Once you've selected a prospective employer and all terms have been agreed to, you'll need to secure a Z-visa (work visa) and then determine what to bring along with you to China. The next two sections will discuss these two topics.
In order to work legally in China, you will need to arrive in China with a work or Z-visa. Only schools licensed by the SAFEA (State Administration of Foreign Expert Affairs) are authorized to hire foreign experts and this license is not easy to come by. Consequently, many schools currently advertising positions are not duly licensed to hire foreign teachers and they will often obscure that fact by encouraging you to travel up to halfway around the world to work on a business or F-visa, assuring you that this is perfectly legal, customary and acceptable. Do NOT fall for this. If a prospective employer offers you ANY resistance whatsoever in regard to providing you with the necessary paperwork to obtain your work (Z-) visa, it is highly likely that the school is not licensed to hire foreign experts and you should immediately cease all further communications with that prospective employer or agent.
In fact, one sure sign that you are dealing with a disreputable agent is if he balks, at all, at providing you with the necessary paperwork for a Z-visa: By bringing you in on a business visa (or, far worse, a tourist visa), he will be able to make last minute changes in your teaching assignment whereas a Z-visa legally locks you into a specific school, i.e., the school you were promised (assuming, of course, that school is even authorized to hire foreign teachers). Some schools, too, although they may in fact be licensed to hire foreign teachers, may still attempt to convince you to arrive in China on an F-visa because when a school provides you with a Z-visa, they are legally committed to providing you with a job once you arrive: In addition, they are legally responsible for your safety and welfare once that plane touches ground on Chinese soil. That is, some prospective employers will try to get you to travel halfway around the world simply so that they can meet you in person and, then (only if they like what they see), evaluate your performance first (in what amounts to a trial period) before legally committing themselves to formally hiring you. In my opinion, that's just plain crazy. It is entirely unreasonable to expect any foreigner to travel that great of a distance for what is essentially nothing more than a glorified job interview. You should never agree to that. Once again:
In order to obtain your Z-visa, here is what you will need: First, the school will have to send you, via postal service (facsimiles and e-mail attachments are unacceptable), a formal letter of invitation and a foreign expert work certificate. You will also need a visa application form: This form can be downloaded from this site or from any visa service website and will not be included in the school’s package (make sure you are using the latest version: The form was officially changed in January 2007). You will fill out the visa application form and then take all three documents and your passport (with at least six month's validity prior to expiration) to the nearest Chinese embassy or consulate. In the event you do not live close to a Chinese embassy or consulate, you may use an authorized proxy usually in the form of a professional visa service. For a handling fee, the visa service will take your passport and supporting documents to the embassy or consulate for you, will then pick up your passport with the attached Z-visa and mail it back to you usually by certified or express mail. Simply conduct an Internet search for such visa services in your country of origin (we've listed a couple that we recommend for U.S. and U.K. citizens on the page for Internet Resources)..
The entire process, for normal service, takes less than a week although overnight service is also available. Once you have the correct forms, it is truly a relatively simple process and, despite what others will tell you, it is no more complicated or involved than procuring either an F- or L-visa. In addition, some schools may send you the Physical Exam Record for Foreigner and ask that you have it filled out by a local physician. This is essentially a prescreening measure to ascertain that you will pass the physical exam once you are in China (and, in most provinces, the exam will have to be repeated within a few days after you arrive in China, as even certification issued by a Chinese doctor from a different province is usually unacceptable). Essentially, if you do not have any communicable or sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), if you can breathe, walk and talk without assistance and are not in the end stages of a terminal illness, you will pass the exam. The exam does not include drug screening of any kind.
Your Z-visa, valid for three months from the date of issuance, is simply an entry "permit" into the country that establishes your presence here for the purpose of earning income. Once you arrive in China, you have 48-hours to report your residency to the local PSB (the FAO or a school agent will take you to the special PSB station for this purpose). Generally, within the first week of arrival, your school will have someone walk you through the local hospital designated for completing the physical examination record for foreigners, which the school usually pays for. Once the physical exam form is completed, your school will take that and your passport (with the valid Z-visa) to the PSB for your one-year multiple-entry residency permit (which gets pasted directly inside the passport), which the school also typically pays for. Within two to three weeks, the school will return your passport, foreign expert certificate (FEC), and official health certificate (which is useful for expediting passage through customs and quarantine when traveling in and out of mainland China). You are now a legal resident alien of China with the right to earn income.
