Study Chinese in China
Expensive Options
Of course the easiest (and most expensive) option is to register with a program in your home country. You pay them a lot of money, and they hold your hand all through the process, right through to your return home.
A considerably cheaper option is to make all the arrangements yourself, including applying in advance to be a language student at one of China's many universities. The university takes care of the arrangements for instruction and a cheap student visa, and you have an instant structured learning environment. However, China's universities are staffed by Chinese bureaucrats, who are constitutionally unable to provide “service”, and certainly not information. Chinese language schools at these universities are run like businesses, not like university departments. Teachers are not particularly or especially good. You will probably end up feeling that you have not gotten a lot in return for your 3000-4000 US$ per year of tuition, at least when compared with your other options.
The Budget Option
Those “in the know” do not bother with a university run like a pseudo-business, but go straight to the real businesses: privately run Chinese Language Schools. Whereas the universities have you hostage for a semester after you hand over the whole semester's tuition up front, at the private schools fees are not only much lower, but you pay as you go so if you don't like a school or a teacher, you move on.
Armed with a little bit of information, its actually remarkably easy and cheap:
- Get a one month tourist visa in your home country (~US$50).
- Plan ahead for where you are going to stay (hotel, hostel?) when you first hit the ground.
- Find a room/roommate situation, or engage the services of a real estate agent to find an apartment.
- Find a language school in your neighborhood (if you arrange some language partners in advance, you can probably have lots of help in finding these places).
- A couple weeks before your tourist visa expires, engage the services of a visa agent to get you a six month or one year visa (this is currently very easy, and costs US$200-300).
(Note that in the classified ads of http://www.thebeijinger.com/, you can find listings for "Language Services", "Visa Consultants", and "Real Estate Services". Similar listings can be found for major Chinese cities on http://www.cityweekend.com.cn/ and other websites.)
Note that if you are a little nervous about this approach, with a little preparation, you should be able to have English-speaking language partner friends, real estate agents, and visa agents all lined up before you arrive in your city of choice. Note that it is also very cheap to make telephone calls to China using Skype.
Choice of Location
China is full of regional dialects, many of them more or less mutually unintelligible. The way the Chinese people have solved this problem is that almost everyone can speak standard Mandarin, in addition to one or more dialects. Beijing also has a local dialect which does not differ too greatly from standard Mandarin, and is also a city full of universities and educated people who speak perfect Mandarin. Beijing is your best choice as a location for learning Mandarin, especially among China's first-tier cities. (People in Guangzhou speak Cantonese, and people in Shanghai speak Shanghainese, both of which are completely different then Mandarin.)
When you first arrive in China, if your Mandarin skills are minimal, it is best to live near a university where you will find lots of students who speak some English and will be eager to help you out. They want to meet foreigners, and they want to practice their English. Once your Chinese is better, move someplace where no one speaks English. This is easy to do even in Beijing. Head for the outskirts of the city. Avoid areas frequented by foreigners. Watch your Mandarin blossom.
Employment in China - Teaching English
Outside of teaching language, it is difficult for a foreigner to get a job in China. On the other hand, if your mother tongue is English and you have a pulse, you should find it very easy to get a job teaching English anywhere in China. The demand is huge. By local standards, the pay is quite decent, though of course it varies somewhat with your education and experience, and "local standards" may mean you get paid a lot less then you are accustomed to back home.
Don't sign a contract in advance before you come to China, you will quite likely be cheated unless you are dealing with a large institution (and even then....). The recommended process is really not so different from studying Chinese: come here on a tourist visa, and find a job/visa/accomodations after you have arrived.
Be warned: contracts seem to mean very little in China, and if push comes to shove the courts are really messed-up. Be careful what you agree to (many English teachers just freelance) and don't be surprised if the other party does not fulfill their obligations if you do sign a contract. Be careful about working for a school that also promises to provide accomodations, because it is very easy to feel trapped in this situation, particularly if you are new in town and don't speak Chinese. Take your time settling in. Be more then prepared to leave and try another school.
Not to overstate the point, but living in China is still very cheap (though the cost-of-living is increasing rapidly). You can afford to take your time finding work and a place to live. Study Chinese for a couple months, which will make everything easier. Be very sceptical of any business dealings such as job offers, ease yourself into the environment in general and any work situation in particular, and you will avoid most possible pitfalls.
Long Term Visas in P.R.China
In the P.R.China, the subject of long-term visas is a rather murky one. One suspects that most foreigners who live in China (this writer included) know how to get a visa, but are unsure of exactly what falls within the letter of the law and what might fall within the bounds of “black market” activity. Rest assured, though, that you do need a piece of paper (a “visa”) in your passport with all the right markings if you do not want trouble. This writer has had the police randomly knock on his door at least once asking to see his passport, and knows at least one person who did not have the required piece of paper and spent most of a month in jail, followed by deportation.
The status of registered, tuition-paying University students is very clear. The University gives you an armful of paperwork, you carry it down to the local visa-issuing police station, and walk away with an 'X' visa, which is incidentally quite a bit cheaper then other options.
Full-time employees of foreign companies and large Chinese companies/organizations/universities in China also usually have a clear status, and their visa is generally handled by the employer. These people generally get a “Z” visa.
The rest of us? We generally don't find it useful to "walk into the local visa-issuing police station” personally and ask for a visa. We enlist the services of a visa agent. We give the agent our passport, a photo, our Temporary Residence Form (see below) and usually something less then 2000 RMB, and one week later we get our passport back with a one year multi-entry visa in it (maybe only six months if it is your first long visa). The visa is generally an “F” (business) or “L” (tourist) visa.
Caveat: they time the new visa not from the date of issuance, but from the date of your last entry into P.R.China. Keep this in mind when you are making travel and visa plans.
Temporary Residence Form (住宿证明): This has recently become one of the prerequisites for getting a visa. Theoretically you are supposed to get one whenever you move into a new house, by going with your landlord to the local police station and having them fill the thing out and stamping it. In practice you really only need the thing just before you apply for the visa. In theory its supposed to be fairly trivial and routine to get it. In practice the local police are not always very helpful or friendly.
Guide to China and Beijing
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