visa lording, epilogue

After all the crap I've been through with my visa, I couldn't be done. Of course not. Not until I get away from this wreck of a school. I have tried for the past six months to not be super negative, just objective but honest on here about them, in case anyone from school (staff or students) was reading, but I am absolutely done at this point. DONE.

Where did I leave off this saga? Ah yes, after five months of jerking me around, my school FINALLY got my work visa in early July, making me legal with just one month left on my contract. The school got me a single entry visa, so leaving Hong Kong to come back to work used the entry, but documents you get after your visa essentially act as a new visa.

In order to get the visa in the first place, you must have a Work Permit and an Invitation Letter. After you get the work visa, you have 30 days to get a Foreign Expert Certificate and then a Residence Permit. The Residence Permit is a page in your passport, like a visa, and allows you to travel in and out of the country as you please, like a visa.

As soon as I got back from Hong Kong on July 11th, I was calling, texting, QQ messaging and just generally bothering the guy that handles all that kind of stuff at my school every day to stay on top of my paperwork because I was planning to leave the country August 1st when I finished my contract and I needed to be able to get back in. He kept saying he knew, everything was fine and I would have my paperwork in time.

Then on Thursday of last week, he took me to the police station to have my picture taken for something related to that. The picture was funny, they pulled my hair back, pinned my bangs back, powdered my face with white makeup, covered my clothes with a Chinese scarf and didn't let me smile. After the photo, he grabbed me to leave, but we hadn't been given anything, so I started asking questions. He pretending not to have enough English to answer me (I know he does) and made us go back to school to have a TA translate.

There, he told me that I wouldn't have my Foreign Expert Certificate until this Thursday... after I was already going to be gone. Which would mean no Residence Permit. Which would mean no getting back into China. Which I had a bit of a problem with. My pestering had clearly done nothing, if he'd started the paperwork right away, I'd have had everything no problem.

So, I made a big fuss. I talked to my school VP, the owner, the paper work guy and a bunch of the TAs. They all said they'd see what they could do. And then no one got back to me or gave me any answers or would even talk to me all weekend.

They were essentially screwing me over because I had no leverage any more, being pretty much done teaching. I had had a tourist visa that was valid until February for multiple entries, so I would have been fine, but that was invalidated when I got my work visa. After a bit of freaking out though, I came up with Plan B. In Bangkok, I was going to go to the Chinese Embassy and get a new tourist visa, thereby invalidating the work visa. The tourist visa would then be invalidated in three weeks again when I began at my new school. Convoluted and stupid, but my best option.

Then YESTERDAY (I leave China tomorrow morning mind you), the guy tells me they'll find someone to bribe or whatever and get it done (this is commonplace). He takes me to the police station in the morning for another photo for the Residence Permit. Then in the afternoon, he leaves for Changchun to finish the Foreign Expert Certificate process, which must be done there.

 

This morning, the school calls me and tells me that he needs my original university diploma for this. Pardon me, but shouldn't he have known that prior to leaving? It's not like he's never done this before... I brought it to school and they paid someone to drive it the two hours to him in Changchun. Such a ridiculous waste of money (not that I'm complaining there).

After that, I'm calling every few hours to ask when I'll get my passport, paperwork and diploma back from Changchun. Around 6pm, it turns out my passport has been at the police station here the whole time, but everything has gone through and I have everything I need (yay!). I just need the paperwork guy to return with my original diploma before 3:30am, when we essentially trade places and I leave Songyuan to go to Changchun to catch my flight to Bangkok.

What a cluster. It will literally be within HOURS of leaving the country that I finally have everything I need. So, so happy to be finished with this school.

playing catchup, staaaarting with Changchun

I am finally back in Songyuan. And now I have two and a half weeks' worth of incredible experiences to recount and hundreds upon hundreds of pictures to sort through. It's a little overwhelming, so I'm just starting at the beginning and trying to finish at least one major post a day. We'll see how that goes... hopefully the internet cooperates...

I started my trip right after Dragon Boat Festival; I was supposed to fly out of Changchun on the following Monday. Midday on the Friday of Dragon Boat, my school told me the rest of my classes for the weekend were cancelled. Because I teach adults, when there are holidays class is usually cancelled. Everyone else has to work because holidays mean kids have more free time. Had I known about the cancellation ahead of time (my school certainly should have), I could have left for my trip three days earlier, but oh well.

