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Thread: Visa Types

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[quote=CHRISWAUGHBJ,38361]The little red booklet is either your foreign experts certificate or an alien employment certificate. They're a slightly different shade of red. They're simply proof that you are legally entitled to work in China. Also, the foreign expert certificate has a handy little page for changing a certain portion of your salary (I believe 70% is the standard) to foreign currency.

They started phasing out the little green booklet about 2 and a half years ago, which explains why you will have never seen one.

There's something weird going on with the healthcheck. Anybody who tells you it must be done outside China is full of sh*t (excuse me, but strong language seems appropriate) even if they are the staff of the Chinese embassy. In New Zealand they'll give you the health check form (exactly the same one they use in China), but I'd be very surprised if they denied you a Z visa if you didn't produce it with your visa application. In North America and Hong Kong they will neither provide the form or ask for it when you apply. The health check must be done before you get your residence permit, that's all, and all cities in China should have a designated clinic for that purpose. If you want to save yourself some money and have a valid health certificate, get your visa in Hong Kong (if you show up at the visa office at 9am when it opens, you should be able to get your visa by midday- for a little extra, of course, but you'll be able to get to Shenzhen for lunch, and then on to your destination....) and then do the health check on the mainland- your work unit should pay the cost of your healthcheck. If you're worried about the "quality" of Chinese hospitals, do the health check in Beijing- the designated clinic is definitely up to Western standards and it's amazingly efficient. Don't eat breakfast before you go (Chinese hospitals are strange like that- they like your blood test to show zero blood sugar for some reason), but show up bright and early, you should be able to get through in half an hour or an hour max, then wander round the corner to Maccas for sustenance. Just make sure you get there well before 10am- that's about the time it starts to get crowded. I've seen the clinics in Tianjin and Hong Kong and I'm very glad that in both places my health certificate was quickly approved and I didn't need to have any tests done in either place- although in Tianjin that required quite a fight because my Beijing-issued certificate had a fancy modern holographic stamp instead of the old fashioned ordinary red stamp. As soon as the director saw it, though, I was home and hosed- un-poked and un-prodded, much to my relief.

And if you do do the health check outside China, it's quite likely you'll have to go to the designated clinic to have it checked over anyway. Just remember to take your chest x-rays and ECG printout with you.

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