|
Fleta Mcgurn posted:Or drink at all. Or watch a movie. Or show an ankle. I knew a teacher that took a gig there because he was an alcoholic and addicted to hookers, so he went to sober himself up. He somehow lasted the year of his contract, but he literally disappeared off the face of the earth after that, nuking all his social media accounts in the process. I even searched the online white pages for his name and all the records were really old. I guess he died. Futanari Damacy posted:It's unfair to compare a country we all hate to one that's our ally and even worse But 70% good, 30% bad?
|
#
?
Feb 15, 2022 00:27
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 30, 2024 10:19 |
|
|
Atopian posted: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? I never had to get a full physical or ultrasound prior to getting a visa to live in other countries before I lived in China. e: said physical and ultrasound was performed in China which was extra weird and the form had lots of questions to make sure I didn’t have gay blood or history of mental illnesses and something. Plus, yeah having a couple local police come knocking at your door every few months was never not an unsettling surprise. sticksy fucked around with this message at 01:10 on Feb 15, 2022 |
|
#
?
Feb 15, 2022 01:00
|
|
|
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. Friend teaching in Korea needed his Law Degree (original sheepskin) for the University to verify him. When he got it back it was obvious that it had been on someone's desk collecting wrinkles and spilled coffee. The same place smudged rubber stamp ink on mine and you could tell someone tried to clean it with a damp cloth.
|
|
#
?
Feb 15, 2022 01:33
|
|
|
https://twitter.com/a_palf/status/1492750910887448582?s=21
|
|
#
?
Feb 15, 2022 01:39
|
|
|
Horatius Bonar posted: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.
|
|
#
?
Feb 15, 2022 02:08
|
|
|
PITY BONER posted:But 70% good, 30% bad? 10% Oil, 90% dogshit.
|
|
#
?
Feb 15, 2022 02:08
|
|
|
misread show an ankle as shove an auntie
|
|
#
?
Feb 15, 2022 02:09
|
|
|
Horatius Bonar posted:Absolutely not. The USA asks where you're going to stay as a basic part of the visa application, and requires a 10-print for all visas except for kids under 14, adults over 79, or official visas. Most other countries don't do a 10-print and settle for thumbs and/or index fingers. The much bigger problem with China isn't getting the visa to get in, but all the arbitrary exit bans to leave.
|
|
#
?
Feb 15, 2022 02:35
|
|
|
sticksy posted:I never had to get a full physical or ultrasound prior to getting a visa to live in other countries before I lived in China. When I changed jobs from Korea to China the first time. I had to get a medical check up before I was allowed to get the visa. So I got one at the local hospital, (I lived in a rural area). Turns out that wasn't good enough, so I got another at the hospital at the Regional centre. That also wasn't good enough. So I had to take days off work to make the trip up to Busan to get an expensive medical check up at the big fancy foreigner hospital which would be accepted. And then once I arrived in China, I had to get all those same tests done in Chengdu, because China doesn't trust filthy foreign medicine. Blistex posted:Friend teaching in Korea needed his Law Degree (original sheepskin) for the University to verify him. When he got it back it was obvious that it had been on someone's desk collecting wrinkles and spilled coffee. When I worked in Asan the Board of Education needed my original degree. (Stamped and apostilled). After working there 3 years I asked for it back and they said no. No reason, just no, we wont give back your degree. So for every subsequent job I always use an authorized, stamped, verified blah de blah-ed photocopy. Coz the bloody Uni charged me multiple hundreds of dollars to reprint me my degree certificate.
|
|
#
?
Feb 15, 2022 02:44
|
|
|
sticksy posted:I never had to get a full physical or ultrasound prior to getting a visa to live in other countries before I lived in China. i wonder if theres any studies done on if the full exams nearly every chinese person gets annually help with the early discovery of potential issues. i go every year cuz my company pays for it and it involves all the bloodwork and poo poo of a physical in the states but also ultrasounds, ECGs, chest xrays, etc... I assume it must help somewhat? last time they told me i had some calcium buildup in my kidneys and to drink more water and less coffee unless i want kidney stones so i did appreciate that to scare me into better hydration lol with the police checking up on foreigners thing, i've heard this before and i never had police come to my place once in [way too long] years of living in china. idk if im just lucky or just I cuz I always lived in big-ish cities with too many foreigners for them to keep tabs on or what. i guess small town cops are bored. one time I did get a phone call from the local paichusuo in chengdu asking if I still lived at my address cuz I guess the lease they had on file had expired and I said I did and they just said "ok" and that was it. in shanghai now you can't even register at police stations in most of the city, you have to use an online portal. i say most of the city cuz there are a select number of neighborhoods you have to not only register in person but with your landlord physically present with their original housing deed and poo poo, which is about 5 levels above what you usually need when registering. i found this out when I moved into one! luckily my landlord also lived in the neighborhood and was cool so he came down. we asked why and the police officer told us multiple people in this area were running a huge scam renting apartments themselves then illegally subleasing them foreigners at massively jacked up rates which is a very good grift imo.
|
|
#
?
