppose it's not impossible.
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Feb 14, 2022 18:00
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My Russian history prof was one of the first international students at Moscow State University in the 70s or early 80s and got to have a "chat" with a KGB guy in Lubyanka because someone was smuggling in rock and roll and they figured it was one of the American students.
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Feb 14, 2022 18:35
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peanut posted:Russia does all those things for tourists, too. I lol-cried when my visa agent told me that I had to rewrite and resubmit my 4 page application on 2 sheets, front and back. One of my coworkers at a previous job went through the visa process to go to Russia to visit her fiancee's family. For weeks she kept complaining about how the consulate kept delaying things and telling her it would take X more weeks and she needed these other documents etc... Until one day at lunch she was all like "Oh I finally got the visa! The guy at the embassy just told me I could pay a $200 fee to expedite things and everything was sorted out in a few days!" She was fairly mortified when a bunch of us explained to her that no, the fee probably didn't exist and she just paid a bribe.
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Feb 14, 2022 19:14
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Coffee Jones posted:https://twitter.com/jordyxcollins/status/1492888809561858055?s=20&t=TaCfgHn--Y2MO578P1HbEA at least most of the Chinese have internet access pretty sure most North Koreans have no idea what the internet is Also, there's one random white hack hacker who's just basically been running scripts to taken down their entire internet, which is pretty lol in my book
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Feb 14, 2022 19:40
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To get my visa to enter china I had to send all the paperwork to the embassy along with some money, and they sent me my passport back in an open envelope.
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Feb 14, 2022 19:41
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Jusupov posted:To get my visa to enter china I had to send all the paperwork to the embassy along with some money, and they sent me my passport back in an open envelope. JFC I insisted that I come and pick it up. I was freaked out enough by handing it over in the first place. Losing my passport would cost me ~$4000
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Feb 14, 2022 19:46
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Dongsturm posted:JFC I insisted that I come and pick it up. I was freaked out enough by handing it over in the first place. Losing my passport would cost me ~$4000 Yeah. If at all possible I insist on picking up my passport in person. A policy that was justified when, in Fuzhou, I was renewing my working visa because I was changing jobs, and the school nearly lost my passport. Because they had given them the postal address of the school, and when it was delivered to the guard room, it was chucked in a pile and ignored. I remember whinging about it to a previous version of this thread. Lots of stress and hassle on my end, and a lot of shrugging and inaction on the school/guards end. It took me yelling at the guy in charge of surveillance for it to miraculously be found. It was one of the pivotal moments of when I made my mind to leave the glorious PRC.
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Feb 14, 2022 22:40
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I did a multi-year TEFL stint in a few tier-1's in China. As much as China had its good and fun and uniquely enjoyable parts pre-pandemic, it was also not very good in other ways, and a life of rolling with the punches wasn't as cool as it seemed. I picked up on it not long after I arrived, and it controlled my long-term actions and activities in the country past a certain point. I'll never forget the first time I left China for a holiday, my reaction was like an instant "holy gently caress, I should do this as often as I can!!" No other country I've ever been in, whether lived or visited, has been so weirdly fun yet frustratingly obnoxious as China. At the same time, I know the good parts slowly changed by the year with Xi's nationalism and restrictions, and accelerated at break-neck speed after the pandemic. The China I knew and enjoyed before will never be the same, nor will it ever return, much like an ex that had some red-flags but was still fun to hang out with, and who then got into pills and running an illegal internet casino funded by Bitcoin. I don't think I will ever go back again, even for a visit (and even if the pandemic never happened), and especially not to work there after I read what it's like for teachers currently there with the new restrictions placed upon them. I've lurked this thread but, no offense tread regulars, discussing the CCP's ouroboros list of suck and the idiosyncrasies of Chinese life (foreigner or local) makes me itchy. I look back on that time with fondness but, unlike other places, the rose-tinted glasses are unable to ignore the downsides. May I be blessed to never again hear "do u know we Chinese [insert rote-memorized rule about what all Chinese people are supposed to believe or do but usually don't]?" EDIT: Do u know it is alos bad to teach in USA because the combo church and the state are not seperate, and the teachers get paid no good salary, and there is the teaching about the black people history that hurts the feelings of the white peoples? I think you have no right to say about China is bad, because there are Mexico babies in the jail in the Texas. USa only has 200 years history, who made USA the boss of the world? I think you cannot deserve the speak bad about China and our 5000 years history. Why do you come China to teach if China so bad? You are being a hypocrite. At least in China we have 56 species of peoples and they are all Chinese. The Han and the Miao very good. The Han and the Tibet so nice. The Hand and the other 54 group also good. USa and Canada