Merior

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  • in reply to: Transferring money INTO China? #49319
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    I believe that HSBC in the UK do not charge for transferring funds to an HSBC account in China. Check in the UK first. The HSBC in China require you to have a Sterling account but you will pay a fee to transfer your £sterling into RMB as you would with any bank. N.B.  HSBC in the UK is not the same bank as HSBC in China albeit that they might be part of the same group. The same applies to the Bank of China.

    There is/was a US $ 50,000 limit for transferring currency to and from China (should be more than that now) for each person named on the account. So a joint account in the name of 2 people would have a limit of 100,000 US $. The guidelines are, however, flexible if you can satisfy your bank that you are buying a property, for example and not a money launderer or whatever that the Chinese government frown on. Check with your bank in China first.

    in reply to: Items Needed for Residential Permit? #49146
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    @ otchengdu – There is a dedicated clinic that does the health exams in Tongzilin which, if memory serves me correctly, is on the left hand side of  North Tongzalin Road about half way along if you are travelling from Renmin Nan Lu.

    in reply to: For the Foodies/Food Lovers Out There #48800
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    I find it easy to provide healthy western food for myself using fresh ingredients in local markets coupled with spices that you can buy in a few of the stores aimed at foreigners. You can also buy a few basics of processed foods to provide a few shortcuts. This can be supplemented by the occasional trip to a western style restaurant. Curry, beef burgers and Americanised Mexican food seem well catered for. The top end hotels often have buffets and Café Z has one that combines a range cuisine to try out.

    in reply to: Advice Need on Moving to Chengdu with a Family #48623
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    I have lived in Chengdu for 10 years and neither the food nor the health service have managed to kill me yet although to be on the safe side I do my own cooking with fresh food.  I don’t have healthcare insurance so use the Chinese hospitals.

    If you use health insurance then it is common that you need to get clearance from the insurance company before you can start treatment which commonly isn’t convenient. You might well find that costs of initial consultations and diagnosis cannot be backdated as regards payment – check the fine print. If you use the private health care clinics targeting those carrying foreign insurance then bear in mind that they largely use the Chinese hospitals to get access to expensive diagnostic equipment and specialist knowledge. Hopefully they will help you jump queues. Without insurance a consultation costs about £100 for a foreign GP who happens to speak English.  Diagnosis involving things like x-rays, blood tests etc will cost extra.

    In the Chinese hospitals/clinics the doctors are very much more accessible than those in the UK. English speaking doctors are available but not universally (pays to know some friendly students to act as interpreters).  I can typically get to see a GP level doctor after a 20 minute wait if I don’t use the big hospital. The Sichuan University might well have contacts with hospitals who could help you with health care matters.

    In the hospitals appointment times for consultations can be as little as 10 minutes to a week (with the Professor (Consultant) of your choice) depending on the level of medical professional and the size of the hospital. It is not uncommon for them to speak English in the large hospitals but, once again, an interpreter is advisable because there is a maze between you and the doctor involving different departments for appointment, payment and consultation. It isn’t going to break the bank to get an appointment – maybe £2.50 to see a GP and about £6 to see a Professor (Consultant).  Western medicines are commonly available if you need them and generally don’t break the bank.

    I have had surgery on two occasions (successfully and affordably). In the first instance I got a 2 weeks after my diagnosis by Sichuan’s top surgeon in that speciality and the second time was with a smaller hospital where there were beds immediately available.

    in reply to: Shipping from USA to Chengdu? #48551
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    There was a time when I could ship packets and parcels through the mail without having to resort to a courier. In recent years it seems that a letter can get through but packets and parcels don’t regardless as to whether it is sent registered insured or not. As suggested above it is probably because the phone number is not supplied. The local post office sorting office confirmed that it was a perfectly valid address, said they had no record of having received the items and could offer no suggestions as to how to overcome the problem in future.

     

    in reply to: New Photography Club for English Speakers #47999
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    @ Charlie – you can lead a horse to water but you cannot make it drink. I was just hoping that a fresh horse might have the energy to make it work but sadly I don’t think we have enough English speaking people in Chengdu with an interest in photography. I suspect that what we need is a Chinese element who can interface with the Chinese community to keep a club active – something that is way out of my league. It’s not as if there is a shortage of like minded Chinese photographers in Chengdu pointing their cameras at weird things. There is seemingly a different, Chengdu Camera Club who’s images appear if you do a Yahoo search but there are no contact details.