Feb 15, 2022 03:28
|
|
|
Ailumao posted:with the police checking up on foreigners thing, i've heard this before and i never had police come to my place once in [way too long] years of living in china. idk if im just lucky or just I cuz I always lived in big-ish cities with too many foreigners for them to keep tabs on or what. i guess small town cops are bored. You're lucky. I had the cops drop by six-ish times in Chengdu. Never a big deal, just had to show my passport and they left, but annoying.
|
|
#
?
Feb 15, 2022 04:32
|
|
|
yeah one time I was at a friends house when they came by. idk if they have a list or what cuz it seems to be "never" or "constant" with no in between for checking up.
|
|
#
?
Feb 15, 2022 06:06
|
|
|
Funny thing is I went by the local PD after vacation once since you're supposed to re-register and they were just like "why are you bothering us, we've never heard of that" and shooed me out. It's not like my neighborhood cops were super zealous.
|
|
#
?
Feb 15, 2022 07:23
|
|
|
one place i lived at they were crazy about that and would call me to come down to update things if they got ping'd I re-entered or something (i guess i got phone calls over visits, in retrospect) but yeah I also got "wtf why are you doing this isn't something you need to do" in other places.
|
|
#
?
Feb 15, 2022 07:35
|
|
|
You're lucky though if they were at least on top of things and accurate about it. I had a whole thing last year where a cop made a mistake but she was the cop that ran the whole thing, and they thought I had lived somewhere once that I didn't live. She refused to accept "I've never lived there, I've never even been to that part of town, I don't know this place at all." As far as she was concerned, if the little app on her phone said I lived there then I must have lived there even though it made absolutely zero sense for me to live there and there was no other evidence of me being there at any time in my life. It took a whole day to get straightened out.
|
|
#
?
Feb 15, 2022 08:29
|
|
|
Ailumao posted:yeah one time I was at a friends house when they came by. idk if they have a list or what cuz it seems to be "never" or "constant" with no in between for checking up. Yeah, I've never had the police come calling randomly at my house. One time they came by because one of my housemates was a Bad Man. One time they came by because weird covid requirements. Otherwise silent. I do register my address when I move house and exit-reenter the country, despite sometimes being told I don't have to, because sometimes I'm told I *do* have to, and I'd rather not try to explain the former to the latter.
|
|
#
?
Feb 15, 2022 09:21
|
|
|
what'd your housemate do that made him bad?
|
|
#
?
Feb 15, 2022 09:30
|
|
|
BrainDance posted:what'd your housemate do that made him bad? A vast list that I shudder to recall. Theft, violence, threats, being really lovely. The police coming to our door was something about a prostitute, I think? He was the friend of an acquaintance and I lasted ~3 months in that house. I had been house-sharing for my entire adult life up to that point, but never since.
|
|
#
?
Feb 15, 2022 09:57
|
|
|
once i lived in a very strange building in chengdu where half the rooms on the floor i lived on were small-ish, 1-2 room apartments and the other half were a very cheap business hotel's rooms. I was surrounded on both sides by hotel rooms. opposite me were some actual neighbors. I had a handful random ladies come knocking asking if I'd "ordered" them, then realize they had the wrong room when a foreign goon opened up the door.
|
|
#
?
Feb 15, 2022 10:22
|
|
|
We never had the cops show up at our place, maybe because our apartment was probably rented in the name of our Chinese employer? We did once have the sink blow up, which was exciting but ultimately ruined Valentine's Day 2017.
|
|
#
?
Feb 15, 2022 10:38
|
|
|
When the two Michaels got arrested, we were planning to visit my in-laws in Hainan. I told my wife about this requirement, which we'd never done before, and anyway she'd never heard of it so it didn't exist. Not even pointing it out on the official entry reform worked. At the end she just said if the police ever came she'd ask a family Party member to sort it out.
|
|
#
?
Feb 15, 2022 11:18
|
|
|
not believing that laws are actually written is a perfectly rational attitude towards the law in asia like half to 2/3 the time contracts are real iffy too, gotta go do the drinking rigamarole to actually trust peeps
|
|
#
?
Feb 15, 2022 11:21
|
|
|
BrainDance posted:You're lucky though if they were at least on top of things and accurate about it. One of the benefits of Chengdu is everyone is too busy napping to cause trouble like that.
|
|
#
?
Feb 15, 2022 19:19
|
|
Atopian posted:A vast list that I shudder to recall. Theft, violence, threats, being really lovely. oh man his social credit score must be in the toilet!!
|
|
|
#
?
Feb 15, 2022 19:27
|
|
|
I never had the cops show up at my door in Beijing and the most trouble I had when re-registering every year were the cops staring at my passport for 15 minutes and then asking what country am I from, even though it was all there in the previous year's paper with exactly the same information.
|
|
#
?
