Working in China

[wude]

Hey

[windwalker]

What about leaving with a visa, a one-way plane ticket, a couple of hundred euros, and that's it. No support from welfare, family, etc.
What are the survival rates for this?

The problem I found was that in China, its pretty hard to stay on a visa with out some type of place to stay.
In the US at this time you have to a have a place hotel ect documented and round trip ticket even to apply for a visa.

Documents showing the itinerary including air ticket booking record (round trip) and proof of a hotel reservation, etc. or an invitation letter issued by a relevant entity or individual in China. The invitation letter should contain:

(1) Information on the applicant (full name, gender, date of birth, etc.)

(2) Information on the planned visit (arrival and departure dates, place(s) to be visited, etc.)

(3) Information on the inviting entity or individual (name, contact telephone number, address, official stamp, signature of the legal representative or the inviting individual)

http://www.chinaconsulatesf.org/eng/lszj/zgqz/

Having stayed there for up to 6 mos at a time I wanted to stay longer. A friend helped me to change my visa status at one time with another friend who had a local company...They made up some paper work which I submitted to the visa office to change my visa status....not good. they took my passport and told me to come back in a couple of days. Turns out the paper work was wrong and they thought I was trying to stay illegally.
Thought I was going to be in jail, but had some people talk for me,,,maybe they even paid some money ya never know.

others may have found different, In my experience they track and control things pretty tight in China, with out some friends or inside connections it would seem very hard to stay there, Not like the US where one can just drop into the back ground. Even if one lives in a place after awhile people will know some might report it to the police.

Freedom of movement is from what I understand different in China,

the Hukou system of household registration makes internal migration difficult, especially for rural residents to move to urban areas. Many people move to places in which they don't have a local hukou, but local governments can restrict services like subsidized schooling, subsidized housing, and health insurance to those with local hukou.

one needs proof of residency for many things.

I'm not looking for high payed rates, just being able to provide myself with decent food, sleep and washing while doing my thing, is all I need.

do you speak Chinese?
what you ask for is what many local people are trying to do too.....In the US one can do this working under the table, unless one is local its pretty limited. Even in other countries around China, Taiwan ect. they make pretty hard for others to come and work there....

[Bill]

As you are European you might represent something exotic to the Chinese. You could become a top dollar gigalo.

[windwalker]

As you are European you might represent something exotic to the Chinese. You could become a top dollar gigalo.

haha

thanks for a morning laugh,,,,off to work

[Michael]

People look for ways to earn an independent living in China, outside of teaching English, manufacturing, or working for a multinational company, and it's not easy. There is the visa issue, depending on where you're from, for example a USA citizen can get a 10 year tourist visa with 60 or 90 day exit requirement, but many other countries have less attractive options.

[Michael]

As you are European you might represent something exotic to the Chinese. You could become a top dollar gigalo.

This is very true except for the earning cash part, and you don't have to be Richard Gere.

[Peacedog]

Michael definitely has the most up to date information on what is happening these days.

What I can say is that the days of purchasing visa extensions locally and staying forever ended in about 2006-2007. All of the authorities in the region have gotten much more proactive about enforcing visa status for a variety of reasons. Not the least of which is that they have found layabout expats to be a major source of both legal and social problems.

As for financing your trip, the best way to do this is to get a real job in your home country and save for it.

[Orpheus]

One other option is to look into scholarships for learning Chinese (these can be available through your government, Chinese government, Chinese city governments, some schools, and other sources). Free tuition plus a stipend for housing and food. Money can be a little tight, but some tutoring on the side can get you by (technically illegal, but as long as you're freelance, not too much to worry about).

I knew a number of people doing this. It helps to be interested in the language.

Also, you don't want to work in a factory or a field in China. I doubt you could get the work and the conditions would be challenging. You would be unlikely to work near a teacher and would have little free time.

[windwalker]

2nd that

Trying to work in a factory or field is probably impossible, and also not something IMO many westerners would be able to do.
The conditions are nothing to write home about. Worked both in solar and semi conductor factories as an expat for US based capital equipment makers
installing, maintaining, and sustaining tool sets we supported in China, and other countries in the region.

Interesting enough as the local guys came up to speed a lot of those jobs unless one has some type of needed specialty are gone.

I would consider time to be the main factor in your question. Any type of real work one is going to put the time in,
often more time then for equal work in the US doing the same things.

You could always marry for a Chinese green card or have money.... money always seems to work

How to Apply
To qualify for the Green card, you need to fulfill at least one of the following criteria:
I Be a high-level foreign expert holding a post in a business that promote China's economic, scientific and technological development, or social progress.
II Have made outstanding contributions, or are of special importance to China.
III Have made large direct investment of over 500 thousand US dollars in China.
IV Come to China to be with your family, such as husband or wife, minors dependent on their parents, and senior citizens dependent on their relatives.

http://www.ebeijing.gov.cn/feature_2/Si ... 921029.htm

[windwalker]

one thing to remember about China, at least its what I always felt when I was there.
They do take their laws a little more seriously then here in the US.

