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Fast Eddie's Shanghai venture
#1

Fast Eddie's Shanghai venture

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#2

Fast Eddie's Shanghai venture

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#3

Fast Eddie's Shanghai venture

Quote: (09-01-2015 01:03 AM)Fast Eddie Wrote:  

3) I will have to be in New Orleans on 9/24. This means even if I go to Shanghai tomorrow, I will be flying back to the USA just 3 weeks later. I'll be burning 70,000 United miles for that roundtrip. I've got plenty of miles, but I absorbed a lot of cosmic-rays to get them, and I'd prefer not to burn them so prolifically. If I wait until my business in New Orleans is complete before going to China, I will miss the first 2 weeks of classes. I'm not sure what kind of academic/visa repercussions this may have, but at any rate, I'd hate to come to the party late. Usually you make your friends in the first days and weeks of class, so I'd prefer not to be a latecomer.

This is how long term visas work in China:

You enter on a single entry visa and after arriving, they transfer you to a residence permit, which allows you to continue living in the country for a set period of time (assuming that it isn't cancelled, because you stop going to class or something) and unlimited entry/exit.

If your school has done it's job correctly, you should already have the initial entry visa in your passport, but it will take a few weeks to change you over to the residence permit, making it impossible for you to make your trip to New Orleans.

Unless you already have something in your passport that says "China" and "multiple entry," you'd better wait until your business is completed.

It's possible that you have a tourist visa with multiple entry, which would be fine for your travel purposes, but since they no longer allow transfer from tourist visas to student visas, that is going to cause trouble too, since you shouldn't be studying on a tourist visa.

If you have to go back to the US to get a student visa to enter on (to allow for the switch to a student residence permit), it will cost you at a least a week of classes.

If you really want to learn Chinese, come to Beijing for two weeks and I'll teach you everything you are going to learn in the first 8 weeks of classes -- free of charge.

I'm the King of Beijing!
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#4

Fast Eddie's Shanghai venture

1) This all sounds very exciting. Go for it.
2) You're not a CEO of a multinational. You seem to mentally have one foot in the US and one in China. Unless you are already rolling in cash and have the energy of the energizer bunny, you can't live a dual US-China life. If you're going to China, pick a specific date when you can and must go. Then sell the rifle, quit the job, and fly.
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#5

Fast Eddie's Shanghai venture

Gosh please don't burn those 70k United miles for an economy roundtrip to China.

Tickers are like 500 from LAX right now and similar from NYC.
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#6

Fast Eddie's Shanghai venture

Depends on how important that job is to you, I mean references etc.

You can take your chances and fly to China. Fuck the instant messenger. If somebody emails you, you say sorry, I'm sick, take a few days of sick leave and then quit. Until then, collect the paycheck.

Don't tell your employer anything about China. Make sure you set up us number call forwarding.

Alternatively, if your employer has an office in Shanghai, maybe it's worth trying to get transferred.

Also, I've been in your shoes and I know it kind of sucks sitting on the bench and wondering what's coming next. But the good thing is that if you are not worried about losing the job, you can take full advantage of this situation. The problem is your downtime will probably not last very long.
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#7

Fast Eddie's Shanghai venture

Do you live in New Orleans? Round trip: NewOrleans-->Houston-->Beijing on Sept 8 + Return on Sept 22 Beijing-->Houston-->NewOrleans for 949.70 CAD, which is 717.80 USD.

That's two weeks with Suits, a jump-start on your Chinese learning (so you won't be behind in class), and you'll be back in NewOrleans for Sept 24.

Plus you won't burn up all those miles.

Sept 8
MSY-->IAH, United 3453 at 6:49pm
(4h55m layover)
IAH-->PEK, Air China 996 at 1:00am

Sept 22
PEK-->IAH, Air China 995 at 3:00pm
(2h37m layover)
IAH-->MSY, United 362 at 6:17pm
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#8

Fast Eddie's Shanghai venture

Finally able to reply to this thanks to the ddos bullshit.