Okay: I've got my visa and I'm ready to go. What should I bring with me from home?
Unless you will be working in a fairly rural part of China, most of what we would refer to as basic necessities, including medications, are available on the mainland. However, it is strongly recommended that you bring at least a three-month supply of any daily maintenance medications (e.g., for hypertension, diabetes, etc.) with you, which should give you enough time to locate available sources in your area. Keep in mind too that although China does have regulations controlling the manufacturing and distribution of medications, in the context of 1.3 billion people, they are extremely difficult to enforce despite China's best efforts at improving the health and safety conditions of its citizenry (in fact, the last two directors of the Chinese FDA were executed for approving medications that were either fake or, far worse, actually harmful to people in exchange for bribe money). The point is, you need to be aware that the enforcement of pharmaceutical regulations is a difficult and challenging problem in China (McNeil, 2007).
Legitimate medications are generally available at large government regulated (especially military and university) hospitals, but buying your medications at small, local unregulated pharmacies is extremely ill-advised. As a rule, if the price seems too good to be true that's because the medication isn't entirely (or even at all) what it purports to be. Those susceptible to upper and lower respiratory infections are also strongly advised to bring at least two or three complete treatments of antibiotic medications from home.
As a rule, toiletries (deodorants, tampons, menstrual pads, razors, Q-tips, etc.) are widely available but in very limited variety: However, as a rule, what is available is more than adequate to meet your needs, e.g., you might find yourself having to switch from "dry stick" to "roll on" deodorant (or vice versa) with a choice limited to one or two brands only. Finally, if you are a particularly big person, you may find that it is very difficult to locate clothing in your size outside the three aforementioned international cities. Generally speaking, and for example, small to mid-sized cities do not carry pants that are larger than a 40-inch waist or collared shirts that would fit anyone with a neck size larger than 17.5 inches. If you require large sizes it is highly recommended that you bring enough shirts, pants and T-shirts (if you wear them) to last you for at least a year—given wear and tear. However, we should quickly add that it is typically far less expensive to have clothes tailor-made in China than it is to buy them off the rack back home and this is a common solution among plus-sized teachers outside the three international cities. Finding shoes that fit will generally not be a problem unless you require a special size or fit back home. As a foreign teacher, you will often be invited to attend your city's formal official affairs such as National Day and Chinese New Year celebrations: It is recommended that you bring along a suit or business attire for such occasions.
Barring the three well-developed international cities of Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, certain items we take for granted—such as handkerchiefs, sweat socks, and plain white T-shirts—might be hard to impossible to find (as a rule, the Chinese do not use handkerchiefs as they consider them to be unhygienic). If there is a particular type of toiletry, article of clothing, or other personal item that you use regularly, it would be best for you to specifically inquire about their availability with teachers already in the city you will be headed to.
If you have a special interest or hobby, you may want to bring an initial supply of materials that are needed to keep you going for awhile until you are able to locate a source in China. For example, one old-timer who loves to cook recommends to all prospective foreign teachers that they bring a good supply of hard to find herbs and spices with them.
Probably the one thing that foreign teachers miss the most in China that is virtually impossible to buy on the mainland—with the notable exception of the three aforementioned international cities—is reading material. At best, you may find popular books and bestsellers from the West in major Chinese cities that are bilingual but, for the most part, English language books are very hard to come by. The good news is that Amazon.com does ship to China. The only apparent restriction is that they won't ship any software packages or books that contain software CDs and DVDs and, of course, shipping will be neither free nor cheap (as it often is with domestic U.S. orders). In addition, there are also restrictions on the types of merchandise that can be shipped to China as well, such as gift sets containing food items and over-the-counter (OTC) medical supplies.
You don't need to over pack. China is a shopper's paradise, especially in regard to clothes, so unless you are a particularly big person, there will be a great deal of relatively inexpensive clothes, shoes and other items for you to choose from and buy once you are here (see unit 15 on Shopping). A big problem most foreigners face when returning home is figuring out how to transport everything they've bought while in China. Most foreign teachers leave with more possessions than they came with.
Finally, your students will be intensely curious about your home country. Bringing stamps, postcards, personal photos, and even the shopping inserts found inside Sunday newspapers are really useful ideas.
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