Living in China

[Clandestine782]

I only figured some of these things out after "much weeping and gnashing of teeth." (Not sure how appropriate it is to use a phrase from the Bible on a discussion board like this.) In any case, you can use the chips that I have paid for with experience to go shopping.

[Clandestine782]

1. if you have cash that needs to be sent to another country, it is safe to do it with ems-- but only under some very specific circumstances.

it seems that the women at the post office like to look in envelopes and find a reason to not be able to send out your package. so, the experience that i have had is that they looked inside an envelope that i placed inside the ems envelope and saw that there was cash. they then smirked at me and told me that cash could not be sent in the ems packages. ok, fine. so, i took the same blue ems envelope and sealed it up and walked to the post office 2 blocks down the road and sent it with no further discussion. take away message: make sure that you seal your ems envelope before taking it into the post office. they will not bother it that way.

usually, it would be cheaper to wire the money from bank of china (or one of the other banks), but it turned out to be so much trouble (one visit took 2 hours and the money still was not wired after it was all said and done) that i just figured that life was too short and sent it in the mail. in the course of a year, i sent something like us$1875 back to the us via ems and have not lost one dollar.

2. if you want a package mailed into china, i have found that they way to not have it opened and confirep001ed is to address the envelope in chinese. so, if you order lots of books (which i do), the book companies don't have the capability of writing in chinese. i use a remailing service. what i have done is write out the labels in chinese and have the remailer affix them to the priority mail box and then send them on. i've gotten 4 shipments in the last 6 months or so. one of them had a book about the great famine. another had 3 porns. not a single one of the shipments was opened. coworkers, on the other hand, have not been so smart and have put their books in boxes that had to have the address translated. and that is where they made their mistake. because the boxes had to stop and be translated, that is where someone at the post office overdid their job and decided to open the box and confirep001e these books. they also described having sent christmas gifts which arrived opened and with the wrapping paper torn off.

the control experiment that i have done was to buy a herbie hancock book (which is not controversial, though i believe that jazz was outlawed here at some point). because of the limited capability of the book consolidator to write in chinese, they wrote the address in english--and it needed to be translated. it took every bit of 6 months before it arrived at the address. compare this to the 9-11 days that it takes for packages of up to 20 pounds to arrive when they are sent priority mail with the address label written in chinese.

another poster on here (ace of spades) runs a book business, and he was afraid to send his books by the post because he had had enough experience with their getting lost in the mail to not want to do it again. and for all that, he sent a courier to pick up a music book from me and it still got lost.

3. a stupid-ass hobitch at the post office tried to tell me that i could not mail an international package from her post office and that i needed to take an hour trip to the city center to mail it. that didn't seem right, and so i went to the place from where i had collected my books (15 minutes away by bus) and mailed the package out without another word spoken.

4. another hobitch tried to overcharge me for a package. (she was being smug and insisting that she did not understand my chinese. she only claimed to understand after i told her that she was 笨得无求药-- incorrigibly stupid in her language.) something told me that her prices were not right. so, i walked another 2 blocks to the next post office and they gave me the same service for half the price. moral of the story: know what the prices are before you go to the post office. i suspect that after i left, she would cancel out/ correct the order and then put the difference in her pocket.

[Clandestine782]

Some things to know:

1. DO NOT buy your cell phone SIM card from any place other than the service hall. The reason is that in the event that your cell phone is stolen and you know the number of your phone, your actual name is not on the account. There is someone else with some made up name on the account (the names are usually written to sound like a joke or otherwise so common that no one would try to look them up). And that means that if you wanted to get a replacement card with the same number or get the numbers to which you had sent texts or received calls, the answer is NO.

2. You cannot add cash at the service desk if you have an out of province phone. You will have to buy a card of some minimum amount (50-100RMB), and strangely enough a lot of these companies don't even have cell phone recharge cards. The last card that I bought required (1) a trip through 3 different China Unicom stores (2) 2 people to sell me the card and (3) a receipt to be filled out in triplicate. And this was only one fucking phone card. 50RMB.

3. The roaming charges are quite high for calls. The price is the same for text messages.

4. (You knew this was coming.) If you open your account in one place, you can't do anything related to that account in another place. A phone bought in Hunan can't have account issues addressed in Hubei-- even though they are just adjacent one to the other. If you know that you are going to move to another province, it is better to just run out all the money before you leave that province and then throw the card away.

[Clandestine782]

I've been taking trains in China for a long time and have decided to give a few anecdotes of the raw stupidity of the National Rail Lines.

1. Tickets can only be bought from the origin station. That is to say that if you want to go from Fuzhou to Guangzhou, you can't buy your ticket in Xiamen.

2. If you go on a journey that requires you to transfer, then there is no way to know if you will be able to find a ticket in a timely fashion for the second leg of the journey.

3. The people at the train station find as many ways to not be helpful as possible. So, I took a train to East China (from Central China), and because of traffic, I missed the train. There was another train going one hour later, and it was about 75% empty (in the sleeper cars), but the train people would not hear of letting me just go on the next train (the same way if you were to take flight 2/10 to destination X and missed it, the airline people would just let you take flight 3/10 or 4/10, etc....). They were insistent that I buy another ticket (just for spite).