Quote: (09-01-2015 01:58 AM)Suits Wrote:  

This is how long term visas work in China:

You enter on a single entry visa and after arriving, they transfer you to a residence permit, which allows you to continue living in the country for a set period of time (assuming that it isn't cancelled, because you stop going to class or something) and unlimited entry/exit.

If your school has done it's job correctly, you should already have the initial entry visa in your passport, but it will take a few weeks to change you over to the residence permit, making it impossible for you to make your trip to New Orleans.

Unless you already have something in your passport that says "China" and "multiple entry," you'd better wait until your business is completed.

It's possible that you have a tourist visa with multiple entry, which would be fine for your travel purposes, but since they no longer allow transfer from tourist visas to student visas, that is going to cause trouble too, since you shouldn't be studying on a tourist visa.

If you have to go back to the US to get a student visa to enter on (to allow for the switch to a student residence permit), it will cost you at a least a week of classes.

If you really want to learn Chinese, come to Beijing for two weeks and I'll teach you everything you are going to learn in the first 8 weeks of classes -- free of charge.
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#9

Fast Eddie's Shanghai venture

@Phoenix

Yeah man, I wasn't thinking of keeping the job indefinitely, as that would start eating into my energy levels real fast being up all night week after week. I was really considering whether I should quit now, or in a couple weeks. Every day that I don't quit is basically another $200 in my account, so it would make sense to milk that as long as feasible.

So I made up my mind and decided to do what Brodiaga essentially suggested. I will fly to China this weekend. Fortuitously, next Monday is labor day in the US, so it's only a 4 day week. I will use my remaining 3 vacation days to erase Tuesday through Thursday, and then just coast through Friday. Nothing usually happens on Fridays in consulting, anyway.

Then the week of 9/14 I will give them my 2 week notice. Of course, they will say that since I'm on the bench and not billing, they don't need me to stick around for another 2 weeks collecting paychecks from them for doing nothing, haha. I do hope they at least let me make it through the end of that week though. I think I may declare it on a Wednesday to make it more likely[Image: banana.gif]

@Elcid

I'm sure there is probably a 20 page treatise that could be written on the topic, but could you very briefly describe why you say that? What's the fare to award mile ratio for a ticket that one should exceed before it makes sense to use miles rather than paying the $$$?

@Chemistry

I do not live in NO, so there is no way to make that itinerary work. Thanks for looking though.
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#10

Fast Eddie's Shanghai venture

Quote: (09-04-2015 12:11 AM)Fast Eddie Wrote:  

Finally able to reply to this thanks to the ddos bullshit.

Quote: (09-01-2015 01:58 AM)Suits Wrote:  

This is how long term visas work in China:

You enter on a single entry visa and after arriving, they transfer you to a residence permit, which allows you to continue living in the country for a set period of time (assuming that it isn't cancelled, because you stop going to class or something) and unlimited entry/exit.

If your school has done it's job correctly, you should already have the initial entry visa in your passport, but it will take a few weeks to change you over to the residence permit, making it impossible for you to make your trip to New Orleans.

Unless you already have something in your passport that says "China" and "multiple entry," you'd better wait until your business is completed.

It's possible that you have a tourist visa with multiple entry, which would be fine for your travel purposes, but since they no longer allow transfer from tourist visas to student visas, that is going to cause trouble too, since you shouldn't be studying on a tourist visa.

If you have to go back to the US to get a student visa to enter on (to allow for the switch to a student residence permit), it will cost you at a least a week of classes.

If you really want to learn Chinese, come to Beijing for two weeks and I'll teach you everything you are going to learn in the first 8 weeks of classes -- free of charge.