Initially, a Chinese friend and I were going to go to Changchun after I finished teaching Sunday afternoon to do some shopping, visit another friend and spend the night before I took off Monday morning. He ended up bailing on me last minute, so I asked a student/friend of mine to help me buy my train ticket there instead. The trains in Songyuan don't run on a set schedule week to week and don't have an English website with times listed (yay, small town in China), so it's always fun trying to buy train tickets, especially day of.

We got to the train station maybe an hour and a half before when I thought there was sometimes a train (1pm). The 1pm train turned out to be sold out; there was also a 2pm and 3pm train, so my student bought me a ticket for the 2pm train.

She was absolutely adorable, she went all mama bear on me and was so worried for me at the train station. She kept going up to teenagers (more likely to speak English) asking them if they would help me find my train, my seat, Changchun, my friend's apartment, etc. After getting me through security, she went up to a security guard to basically ask him to babysit me as well.

After talking to him, it turned out that she had bought me a ticket on the slow train, which takes four hours instead of two (bleh, neither of us had even known there WAS a slow train to Changchun) and that there weren't assigned seats, so it would be a mad dash onto the train. After pestering him for a good 30 or 45 minutes, she convinced him to let me board the train ten minutes early. He would let me through the gate when another train was boarding and then walk me to my train to make sure I had the right one and got a great seat. It seemed like as good a plan as I was likely to get, but then at about ten to 1pm, he found me a ticket with an assigned seat on an air conditioned car for the sold out 1pm fast train! Hooray for amazing friends and people being unjustifiably worried for me. Mine student even called me later in the afternoon to make sure I had found my friend's apartment alright.

When I got to Changchun, I went through the usual hell of getting a taxi to my friend's apartment, it took literally almost an hour just to hail one. Taxis are notoriously hard to in Changchun, especially if you're foreign, it's ridiculous.

We went out with some other foreigners that night, nothing too exciting; good times were had by all and I was off to Siem Reap, Cambodia at 8am the next morning!

This gem was a block down the the train station.

Random fashion show near my friend's apartment.

Yep, THAT trend is international.

visa lording update

When my hypothetical friend that was having issues with her school getting her visa in my previous posts flew into Changchun after her trip, a caretaker type guy from her school picked her up and informed her that they were spending the night in Changchun. A few of the other teachers were to meet them in the morning so everyone could get physicals for their visas. She and the guy that had gone to Hong Kong got theirs, along with three women that had been teaching at the school for like three years that all already had visas. The place they got the physicals was basically a physical factory; it was a medical office that only did physicals for visas and cranked them out ridiculously quickly for tons of people.

When she finally got back to Songyuan, she asked her school owner when he would send her to Hong Kong again with her correct paperwork. She basically told him she was leaving if it wasn't in the next two weeks. He promised her that by July 10th she'd be there, it was going to take some time to cancel her old, incorrect documents and reapply for them.

She's going on holiday again soon, and is supposed to be gone until July 8th, so when she leaves she just going to have all of her stuff packed up, and if he doesn't send her, she won't return, she'll head straight to the next city she plans to live in. At least that's her plan. She'll lose her flight money and a month of pay in that instance though, which really sucks.

On the upside, the guy pretty much knows not to mess with her as long as she's actually at the school, so he didn't end up trying to deduct money from her pay for the first failed Hong Kong trip.

Hong Kong

Last week I returned from a 10 day trip all over southern China. I started out with a brief stay in Shanzhen en route to Hong Kong for work, followed by about six days in Xiamen and then about three days in Guilin.

The work bit was of course ridiculous, what with all the efforts on the part of my school to cut costs. Instead of taking a taxi directly to the airport in Changchun (which takes about two hours), we took a taxi to the train station in Songyuan, took a train to Changchun, walked to another train station to take another train to the airport (five hours total there), where we took a plane (which we almost missed) and naturally didn't have a direct flight to Shenzhen, and then rounded it all out with a taxi to our hotel. We crashed right away, as we got in pretty late, and then in the morning took three different taxis to three different bus stations before we found one that went to Hong Kong (don't ask me how they didn't know this ahead of time). We finally got on our bus and had to take that one to another bus, to a taxi, to another taxi to check into our hotel in Hong Kong before we could get anything done. Ridiiiiiculous.