hate their color peoples, even the ones from Mongolia that found USA when they walk on the Russia bridge. Foreigner, go home. eSports Chaebol posted:lol Eileen Gu isn’t getting cancelled for making western social media posts about what it’s like for Chinese mainlanders who use western social media. I'm not saying she is; I am just saying that unless she gets some more media training about how to pretend to be a Chinese citizen, there may come a time where she loses the Chinese media game and her Chinese fame. Like I wrote, the hand that feeds her can, and will, also bite her. The entire process, which applies to all famous people in China, is interesting to me. IMO, its fragility makes for more aggressive kowtowing when needed, such as that piece of poo poo Jackie Chan selling his son out and disowning him (and also his daughter) to keep his public face (and the money coming in). eSports Chaebol posted:You do realize that (well aside from COVID restrictions now) you can like, just book a plane ticket to China? We could do all sorts of poo poo pre-pandemic, so you're speaking in the past tense and being disingenuous. I know a group of Chinese in the US right now who cannot go back to China because their tickets home were cancelled when the government decided to cut more flights and make more arbitrary rules about arrivals before the Olympics (including shutting down all arrivals to Beijing for an indefinite amount of time). If we're doing some "you do realize..." snark about people just booking tickets, but based on actual reality and not 2019, You do realize they need direct flights and can't go to a second country and wait there and/or to transfer planes through, right? You do realize if they miss the window of opportunity on a direct flight, empty seat prices go up to $4000+ per person depending on where they're trying to fly into? You do realize that less-insanely priced seats on direct flights are booked so full in advance, due to limited service and the direct flight requirement, that the people I know who should have flown back to China in December and January could only book as soon as June to fit the rules China has in place on their return? You do realize this means they have to beg the US government for an extension of stay on their visas because their own country doesn't give a poo poo about if they can return or not, and has made it far more complicated to do so? You do realize all of this is happening because they can't like, just book a plane ticket to China, even as citizens of China? As a foreigner, then just LOL even more. Plenty of flights show up on the travel sites, but it doesn't mean they fit the government requirement. Finally, you do realize that in a month or two, all of this may change again and become even more obscure or difficult to handle? I have a master's degree and am a licensed teacher in the US, so my "talents" are sought for the foreign teacher gap currently facing Chinese schools. I am close friends with a Chinese school owner who is in a private/international school WeChat group populated just by school admins or owners, so, even though I am not interested, I've been getting back-channel job ads through school admins for months******, and many of them are trying to get teachers 6+ months in advance because of delays with flights. Even then, I am suspicious of the actual amount of foreign teachers who are getting in at all, because of everything surrounding the process and the flights. I have a Southeast Asian friend who just got over there for an engineering job and it took him 5 months. Nobody is just booking a plane ticket to China anymore. Additionally, even if Covid disappeared tomorrow, the CCP and Xi are enjoying a level of restriction and control that they've been wanting back for decades. Why make it easier? As far as China is concerned, I don't think things will ever go back to the days where "just booking a ticket" are possible, covid or not. IMO, all those China-adjacent countries that relied on the hordes of Chinese tourists to make up some of their local or domestic GDP will never again profit off them. ****** It's fun to see job ads and what they are offering until they get chopped up for public posting for those with only a TEFL certificate as qualification. It's cute how they refuse to cover quarantine and will reimburse you up to a certain amount on a flight that may cost up to double or higher than what they are offering to reimburse. "We're super hard-up for qualified foreign teachers and we will pay you a good salary and apartment allowance, but the first two or so months of your salary might be used to cover your own costs of flying here and getting through quarantine and moving into your new apartment and paying your expenses to survive, lmao. Also, NBD, but we now have government censors who will sit in your classes and will screw with your employment if you talk about yourself or your country in any way that doesn't mention how superior China is to it. All your lessons and materials are subject to censor approval, but if they don't like you as a person then good luck ever getting work done." For work, if I had to choose between two authoritarian, human-rights haters with lovely internet, Saudi Arabia's job-perk benefits are incomparable. Tax-free, all expenses-paid superman packages. Just don't bring porn on your computer or step on a poppy seed in the airport. PITY BONER fucked around with this message at 23:38 on Feb 14, 2022 |
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Feb 14, 2022 23:25
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Or drink at all. Or watch a movie. Or show an ankle. C'mon, no one goes to the Kingdom for a quality-of-life improvement.
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Feb 14, 2022 23:45
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the saudis are great fans of hookers and blow, they just do it on their yachts or in their compounds
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Feb 14, 2022 23:57
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It's unfair to compare a country we all hate to one that's our ally and even worse 
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