4. If you want to buy an upgrade ticket on a train, since there is no well developed computer system to sell tickets, you are only going on what the train staff can remember. The staff on the train are no more helpful than the ones in the station. In fact, I remember that one of the staff was selling tickets, and when it came my turn she closed the desk and said that there were no more left. Um, OK. So, later on that night, I forced open the door to the sleeper car and found several unoccupied beds. I got on one of them and slept for 8 hours (the time that it took to get to my destination) and no one noticed that I was there.

5. If you want to use a Western toilet, it is always and everywhere on the first sleeper car directly off of the kitchen. It's usually the cleanest toilet in the whole train, because Chinese people (being the sanitary individuals that they are) refuse to use Western toilets-- and so it is often never used.

6. If you want to have something consigned from one place to another, it is actually better to do it the day *before* you get on the train. The reason is that sometimes you have to pay to have a box built around the object that you want consigned. The negotiations for such a thing can go on for a *long* time. Also know that if you pick up something that has been consigned, it is often NOT available at the exact station to which you thought you had sent it. It might actually be several miles down the road.

7. Consignment insurance's value is 100:1. So, if you want to insure a piano for 4,000 RMB, then the insurance is 40RMB.

[Clandestine782]

Just so that you know: Bank of China (and the other 4 banks) are national chains, but that has no meaning. If you open your account in one province, then things related to that account can't be adjudicated in another province.

How do I know this? I lost my debit card while traveling. I thought that it would be simple enough to report it lost/ stolen and then I could get a replacement sent.

When I went to the bank, the answer was: "You must to back to the very province in which you opened your account."

So, I called that province, and they said that I must come there in person (keep in mind that this is the distance from Shanghai to Chengdu). With some prodding, they told me that I could prepare a "letter of entrustment" [委托书] and give it to another person-- but only on the condition that I had that person's ID number and took the whole document to the notary public and got it notarized (200RMB plus the time wasted).

I send the document to Sichuan, and lo! Then they wanted my original passport. (I thought that the point of sending another person with an ID Card was so that I myself didn't have to go.) So, I sent them another stamped copy of my passport (which they had agreed to accept).

But, wait! That's not enough! They now need the letter of entrustment to be re-written. It seems that the first letter said that the person could withdraw the money, but they needed a letter that said that that person could withdraw money because the card was stolen. Ok, so the notary public was nice enough to give me the edited letter at no cost.

And just when you thought there would be a resolution, I sent the letter. But the bank told me that even when/ if they accept the letter, there would still be a 7 day holding period on the money and then they would release it to me. It wouldn't have mattered if I had gone all the way back to Sichuan, since even if I went there in person with an ID, they would still want me to wait those 7 days.

When I went to the bank, they found my account in a flash. But there were still these procedures that they had to go through, and the bank apparently does not believe government IDs (are they that easy to fake?), and they will only accept their own documents.

I have sent the SECOND letter of entrustment and the THIRD total package to these idiots. (This has been going on for 2 weeks now.) This should be completed within another 8 days. Can you imagine waiting a month to access your own money just because of a simple lost debit card? (And it's not like anyone can use the debit card, because they don't know the pin.) But apparently it would be too simple to just reissue the card.

There is also the possibility of transferring an account from one Bank of China Branch to another, but that takes every bit of two weeks--IF the service is even offered at that bank. It's just another cute thing! Certain services are not offered between 11:30-13:30 (or 12:00 and 14:00) or something like that. If you are thinking about getting something done during your lunch break, then forget it.

[Dash]

Greetings everyone,

I'm so fucking tired of receiving non-stop complaints from everybody who posts in this thread regarding everybody else who posts in this thread that I am now accepting nominations for who should be relegated to their own thread.

The primary consideration is who has the lowest information-per-report ratio. In other words, who is doing the most posting while providing the least amount of actionable information.

Nominations may be made by both members and non-members via the "Contact Us" link which may be found at the bottom of every page of this forum.

Nominations made in this thread will be deleted without comment.

Okay guys, here's your chance to tell me who is really causing the problems.

Thanks,

Jackson

I wonder who complains about what and whom."I wish to complain. So-and-so is wasting my time with comments I don't like while I waste time on a web site devoted to wasting time with loose women".

[Admin]

Greetings everyone,

I'm so fucking tired of receiving non-stop complaints from everybody who posts in this thread regarding everybody else who posts in this thread that I am now accepting nominations for who should be relegated to their own thread.

The primary consideration is who has the lowest information-per-report ratio. In other words, who is doing the most posting while providing the least amount of actionable information.

Nominations may be made by both members and non-members via the "Contact Us" link which may be found at the bottom of every page of this forum.

Nominations made in this thread will be deleted without comment.

Okay guys, here's your chance to tell me who is really causing the problems.