Two of us shared this room. Thank god we're small girls!

I went to Hong Kong coming off three consecutive days of Chinese lessons, so I was completely in "attempt as much Chinese as possible" mode when we got there. It was super discouraging and confusing that nobody seemed to understand me and respond to the most basic things... until we realized that they don't speak Mandarin in Hong Kong, they speak Cantonese and English. The English influence is really apparent, not just in the language and the amount of people that speak it. They drive on the left side of the road and drivers seats are on the right side of cards, completely unlike the rest of China. They have their own money. Hong Kong's relationship to China is really interesting. It's officially part of China, but in practice, not so much. Chinese people need a visa to get in!

While we were there we didn't really have time to do much in the way of leisure activities. We were all there for only one night, the rest of my group ended up staying for two, but I had places to go and people to see! Once we finished our work business, we were able to go out that night. We had Mexican food for dinner (YAY!), went to a place called The Peak, which is basically a mountain top overlooking the city and an awesome bar area called Soho.

I'll be back in Hong Kong for work again within the next month, but the trip will be quite similar, with minimal exploration time. Once I move down south to Xiamen, I'll be significantly closer so will be able to make much better exploratory trips!

visa lording pt 2

At my hypothetical friend's school there are four foreign teachers that have been there for at least three years each, all with valid Z visas. There are three teachers on loan from another school in Changchun, all with valid Z visas through their primary school. Then there are six foreigners that have started at various times in the past six months that all are working illegally on tourist visas, my friend being one of them.

Earlier this week, she and two of the others traveled to Hong Kong to get their visas. They were warned by other foreigners in town to make sure they had all the proper documents when they went, even though the school is technically in charge of this, because someone from their school had gone in the past missing a lot of paperwork. My friend checked and everything seemed to be in order.

They were in Hong Kong for two days, to drop off their paperwork one day and pick up their visas the next. They got to the visa office the first day and literally not a single one of them could get a visa. My friend had all the paperwork, but her invitation letter told her to go to an American Embassy, not a Chinese Embassy, so because of this typo  on her school's part she wasn't eligible. One of her coworkers had a physical from a foreign country which is ok when you're doing the visa application by mail, but once you are actually in China, you visa physical must be from Hong Kong or mainland China (turned out my friend also had this problem) and the third member of their group had no physical at all. That one had told her employer as much before they left and apparently he had said she could get it when they returned.

The second day they were there their employer and emailed some paperwork that was supposed to help. He had sent a letter from the school saying my friend was ok (the visa lady basically laughed at her for this), sent forged physical papers for the girl with no physical (she declined to use them) and nothing for the guy with the physical from another country.

At this point it was clear that no one was getting a work visa, but by now everyone at the visa office knew who they were, and the Chinese man from the school that had accompanied them was completely oblivious to the fact that what they were doing was illegal and they could all potentially get in trouble.

This also left the girl with no physical in a bad spot because her tourist visa was only good for one entry, so to return to Songyuan she needed a new one, but everyone at the office knew she really wanted a Z visa, so it was clear she was lying. She ended up going in again without anyone else from the group and successfully applying, but the group did have to extend their stay an extra day to pick up her visa so she could go back to Songyuan.

When the group got back to Songyuan, the school owner informed the group that since they did not get their visas, the trip was actually not for school purposed, so the money for it would be deducted from their salaries. Even though they couldn't get their visas because THE SCHOOL didn't have the proper paperwork and requirements in order. Such bs.

day trip to Changchun

I had an accidental day off last week, so a Chinese friend and I took a day trip to Changchun. The boss of the oil company that I tutor was out of town on a business trip for two weeks and apparently my school didn't know since he was still on my schedule, and my other tutoring student was scheduled with someone else. I had never been to Changchun, which is the closest big city to Songyuan, so an adventure was in order.

