Since I have left Chengdu 2 years ago I have been hearing an increasing amount of stories of expats having visa trouble and getting jilted. The nice way – not getting a visa-renewal, or the not so nice way – police giving you 48 hours to leave the country.
The latest I am hearing, anyone in Chengdu who is not thereon a foreign expert visa and has been in the country for more than 5 years is getting the boot – i.e. all English teachers who are there on one or two year contracts, those laowai “models”,”DJs” and all other “creatives” and all those deadbeat China-bums (you know who I’m talking about) who having been lounging around on those agency arranged visas and student visas are in trouble.
The reason? In my time in Chengdu I have met quite a few deadbeats, teaching here and there or doing a number of “jobs” they would never get money for back home. Oftentimes they teach English and do a horrible job at it or they just lounge around and do much of nothing. Now China wants to get rid of them. I am convinced this is the case in Chengdu because I have heard about the kinds of people who are getting the boot and I have also just heard from two of my friends who have been in Chengdu for 3 and 4 years that a very good Australian teacher who has been working at their school for 5 years did not get the boot because the school fought for him and got him a foreign expert visa. So in the end this might just be a bureaucratic hoop that most school or companies are simply unwilling to jump if the person they have to do it for is not really worth the extra trouble.
At this point I want to stress that all the individuals I am referring to are or were in the Chengdu area. Even though sometimes it seems like, or at least one is lead to believe, that policies coming from the almighty CCP center in Beijing are followed to the dot throughout China, the reality is that China is a vast and disparate place and provincial, municipal and local governments have vastly different interests and implement or enforce policies to vastly different degrees. So you might find that other provinces and cities completely ignore this new rule or are more harsh in its implementation.
I have also been reading on James Fallow’s blog about all teachers aged 60+ getting the boot. Again, one hears different stories from different places in China. For more on that here.