Feb 15, 2022 19:48
|
|
|
yeah they came every 6 months, I never registered so every time they just told me to go register tomorrow (I never did) also one weird trick was just not answering if anyone knocks the door like a cop, there's so many empty apartments they give up pretty quickly when I was renting from the local police chief I did answer though out of politeness
|
|
#
?
Feb 16, 2022 13:05
|
|
|
Seth Pecksniff posted:oh man his social credit score must be in the toilet!! 
|
|
#
?
Feb 16, 2022 16:38
|
|
|
Vesi posted:yeah they came every 6 months, I never registered so every time they just told me to go register tomorrow (I never did) I'm calling bullshit, that registration paper is like an electricity/water/gas bill in France, you can't do anything without one. Without bribes anyway.
|
|
#
?
Feb 16, 2022 17:30
|
|
|
I wish this wasn't paywalled because it looks like an interesting read https://www.wsj.com/articles/beijing-weighs-how-far-to-go-in-backing-putin-on-ukraine-11645050771
|
|
|
#
?
Feb 16, 2022 23:55
|
|
|
Seth Pecksniff posted:I wish this wasn't paywalled because it looks like an interesting read wsj posted:Russian President Vladimir Putin, left, meeting his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in Beijing earlier this month for the opening of the Winter Olympics and to discuss the two countries’ ties.
|
|
#
?
Feb 17, 2022 02:04
|
|
|
Thanks mate.
|
|
#
?
Feb 17, 2022 02:44
|
|
|
Darkest Auer posted:I'm calling bullshit, that registration paper is like an electricity/water/gas bill in France, you can't do anything without one. Without bribes anyway. I was living as a tourist for seven years so beyond going to the bank I never had to deal with any authorities, all before xi really got going though it's probably different now Vesi fucked around with this message at 12:57 on Feb 17, 2022 |
|
#
?
Feb 17, 2022 11:09
|
|
|
More importantly, it's China. There may be laws but in practice everything is different every time and depends entirely on the whims of whoever you're talking to.
|
|
#
?
Feb 17, 2022 21:33
|
|
|
Grand Fromage posted:There may be laws but in practice everything is different every time and depends entirely on the whims of whoever you're talking to. Jesus. Can't imagine living in a country like this.
|
|
#
?
Feb 17, 2022 22:37
|
|
|
The idea that laws ought to be applied equally and uniformly is a relatively novel one, and definitely still a controversial one, regardless of the country
|
|
#
?
Feb 17, 2022 22:40
|
|
|
Futanari Damacy posted:Jesus. Can't imagine living in a country like this. It's weird for sure. It's not all bad once you get used to it and learn to manipulate it though. When rules don't really exist, if you have the patience and will you can just keep talking to other people and/or pushing and get your way on things. Oh I'm not allowed to have two bank accounts? I'm just going to sit here in this chair for three hours until you give up. Sometimes I read about how rigid and inflexible rules are in places like Japan and I feel like China is better since no rules exist if you're willing to be an rear end in a top hat and waste a bunch of time. I dunno. Korea's kind of midway between the two and might be the best on that. Of course this same situation is why crossing a busy road in China is a near-fatal experience of playing real life Frogger so. Every coin has two sides. Grand Fromage fucked around with this message at 22:54 on Feb 17, 2022 |
|
#
?
Feb 17, 2022 22:49
|
|
|
Grand Fromage posted:There may be laws but in practice everything is different every time and depends entirely on the whims of whoever you're talking to. Excuse me sir this is not the America thread
|
|
#
?
Feb 17, 2022 22:55
|
|
|
Alan Smithee posted:Excuse me sir this is not the America thread I know you're cracking wise but I knew someone was going to say this for real. It is one of the many, many things that yes, this happens in other countries too, but the degree in China is entirely different.
|
|
#
?
Feb 17, 2022 22:57
|
|
Grand Fromage posted:Of course this same situation is why crossing a busy road in China is a near-fatal experience of playing real life Frogger so. Every coin has two sides. God crossing the road in a lot of Asian countries is basically playing Frogger. I love Asia (SE Asia in particular), but pedestrian crossing in Vietnam and Thailand was like playing Russian roulette I remember being in a songthaew in Thailand and we were literal inches from death because the driver decided to pull a u-turn in front of a speeding luxury bus and I swear to you I could have reached out and touched it. It was that close. I haven't been close to making GBS threads myself like that since I was a small child, but holy hell
|
|
|
#
?
Feb 17, 2022 23:00
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 30, 2024 10:19 |
|
|
It took over a year post-China to get used to the idea that traffic signals actually have meaning and most people do what they say. I still have a visceral "avoid at all costs" reaction to seeing dump trucks.
|
|
#
?
Feb 17, 2022 23:05
|
|