We went to Jing Yue Tan Forest Park first. When we first got in it seemed really big, but all man made. It was reminiscent of the aquatic park I had been to in Nanjin, Tianjin. Pretty, but disappointing if you're expecting some real nature. After wandering around for a bit though, we discovered the real lake. There are a bunch of small, man made ones that are meant to look nice near the entrance of the park, but as you get further in you find a large natural lake, forests, hiking trails, places to camp, etc. This park also has the highest point in Chanchun, and a really good view of the whole city.

In addition to the usual park amenities, it also has a driving range, a bath house and random carnival type games and activities. My friend and I did the thing where they strap you into the harness and you're attached to rubber bands on tall poles, jumping on a trampoline, bouncing and flipping. Tops of fun. They can mechanically adjust the tension on the rubber bands, so the workers were grabbing my harness, bouncing me crazy high and then flipping me. I was flying around like a rag doll; it was so much fun!

After the park we went to explore the actual city. Changchun is kind of great; it's pretty, has a good variety of food, good shopping, both traditional Chinese and western influences depending on the area you're in, not a bad spot at all. We had Italian food for lunch, made an actual Italian man, and Indian food for dinner, made by actual Indian people. It was definitely nice to get some variety in my diet!

This is what happens when I let a Chinese saleswoman dress me.

The crappy thing was that after a few hours my neck started to kill. And then my shoulders. After a while I couldn't turn my head or anything and I was in tons of pain. As fun as it was, I got the worst whiplash ever from that rubber bandy thing. My friend was freaking out, trying to convince me that I needed to go to the hospital to get x-rays. This was the day after I had gone to the hospital, so there was no way I was going back, but I knew it was just muscle thing; it was hard to explain that concept to my friend. We drove back to Songyuan that night, I popped a couple of muscle relaxers and decided to deal with it the next day. Regardless, all in all, it was a nice little day trip!

everything that CAN happen will

My trip from Korea back to China got a little long. We had stayed up until about about 1:30-2am the night before and I woke up around 5:30am to make sure I wasn't rushed, could shower and triple check my friend's apartment for my things. She and her boyfriend said I only needed to get to the airport maybe an hour early, even though it was an international flight, because it was early and the airport was small. I ended up there about an hour and a half early, which was definitely good.

I had a lot with me, as I went from straight from Tianjin to Beijing to Busan to move back to Songyuan, so everything I'd brought to live in Tianjin traveled with me the whole time. I discovered that Korean (and Chinese) TSA won't open your bags and search them without you, they will call you into a private room to search them. Both my checked bag and my carry on got marked and searched leaving Korea. Turns out hairspray in a checked bag is cause for concern and a Clarisonic face scrubber thing is in a carry on. Once I got through that, my flight to Shanghai went without a hitch.

In Shanghai I had two hours between arrival and my departure for Changchun to pick up my luggage, recheck my bag, check in to my second flight and get on. My arrival gate was literally the furthest gate in the terminal from the baggage claim. Naturally, both of my bags got searched, again. Same two reasons. Then, once I got to my departure gate, which was also the last gate down the line, Gate #4, there was a change and I had to get from Gate #4 to Gate #203, lol. Not even close.

That flight went fine as well, but was about 30 minutes delayed. I found my driver at the airport with no problems. He's a taxi driver that doesn't speak English, but my school uses him a lot so I recognized him; he's trustworthy and lives in Changchun so he can always pick us up and drive us to Songyuan. I woke up partially into the two hour drive to Songyuan to find us pulling into a service station somewhere. I had no idea what was wrong, but the driver happened to know the phrase "5 minutes" in English, and he made me sit in the car while it was jacked up with a bunch of guys working on it. They got us back on the road in maybe 45 minutes.

I have no idea what this sign says, but the photo did not inspire confidence in the service station.

When I finally got back to Songyuan, it was Home Sweet Crack Den Home for me. Apparently they gave away my new apartment while I was gone, so I will get my pick of the new apartments they buy in the next week or two. Luckily The Crack Den had been cleaned, actually had some new linens and my things were all there. I was exhausted but starving by that point, so I headed to school to grab whatever foreigners were lying around and make them go to dinner with me. It took me less than 24 hours to meet all the new ones in town; it's good to be back!

Beijing, Li Mei & firing people

SO much to blog about tonight, but I am so tired... we'll see how far I get. I am in Beijing for the night on my way to Tianjin. I drove two hours from Songyuan to the Changchun airport and got there about an hour before my flight tonight, so I had a lot of time to actually make notes about things I'd been meaning to post about, now I have a whole list!

