Results tagged “foreigners”

Oh god: we're not really sure how this is newsworthy, but apparently Nanfang Daily decided that a bunch of pictures of drunken foreign girls awkwardly passed out was good enough to at least make into a photo gallery. The pictures were taken from popular BBS site Huanqiu: we couldn't find the original post, though we did find pictures of another netizen getting a duck drunk, which are funny, and somehow more disturbing.

As foreigners in Shanghai, we understand the difficulties with assimilation: if you're not from Shanghai you are different, no matter where you're from. In all honesty, though, it may be easier to be a foreigner in Shanghai than it is to be an waidiren, an outsider from another part of China.

Shanghai's Exit-Entry Administration Bureau is warning foreigners to watch out for fraudulent visa agents after several people have been scammed... some even losing their passports. It said that over 50% of the 100 foreigners it put under detention in 2009 had overstayed after failing to get their visa from agents. The Shanghai Exit-Entry Administration Bureau suggests you go through them if you want to extend your visa, and to call 2895-1900 for more information. We suggest you use a little Magic.

China, the youthful and ever growing country that it is, has taken many lessons from the rest of the world. As a result, great men from other countries have come to be revered by the Chinese for their advancements: from Issiac Newton to Michael Jordan, many have made lasting impressions on the Chinese psyche. In preparation for the 60th anniversary of the PRC, the Global Times compiled a list of the sixty most influential foreigners in the country's short history. We'll give you a few guesses.

A group of 98 prisoners from the United States, Singapore, India, Nigeria and elsewhere celebrated Christmas by performing Chinese folk songs, yoga and magic tricks at a party organised by the Qingpu Prison Wednesday night. A special Christmas Eve dinner was also prepared for inmates comprising of roast mutton, chicken, potatoes and pizza. According to Shanghai Daily, all foreigners in prisons "are treated almost the same as their Chinese counterparts". In the same breath though, it adds that foreign prisoners enjoy "international living standards" in line with prisoner rights regulations prescribed by the UN, including daily showers, sports facilities and medical services. In case you're wondering about living conditions in there, each ward comes equipped with a showera and houses about ten inmates. Email access is provided so prisoners can keep in touch with their family. They also get to watch English TV news and read approved publications, and if they have enough money, they can even purchase portable radio sets and international calling cards for their own use. And just to make sure inmates don't get too bored in there, they are taught to make handicrafts and given Chinese lessons.

... so says our favourite visa agency. In November, regulations were loosened to allow for the 3-6 month F visa, but since 6 December, the 12 month multiple-entry F visa has been made available again. Does the global economic crisis and dwindling tourist numbers have anything to do with this? Maybe, but who cares, really? Check for VisaInChina's updated services and price list here.

... and before you start scoffing, it's all from a very reliable and authoritative source of course — no, it's not AC Nielsen and neither is it Taylor Nelson Sofres — it's a doctoral student from Shanghai University by the name of Ni Lin. Never heard of her? Well neither have we, but if the Shanghai Daily starts quoting her as proof of its popularity among expats in this town, then she must be something right?

Via Micah Sittig on Twitter we learned of this spreadsheet that compares tuition fees for international high schools in Shanghai. Fourteen schools are included on the list and they range in annual cost from US$11,319 (Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation Private School), up 30% from last year, to US$30,689 (British International School), up 7% from last year. The only school whose tuition went down this year was the Shanghai American School, down 7% to US$22,092. Time to stock up on the ol' birth control.

Adam Schokora of Danwei points us to this audio recording of a "disgruntled customer lecturing a telephone operator at a well-known, city-wide food delivery company based in Shanghai". Do a bit of research and you'll find there's only one food delivery company in town that delivers Blue Frog and it happens to be an advertiser on Shanghaiist. Does the voice of this douchebag sound familiar to any of you readers out there? We say unleash the foreign internet mobsters on this guy!

‘Gays’ crack nearly causes international incident, says the Shanghai Daily

A CHINESE man nearly started an unintended fight with an overseas sailor when he greeted him in poorly chosen English words.

Continue reading "Chinglish, homophobia and silly sailors"

A friendly reminder from the Shanghai Daily that you would do well to heed:

THE city's exit-entry administration is reminding local foreigners that most will need to renew their residence registration certificates at police stations this month.

Continue reading "Time to update your temporary residence permit"

Watch out ladies, Chinese men are on the prowl. According to this article in Mop, one Chinese man set out to settle a score against Western men, by staking out Western women visiting Beijing during the Olympics. The man in question is from a small town in the middle of nowhere, the kind of place where "in 20 years only one student made it into Tsinghua or Peking University." He managed to test into a technical college and now works in Beijing. His friend relates the story and the motive [in translation],

The local Xinming Evening News 《新民晚报》points us to this uber-harmonious picture of foreign prisoners housed in the Qingpu District Jail standing by their paper model of the Bird's Nest, made with lots of love over the course of 28 days with 18,000 pieces of paper. Awwwwww....

In fact, all cities hosting Olympic events will do the same. The Shanghai Foreign Economic Relations and Trade Commission said it will postpone approval of notification letters needed for business visas until mid-September for all but essential travel, ruling out visits for market research, training or to carry out inspections. Some, albeit limited leeway exists. Foreigners can apply for business visas for "urgent" matters but the Chinese counterpart inviting them will need to give detailed supporting documentation.

"Kim Soo-seok, 44, a South Korean, is accused of abducting a young fellow countryman who studied in Shanghai in a bid to extort 300 million won (US$295,000) from the victim's wealthy father. His two alleged Chinese accomplices, Jin Mingyu and Chi Minhao, both ethnic Koreans, face charges of illegal detention before the Shanghai No. 1 Intermediate People's Court. The two alleged accomplices pleaded guilty, but Kim said he was entrusted by a friend in South Korea to demand payment of the debt." [Shanghai Daily]

3. Pay attention to how you congratulate handicapped athletes.

Interesting vid by Chris Pereira of Work in Progress [h/t to Danwei]. Wonder if he wrote the song himself?

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 worrying over where to get their daily intake of greens, the latest problem seems to be if hotels will take them in.

"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 affected students belong to various universities like Nanjing, Suzhou and Chong Qing, which are hundreds of kilometres away from each other." [Source]

"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 - 60 for men and 55 for women - can apply for pensions in the city." Anyone looking forward to this? [Source]

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 method a B++, which is probably better than his GPA, since he skipped his finals.

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 know the name or the location of the school, teacher or offending website. If more details emerge, I will share them with you." Watch what you put on your website, y'all. Someone's watching.

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 face strong prejudice against blacks in China and struggle to integrate themselves into their villages. The reporter follows one Liberian trader as he greets Chinese store-owners in his neighborhood:

He’ll loudly greet them, “Friend, how are you recently?” His “friends” don’t respond. Some pull out a cell phone and intentionally ignore him. Others impatiently wave at him, and say in a combination of Chinese and English: “If you’re not buying anything, then go… quickly GO!”

Continue reading "The Chinese Dream?"

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 by the WSJ's China Journal:

No. 22: Is it possible to sleep out in the city?

Continue reading "Behave during the Olympics... or else"

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.

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 being "inhuman", BOCOG , to their credit, has taken a complete about-turn. Apart from this one minute's silence that you see in the video marking the start of the relay, "elaborate ceremonies surrounding the event would be scaled back, procedures simplified and the number of staff reduced".

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.

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.