Thanks,

Jackson

[Clandestine782]

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/20...t_12729720.htm

CHENGDU, Dec. 30 (Xinhua) -- Chinese police have arrested nine people suspected of trafficking mentally disabled people from Leibo County in southwest China' Sichuan Province to other areas and then murdering them in coal mines to blackmail the mine owners, police said Wednesday.

The nine have been arrested in Leibo County in connection with the murders in nine provinces including Hebei, Fujian, Liaoning and Sichuan, said Ye Jianhua, head of the Leibo County’s Public Security Bureau.

This was the first time the police revealed the cases.

One of the suspects surnamed Feng allegedly colluded with another two to batter Zhang, a mentally disabled person, to death with a stone in an iron mine in eastern Fujian Province on April 28.

By making the murder look like an accident, Feng asked for compensation from mine owners saying he was the victim's "relative", police said.

Feng was arrested on May 13.

Leibo police did not provide details of other cases as they were out of their jurisdiction.

"Police in the nine provinces were investigating the cases," Ye said. Leibo police would cooperate with the police in the other provinces to find out more about the crimes, he said.

In a separate case, a mentally disabled miner called Huang Suoge died in a coal mine on November 23, two days after he began working in the Chengui Mining Group in Daye City, central China's Hubei Province.

The company decided to pay 200,000 yuan (29,000 U.S. dollars) to three men who came to Daye and claimed to be Huang's relatives. But when the company was checking their identities, the three men fled without the compensation or the cremains.

"More surprisingly, we got the news from Leibo County that the real Huang Suoge committed suicide three years ago," said Li Yunbao, board chairman of the company.

The Daye city police were checking the identities of the dead and trying to arrest the suspects.

[AsnDragon]

Zhuren,


What's considered a "vulgar" song? I'm ok with any system they install, so long as there's no live video recording of the KTV room and they don't take away the girls I'll be ok with anything. I'm not much of a singer anyhow.


AsnDragon

"176 karaoke places in Chongqing have installed the karaoke content management system, once someone selects to sing vulgar songs or banned songs, culture law enforcement central monitoring system will automatically flash red lights to alarm the police. Yesterday, reporter learned that Zhengzhou already started to use this system and next year will be implemented in the entire province."

Get the whole story here.

[Halcyon77]

Everything remains the same.

No ISG and no Facebook and no what ever for a while more.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100101/...china_internet

Not true! you can subscribe to a proxy network and get past those damn firewalls.

[Zhuren]

"176 karaoke places in Chongqing have installed the karaoke content management system, once someone selects to sing vulgar songs or banned songs, culture law enforcement central monitoring system will automatically flash red lights to alarm the police. Yesterday, reporter learned that Zhengzhou already started to use this system and next year will be implemented in the entire province."

Get the whole story here.

[Eaglestar]

Everything remains the same.

No ISG and no Facebook and no what ever for a while more


http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100101/...china_internet

[Hainanien]

I found this elsewhere & am surprised how much of it holds true in present times.

The link takes you to a presentation in PowerPoint format of the "Pocket Guide to China" issued to American soldiers serving in China during WWII. A pretty interesting read.

http://www.archive.org/stream/Pocket...ge/n0/mode/2up

[SE Asia Joe]

Zhuren..... How in the world did you ever get in between these two??

Incredible!!

I mean.... on the one side you've got someone who freely admits - that except for the wonders of modern day medication - that he's borderline schizoid and on the other - a renowned and bothersome couch pundit, pestering just about every ISG thread all OVER the world!

People under medication have a nasty habit of going off and taking themselves off their sole link to the real world - and I'd be worried that even as big as China is - that it ain't gonna be big enough to for sure keep him away from you.

And as for our couch pundit - hell, you never know when the guy's gonna be able to save and scrimp enough from his disability pension/cut a deal on the rental of his palatial basement digs that he may also show up on your doorsteps! I mean the guy actually basks and glows in pride at being "inducted" into that other whack job, Meat Loaf's "Mongering Hall of fame!" http://www.InternationalSexGuide.nl/forum/showthread.php?p=963586

And these two "Mongering Hall of Fame(!)" characters - they so proudly announce their plans to have a few Nicaraguan gals "pull Caballo" or whatever they call it, as if its such a great macho thing to accomplish ..... whilst not even appreciating the the fact that ALL they're talking about is actually how to become pimps for these two-bit South American "Ladies!!" ROFLMAO!!

Not that I'm saying that you need to worry about them actually seeking you out - but who the hell knows??!! I mean, I'm hearing about more and more wacko things happening in this already crazy world of ours and I'd say that it's probably NOT a good idea to keep on baiting the village idiots.

I'm SURE you and I would never .... EVER ... associate with characters such as these in real life - and I'm suggesting that it's really beneath our dignity to even acknowledge their presence here. Let's just ignore them and leave well alone enough I'm saying.

IMHO, only my POV... but.... D'accord??

SEAJ

[Zhuren]

See what I mean? Mention the old ghosts, and they are back in force. Now we are getting lectured on antipsychotic drugs.

Where's the pussy at?