Chinese University Contract

Got a call from the post office yesterday and was told I had an express package. I was happy to see, as the clerk handed over the thin envelope to me, all sorts of Chinese characters on the front. It was our contract for teaching English, sent from our future home of Lin’an!

It wasn’t easy getting the contract, nor was it quick. I spent months researching cities, school, and techniques for finding a school. I realized early on that responding to an online ad wasn’t ideal. A lot of recruiters place those ads (and recruiters take some of your pay) and others just seemed too good to be true. (Which meant they were, there are a lot of dodgy situations in China and I don’t want to get stuck!) We didn’t want our adventure of a lifetime to turn into a nightmare.

So instead I perused message boards and blogs, finding school that people actually liked and contacted the school directly. I think this was the best way to go. Of course, introductions and contract negotiations took about a month, but it was all worth it to get these little puppies into my hands…

Next step is to sign and return the contracts along with out medical checks. Then we’ll have to wait awhile as the University submits all the forms to the government, which will issue our visa documents. Then they will send the visa documents to us, and we can finally go to the embassy to apply!

It’s a long process, with the contracts being the first step (although getting to contracts was the result of a long process) but it means we will be legit, with a working Z visa, and it’s worth it.