Trying to beat the system, game it, get around it, dosnt work out so well if one is caught,,,
but as with many things money seems to work in most cases for any trouble encountered

My Experience as an Inmate in a Chinese Jail (Viewed as Single Page)
A Cautionary Tale for Expats in China – a Guest Post by Lionel Carver

Even though jailhouse stories have become the stuff of cliché in Hollywood films,
I figured somebody somewhere would want to know about my time in a Chinese prison.

Like many foreigners in China, I arrived in Shanghai in search of the “jade dream.”
Unfortunately, finding work that did NOT involve teaching English was not as easy as I had hoped.

I had met many people in Shanghai – locals and foreigners – with startup businesses, and so I, too, thought it would be great to jump on board a venture to capitalize on China’s growing economy. The first company I signed up with, a small real estate startup, seemed like a good opportunity because Chinese real estate prices were soaring.

Unfortunately, they never actually paid me a steady wage. They also led me on with false promises of the coveted “Z” Work Visa. These two withholdings were a double-edged sword because it prevented me from earning enough money to renew my visa let alone stay in or get out of the country.
Eventually my 3-month tourist visa expired. I thought I would be okay as long as I laid low—but I was wrong.

There are eyes everywhere in China, especially on foreigners.

It was in Huaqiaozhen, a suburb of Shanghai, that everything began to unravel. I had just signed a lease for a cheap, shared apartment, but, strangely, the landlord never came to collect the rent or sign the contract. One Saturday morning I awoke to a knock at my door. I answered, thinking it would be the landlord, only to come face to face with a PSB (Public Security Bureau) officer checking identifications for registration.

Luckily, he didn’t speak English, so I phoned up a trusted friend to tell the officer I would register the next morning.
I spent the rest of the day packing my stuff and moving out. I fled to Baoshan district in northern Shanghai, and with the last of my savings acquired a cheap apartment, where I lived quite frugally (no TV, internet, bed, etc). I washed my clothes by hand and used a single naked light bulb for illumination.
Anyone who thought that westerners in China have it made should have seen me sleeping on the bare floor.

Inevitably, the police once again came knocking at my door to do the registration thing. This time I didn’t answer, but, as I learned later, one of the officers waiting outside spotted me hiding on my balcony. They tried both the landlord and real estate agent to contact me, and I replied with a text message that I had lost my passport at a friend’s party. This bought me some extra time. A western acquaintance I met in Shanghai advised me to get another foreigner to stay in my apartment and flash their passport when the police came calling again. I asked if he would be willing, but he was smart enough to avoid his own advice.

http://ilookchina.net/2010/01/28/my-exp ... ngle-page/

[windwalker]

Then the cops showed up again, I was in the shower and didn’t hear them at my door. I prepared to go to Krispy Kreme, my daily indulgence (I’m not the fittest foreigner in China), which also allowed me to use their free wifi, another penny saver I learned from being broke abroad (a donut is cheaper than the internet).

When I exited my apartment building, I noticed two fellows wearing police uniforms.
I thought I could evade them if they didn’t speak English, but that strategy failed
when they began chatting with me in my own mother tongue.

“Let’s go for ride,” the officer said, with what I interpreted as an ominous smile.

“Um, to where?” I asked.
“Police station, of course.”

I swallowed and thought up the first excuse I could.
“My passport is still at my friend’s house, so I can’t register yet.”

“That’s okay, you still come.”

A half hour later, I’m sitting in an interrogation room of the local PSB office
with an English-speaking immigration officer telling me I am “illegal”,
because it’s against Chinese law to not carry your passport at all times.

On top of that, according to their computer, my visa had expired.
It took most of the day to get all the paperwork done—the Chinese are not known for their expediency.

Since I didn’t have money to pay the exorbitant “fine”, I agreed to eight days in detention.
When I signed that fateful agreement, I also checked a box so that the American embassy would be notified and so
they could begin processing my new passport—even though it was never really lost.

Off I went in a white Santana police car to begin my eight days of incarceration.
After being processed at the detention center, I was corralled into a cell with five bunk beds.

http://ilookchina.net/2010/01/28/my-exp ... ngle-page/

[windwalker]

There was a TV set above the door, a small radio, and a closed circuit camera that watched everything, which were the only things modern about the cell.

A Chinese squat-style toilet offering no privacy sat in one corner along with a sink.
Inmates are given a package of recycled paper to use as toilet paper, which is not very comfy on the rear.