Hmm, I just looked into my Visa situation further and it seems I kind of got shafted. I have an X2 visa, which is apparently a version of the student visa that does not qualify you for a full fledged residence permit. That's pretty gay, since half the reason I signed up for the damn classes was to get that permit. The X2 seems to basically be a regular 180 day visa with 2 entries. This will tide me over for the New Orleans trip but once that's done I'll have burned through all my entries, which isn't acceptable. I already know I'll have to fly to the US yet again in late October, and that would require a third entry to return to China. Plus there may be more trips after that. I'd sure as hell like to hit up SEA at least once, if nothing else. Will have to look into that visa shit real hard. Any idea why they may have given me an X2 instead on an X1? Granted, I signed up for a non-degree program, but even though it goes semester by semester, there is no reason why they should assume I will not continue past the first semester Angry

Btw, that's a generous offer, but the real reason I signed up for the Chinese program is to get the visa and more importantly, to be able to point to something concrete I was doing between the time I quit my job and 2016. Frankly, if my main motivation was to simply learn Chinese, I wouldn't sign up for a program but rather study on my own and spend hours meeting with people from Conversation Exchange supplemented by paid professional tutoring. But I need to be able to put something on my resume between quitting my job and applying for my next one. Being enrolled full time at a top Chinese university sounds more credible than an allusion to self study and part time teaching.

With that said, I'm sure to visit Beijing and would definitely want to hit you up when I'm there. I may end up moving to Beijing in 2016, it all depends on where I manage to find a job.

They used to just have straight up X visas, but a new system of categories was introduced a few years ago which includes the X1/X2 distinction.

I haven't been on a student visa in some time, not since the change, but my guess is that X1s are generally issued whenever someone enrols for a semester or less.

For your purposes, you'd need to enroll in a year long program, which should get you the visa you desire, for your purposes.

As you've doubtlessly concluded, visas in China are a bit of a game, one I'm sure you'll learn how to play.

However, at the moment, it looks like your first semester will be a bit of a dud. Chinese isn't impossible to learn, but it does require an initial period of complete commitment and with the distractions of your business stateside, you are hardly prepared to make that full commitment at the moment.

I fully sympathize and recommend that you enter the country once your business in the US is finished, which will allow you to pocket some extra money from your job and come over here when you are really ready.

Use the first semester to acclimatize and then look for a program that will better suit your needs to enter in the spring.

Since the fall semester is hardly working out optimally for getting serious about Chinese, I suspect that you'll need an ADDITIONAL year of study if you really want to learn to speak Chinese well.

I'm the King of Beijing!
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#11

Fast Eddie's Shanghai venture

Quick update since I'm on my phone. Arrived in Shanghai earlier this week. One change I've immediately noticed is the paucity of shared apartment adverts compared to when I was there 2 years ago. It's like an order of magnitude less. I suppose it's possible just different time of year, what with a new semester just starting and students snapping up rooms.

Also, tan tan is pretty cutthroat here. When I was in usa and spoofed my GPS to some random city like shenyang, I'd get hundreds of matches in a few hours. In Shanghai I have like 10 new matches after a couple days. That sucks, as I had high hopes after the spoofing experiments.

Anyway, my priority now is to find a place to live pronto, since between hotel and having to eat out I'm burning near $100 usd a day, which is fine for a vacation but not for a relocation.
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#12

Fast Eddie's Shanghai venture

Try airbnb. I looked recently at Shanghai and there are some acceptable looking places for mid-30s in decent areas. Less if you're not picky about location. And those are short stay prices, so you can negotiate down.

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Strip away judeo-christian ethics ingraining sex is dirty/bad & the idea we're taking advantage of these girls disintegrates. Once you've lost that ethical quandary (which it isn't outside religion) then they've no reason to play the victim, you've no reason to feel the rogue. The interaction is to their benefit.
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#13

Fast Eddie's Shanghai venture

Time for a small update, although nothing much has happened.
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#14

Fast Eddie's Shanghai venture

You could potentially smash one or all of your roommates, on the positive side. That is if any of them are good looking, heh.

I could PM you the name of a decent bar/club that's known to have laowai hunters, if you're interested. Go there next Thursday or next Friday night alone and you're bound to get some. I'm not currently in SH otherwise I'd join you.
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#15

Fast Eddie's Shanghai venture

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#16

Fast Eddie's Shanghai venture

Did you have to go into the office and show up 9-5 everyday on your consulting job?

if not, then that would be great because you could be doing entrepreneurship stuff online while still being available through corporate messenger. Thats what i did sometimes when i worked in consulting.
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