I'm glad to be staying in Beijing, the original plan was to head to Tianjin straight away after I got in, but luckily the guys that picked me up were tired too, so we're staying the night here. I wish I had time to explore the city, but it's very late and I'm very tired, so that's out unfortunately. Back on the plus side, my hotel is more on the Western side, so I'm pretty excited about the bathroom (Western toilet, stall shower with what looks to be an awesome showerhead!).

Today I had 4 hours of my business English class with the same group from Friday and Saturday. They came to class with my Chinese name today: 李美 (Li Mei). According to them it means "beautiful," "American" and "Liz." What they don't know is that it also is the name of the Mortal Kombat character below, lol, which I am definitely ok with.

When the term "ladies man" came up yesterday in conjunction with Fabio's namesake, a bit of a joke started about another man in the class, David, being a ladies man as well (both are actually happily married). They asked me to rename David, so now I have a Fabio and a Romeo in that class; I love it!

Today we covered writing business communications and I had the students do an exercise that involved them writing a letter terminating an employee. These were very interesting to read/hear; everyone was way too nice in their letters. They had a really hard time saying "you're fired" or explaining why without contradicting themselves and later saying the employee had done a good job, because they didn't want to hurt the employee's feelings and they were too concerned with the Chinese idea of being polite. It makes me curious as to how that goes in real life situations here, does anyone ever get fired?

welcome to China

DISCLAIMER: This is my first attempt at blogging and I have never kept a diary, journal or anything of that nature so, that said, enjoy!

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I got in to Changchun last night around 10:30pm and got picked up at the airport by 2 poor Chinese men the school sent that didn't really know what they were getting themselves into. They didn't really speak English, but they were very friendly and in no way prepared to wrangle my 4 huge checked bags into the trunk of their small car and then up a few flights of stairs to my third floor apartment.

After the 2 hour drive to Songyuan (which, turns out, is a moderately big city in BFE Jilin) I was sliiiighty discouraged to discover that I basically live in a crack den. That did make me feel better about the fact that the school wanted me in for orientation this morning at 10:30am though (yay for escaping the crack den!). My building smells bad, my apartment wasn't cleaned after the last tenant vacated, I have an amazing view of what basically amounts to a large space of junkyard homes and my apartment came complete with a very random assortment of furniture, appliances and other things you generally expect in a "furnished" apartment. Also, my internet wasn't set up yet, so there was no way to make myself feel better via fb stalking people I love or placate Sher from across the world (and she emailed my boss as a result, which is completely awesome). I'm sure this post is going to help, isn't it Mommers :)

So I pretty much just crashed out last night. Woke up a few hours early for work this morning and could not for the life of me figure out where the shower was in my apartment. Super awesome after traveling for 22 hours the day prior to your first day at work, not being able to shower. I did the hobo shower thing though and nobody looked at me funny, so I think I was safe. 

Work today was laid back, school isn't in session at the moment so I basically had some brief introductions to the school, had some time to get online and do whatever I needed to and that was about it. One of my bosses took myself and a Chinese teacher out for lunch... to a Brazilian BBQ place. This was my first meal in China, lol. Later in the afternoon the same teacher, was charged with taking me around the area our school is in, going grocery shopping, showing me how my shower works (turns out it does exist) and my washer and dryer. She basically confirmed the crack den status of my apartment and told me part of the issue is that no one has lived here in a long time. She told me to be careful walking back here alone (yep, you read that right mom). She is sharing an apartment the school set up with two other Chinese teachers, and she's sharing a bed with one of them (whom she didn't previously know).

I did get some interesting things covered today... I did poop in a toilet in the floor, and I did have to use the toilet paper I had in my pocket (thank goodness). I discovered people do stare and talk about me in the grocery store even though I'm not that tall. I found out that Asians really do just randomly pick their English names and change them as often as they like (I'm picking a Chinese name while I'm here, but since they all mean something this apparently requires research). 

I think that's about all I've got for today, I could honestly go on for hours, but I think it's time to try to watch Grey's and go to bed (yes, it's 6pm and I'm talking about going to bed). I can't wait till the other English teachers get here...