m*****n
发帖数: 1 | 1 【 以下文字转载自 Military 讨论区 】
发信人: code (碎片、片片碎), 信区: Military
标 题: What if I want to live in China? Is it possible?
发信站: BBS 未名空间站 (Wed Nov 17 18:42:56 2021, 美东)
zz from Quora
I’m going to offer a different perspective. I lived in China for 8 years. I
married a Chinese woman. We currently live in the US.
To clarify, I am assuming the question means to live a ‘normal’ life (as a
westerner would understand that concept).
You can live in China and hang out if you marry a Chinese person, but you
cannot work without a Z-visa (which actually converts to a residency permit
upon entry). You cannot work on a marriage visa.
Foreigners have to register with the local PD after they find housing.
After the age of 65 you will not be able to find work. Most contracts for
foreign workers limit age to 55–65. Some are as a low as 45. So you need to
have some kind of outside income.
I have known people who worked in Asia for many years, but never worked 40
quarters (10 years) in the USA, making contributions to Social Security and
Medicare. Then when their health turned or they were deemed too old to get a
work visa, upon returning to the US they discovered that they were not
vested in SS or Medicare….
Those people were deeply, permanently screwed.
The best way to live in China would be to get enough contributions to SS &
Medicare first, then go to China on a work or Business visa, find someone
you’d like to marry (and that person would marry you even if you told them
you were planning to stay in China, NOT go back to the USA) - and once you
qualified, start taking your Social Security income as a direct deposit into
a US bank account, which you could then access while in China.
Even so, you would have to apply every year to renew your marriage visa.
The food is great and pretty healthy - and in the 2nd or 3rd tier cities,
the COL is not so bad. In the countryside, your SS check might make you
slightly “rich” - in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, or other 1st tier
cities, it won’t pay for your apartment rent.
There are certain ways to get around some of the restrictions you will find
as a foreigner living in China, but it takes time to figure that out.
Medical & dental - quite good in 1st tier cities. In the countryside? 1950’
s era dentisty - with the drills to prove it. Your Medicare will only work
in a handful of 1st tier city hospitals. Otherwise, bring cash. You’ll pay
in advance, even before surgery.
Socially, it would be different for most westerners. There are maybe 2
English-speaking cable TV stations, originating in Hong Kong. Increasingly,
bookstores in 1st tier cities have books written by English-speaking authors
- but the selection is limited. Other westerners you meet, fellow-travelers
if you like - are not always that likable. Lots of alcoholics and social
misfits working in China. In the countryside, you will always be a curiosity
. Children will sometimes shrink from you, crying in fear. The bigger cities
are better, but then again, that annoying COL problem returns.
Studying Mandarin (putonghua) before you go helps. But there are 680
dialects spoken in China, and unless your putonghua is spot-on for
pronunciation, no one will understand a word you say. If you end up in
Guangdong Pr., they mainly speak Cantonese (Guangdonghua) - so if you show
up there, you’d better be a fast learner.
There are other things. Toilets rarely have any paper, so you learn to carry
some at all times. In China it’s a little packet roughly 2″ x 3″ x 1/2″
of little Kleenex's - and the toilets may be the squat down type (the
sitting type like westerns are used to mainly in the bigger cities). I could
go on….
Like all places, China is changing quickly. The internet is more tightly
restricted now than it was when I was there. On the other hand, trains are
faster, buses cleaner, and some of the “Wild West” flavor of China as it
transitioned to ‘authoritarian capitalism’ are gone. If your papers are
bogus, today it is more likely someone will spot that. If you went a “
looser” version of Asia, Thailand remains your best bet.
Can you live in China? Most westerners I have known washed out, barely
hanging on to finish out a year’s contract for teaching. Others liked it
more and stayed longer. Foreign business people getting paid by their
company, living downtown in first tier cities saved a lot of money and
became rich. A few people I knew tried to find ways to stay forever, but it
is unclear whether they made it or not. A Chinese green card exists, but it
is almost impossible to get one.
Now you know more, so… is it possible? | s**********o
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