Photo by centralasiatraveler Sometimes you wonder if China will finally make up her mind, flip-flopping over wanting tourists, then keeping them out even if they have got Olympic tickets for security reasons, going even to the extent of driving foreign residents out. But what next for the foreigners who weren't sent home or for the remaining handful of tourists who thanked their lucky stars for having made it into China? Among other things like......

"Nearly 150 Indian medical students are stranded in airports and other places in China after discovering that the air tickets they bought were fake. A group of students are stuck at the Pudong airport in Shanghai. The alleged fraud came to light after two air carriers -- Emirates and Malaysia Airlines -- refused to accept the e-tickets issued to the students when they went to board the flights between June 29 and July 11. The......

"According to the draft, the social-insurance policy expansion will cover expats working for city employers, foreigners who have acquired permanent residency and residents of Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan. If it is approved, qualified candidates will be allowed to join the city's pension, medical and industrial-injury insurance systems on level terms with their Shanghai-native counterparts. People who have been paying into the city's pension fund for an accumulative period of 15 years before retirement age......

We've been writing a lot about the visa situation recently, which has gotten more and more bothersome as the Olympics approach. But this tactic is a new one: Matt of bizCult gives us a play-by-play of his experiences using a student visa... for business purposes. Pros: easier to obtain, multiple entry, much cheaper. Cons: actually having to go to class sometimes, like the Mongolian prostitutes using the same strategy. All in all, Matt gives the......

At this point, this is only an unsubstantiated rumour but a highly plausible one given what we've seen and heard in the last few months. Here is an email sent to us by one teacher at an international school in Shanghai, and we quote verbatim: "I don't know anymore specifics, but I received an Email from my principal warning us about our online behaviour after an international school teacher was deported from China. I don't......

As China rapidly climbs to world economic power, some enterprising individuals are emigrating here in the hopes of finding a new version of the American Dream. Blogging For China translates an article from the Southern Metropolis Daily on African traders who move to China (notably the city of Guangzhou, which currently holds an estimated 100,000 Africans) with the same burning desire of an earlier generation who emigrated to America: a better life. Many of them......

The Beijing Olympic Organising Committee (BOCOG) has just issued a 57-para "legal guide" 《奥运期间外国人入境出境及在中国停留期间法律指南》for all you foreigners intending to visit China during the upcoming Olympics. The document is available here on the BOCOG website but curiously enough, it is available only in Chinese and not in any other language. Perhaps they decided to save themselves the effort because they knew all the foreign media would translate them anyway. Here are some lovely excerpts as translated......

Some of you are starting to get in touch with us to send us your list of missing loved ones or friends. We were going to publish this list later, but decided we couldn't wait when we heard this bit of good news: John Bergen of Sichuan Tech and Business College in Dujiangyan has been found, and we've since contacted his friend Peter to let him know. And here's the list of missing foreigners as......

Right after the earthquake struck, Olympic officials maintained that the torch relay would go on as planned as "the epicenter is not along the route of the torch relay". In fact, one day after the earthquake, China Daily was still offering this really happy and harmonious image of the torch relay. That, unfortunately, did not go down well with people, and after a huge outcry on the Internet which saw Olympic organisers roundly lambasted for......

BBC reports that the group of British tourists on their way to Wolong when the quake struck has turned up unharmed. So far, the official word from Xinhua is that there have been zero foreigner deaths (Note: report is from Tuesday morning), but a more recent report from AFP cites Xinhua as saying two Chinese-Americans and one Thai tourist in Sichuan have yet to be located. This morning, we received an email from Shanghaiist reader......

A few weeks ago, Richard Brubaker of All Roads Lead to China reported:I just received an email from a friend who said that they were being told they could not renew their F visa fro within China anymore. A quick Skype to another confirmed that F visas cannot be extended past the Olympics. That apparently is not the case, but the cost of an F visa has gone up quite a bit. In Richard's latest......