Opposite the toilet are shelves where inmates put their washbasins, which also house our eating bowl, spoon, toothbrush and toothpaste, a bar of bath soap, laundry soap, and a hand towel. Each inmate is issued a button-down t-shirt with the Chinese name of the jail written on the back, along with a pair of black-gym shorts with white stripes on the sides. Shoes are placed on a shelf outside the cell and inmates are given rubber sandals to wear in the cell.

I also received a laundered pillowcase and a bed sheet. The beds are cushioned and have bamboo-reed mats on top.

The inmates were all Chinese, and I was the only foreigner there. I noticed that most of the prisoners had tattoos or horrible scars from their lives outside jail. Some looked like beggars and others like gang members. The most any of them could say in English was “Hello.” Better a Hello, I thought, than the “Your sh*it on my d*ck or blood on my knife” greeting I would have received in an American prison.

Apparently, however, homosexual encounters do happen in a Chinese prison.

One night I crawled up into my top bunk preparing for bed. I tried to fall asleep but the other inmates were still shuffling around and talking; one young man lit up a rolled piece of newspaper and began smoking it in lieu of actual tobacco. Eventually everyone turned in for the night in spite of the fact that the lights stay on all night—I have learned that the Chinese can sleep through anything.

I thought I was the only person still awake when I heard one guy whispering to another.

Five minutes later, my metal-frame bunk bed began rocking back and forth.
At first, I thought my bunkmate below was just getting up to take a leak, but the rocking never stopped.

Moaning and slapping noises ensued.

http://ilookchina.net/2010/01/28/my-exp ... ngle-page/

[windwalker]

Daring to peek over the edge of my bunk, I saw one guy atop another. When the top man had finished, he slid off and another inmate came over and climbed on top of the same bottom man. I didn’t know if I was witnessing a rape or of this threesome was consensual, and I was glad I wasn’t going to be in Chinese prison much longer to find out.

Overall, life in a Chinese prison is very boring. We never left our cells, and going outside was not allowed. There are no sports. We did exercise but to a short
training video on the cell’s TV where we start off marching, swing our arms around, then touch our toes, and then perform jumping jacks.

There was no library, so books were very hard to come by; I was lucky to find an English book, one of those woman’s romance novels with a
longhaired beefcake on the cover, which isn’t the kind of reading you want in a men’s prison.

During the first three days in jail, all inmates are required to skip naptime after lunch. This may not seem like much of a punishment until
you realize that every day starts at 6 am and ends after 9 pm.

Most of the time, I felt exhausted, not from any physical exertion but from extreme boredom.

http://ilookchina.net/2010/01/28/my-exp ... ngle-page/

[windwalker]

In prison, sleeping or dreaming is an inmate’s only salvation, and I dreamed about many things that week
For example, I dreamed about a cute Chinese girl I’d once met in Nanjing. I even began having delusional fantasies
that I was in the video game Final Fantasy having sword fights.

Each day begins with an officer on the intercom yelling something in Chinese (I’m guessing it means, “Get up!”).

The first thing we did was make our beds. Inmates need to fold their bed sheet every day, like in a military boot camp, and it must be folded correctly. The supervisor comes in each morning after roll call to inspect the rooms. Then somebody empties the trash by throwing it through the bars of the door. Two inmates out in the halls do the task of collecting garbage. In fact, those same two guys did all the tasks for the jailhouse (garbage, deliver food, water, etc), which is kind of gross when you think about it.

Next, came the hot water (in a giant metal barrel with a tap). Soon after that, the helpers bring the breakfast cart.

http://ilookchina.net/2010/01/28/my-exp ... ngle-page/

there's more, the main point is that what happens in the US is often much nicer compared to the same things happening in other places...
It pays to know and understand the laws of any place you travel to.

As a co worker from Pakistan once told me, in the US you guys dont really have real jails,,,,in Pakistan we have real ones, ones you dont want to go back to
if you make it out.

[windwalker]

Note from Blog host: The China Daily reported on another American leaving China for similar reasons that caused Lionel Carver to be sent home. However, Kevin (from California) didn’t spend any time in jail.

In fact, the China Daily reported, “An young American man who had run out of money in Wuhan, Hubei province, got a free air ticket to Beijing as well as a moon cake from the airport police on Sept 11, one day before the Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival.”

Money,,,always bring money

In my own case we, my girl friend and I where brought to a small room
it was explained to me with my girl friend translating what had happened, something about the paper work not being right.
They thought I was trying to stay there illegally
. .
After awhile my pass port was returned and we left,,,
I never asked but I think the family paid some money,
to the local official


Moral to the story if anyone even a close friend is trying to help you,

make sure "you" understand the how and what exactly are they helping you with.

best of luck with your adventure