    My son was/is kind enough to host the Club gallery which you can find under http://www.loose-canon.net/Guests and my gallery under http://www.loose-canon.net/Portfolio/FatDragon . You will even find one of your pictures featured there. Choose the slideshow option as the thumb nails on display are just a sample. Enjoy.

    in reply to: New Photography Club for English Speakers #47977
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    @ Charlie – the club was advertised in the forums of both Chengdu Living and GoChengdu. The advertising was commonly refreshed every 3 months to bump it up the board. Subject to Chinese holidays we had monthly meetings in the Bookworm. Members received timely advanced notification of meetings and planned/proposed events via the Yahoo site and they received a reminder about 3 days before the actual meeting. We corresponded publically via the Yahoo site and these emails were automatically sent to the member’s choice of email box – you did not have to use a yahoo email to get notifications if you wanted to use a different email provider. We even had a showcase website (not Yahoo) which was updated monthly from the best (chosen by member votes) photographs submitted to the monthly meeting. We had a few trips out as a group but they were poorly attended. You imply it was badly run so I challenge you to do better.

    Yes, I agree about the Bookworm not being excited about hosting us – we were not exactly big spenders as a group. Sadly none of our members could find an alternative venue.

    To you or anyone else in Chengdu who is interested in photography within the city then feel free to contact me and, subject to weather and wife, my camera and I will be happy to keep you company but count me out if it just involves show and tell in the Bookworm.

    in reply to: New Photography Club for English Speakers #47975
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    @ seismicshift – an incredibly shot. I have been past that venue on numerous occasions over the years and it is a fog/smog magnet.

    in reply to: New Photography Club for English Speakers #47943
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    @ Charlie – the Chengdu Photography Club came into existence in about October 2011 and ran continuously for two years – somewhat more than 3 months!

    The meetings took place in the Bookworm every month from October 2011 until about July 2013.  Seemingly the interest of members was more about the meetings to critique member’s photographs than it was about getting together for photography trips. The club died 3 months after it was made clear that we were no longer welcome in the Bookworm and members failed to support publicised photography trips.

    in reply to: Staining a Table: Help #47664
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    I’d head for B&Q which my wife pronounces B and G. Last I heard they were a British company and there is a good chance of them stocking an international brand bearing a label in English.

    in reply to: Where to Buy Healthy Food? #46514
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    A lot of the packaged nuts like almonds and cashews seem to be loaded with salt and finding unsalted ones is sometimes a bit of a challenge. Most yoghurt seems to be overloaded with sugar so have now resorted to making my own but you can buy a natural yoghurt in some of the western(ised) supermarkets. There are companies who sell organic food (allegedly) but you pay a premium for it. Much of the imported food seems to be overloaded with either salt or sugar to the point where I find it inedible. I generally buy fresh veg in the vegetable markets because supermarket vegetables are best described as “wilted” unless you get lucky.  Auchan seems to do reasonable quality meat that is typically packaged rather than pawed.

    in reply to: Donuts and Photography #44382
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    The camera club was closed in response to the Bookworm making it clear that we were not welcome and members failing to support walk-abouts.

    in reply to: Strong VPN Broken? #44211
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    Unlike with Strong, I have never suffered an “outage” with Astrill using the “stealth mode” albeit that Astrill does operate at about a quarter of the speed in the evening compared with the morning. This does make some connections (but not the majority) unusable but there are typically a couple of servers on the list that are running well enough to secure a connection.  They aren’t necessarily the same servers that were fast in the morning or fast the previous day. However, the evening speed is probably due to volume of user traffic since regular connections typically slow in the evening and it’s a rare day when I can get through to a harmless site without a VPN when I couldn’t when using a VPN.

    in reply to: Obtaining a Work Visa to Teach English #43723
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    The last time I checked about 5 years ago with the Ministry of Education (or whatever they call themselves) there was a list of 16 educational establishments in Chengdu who are registered to employ foreigners to teach. If they are not on that list then they are acting illegally to employ you and inspectors do visit the teaching establishments to check visas.

    However, a friend of mine used to be given advance notice of the inspection and told to take the day off. Another friend suggested that the way round the problem is to work for an agency rather than directly for the school but I don’t have advice as to how that loophole could make it legal. Either way you would still need a work visa even if you didn’t have a foreign expert certificate.

    One thing to bear in mind is that if you fall foul of a parent by giving their princeling a bad school report or whatever then you might well find yourself in the spotlight.  The penalties at the time were up to 100,000 rmb plus claw back of all earnings and no doubt, a revoked visa.  Another aspect is that if you break the law then it offers the opportunity for your employer to treat you badly since you aren’t in a position to do much about it. So with that in mind, I would suggest getting references from three of their previous foreign employees.

    in reply to: Cloud Backup – Good or Bad Idea? #43178
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    I would never back up important data to a cloud system and the expect it to be secure from prying eyes.  Since we live in China, backing up to a single source outside of China isn’t a wonderful idea either with the issues of China-International communications.

    A grandfather/father/son back-up schedule to two external drives stored at two different locations is probably more accessible and secure.

    in reply to: Free Online Cloud Storage #43141
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    I think these cloud services present a major security risk and wouldn’t trust them with anything important.

    in reply to: How to protect yourself against burglars? #43140
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    The chances are that the lock on your apartment can by beaten in seconds – this applies to 90% of standard door locks. We discovered this from the police after a burglary on our apartment recently. You can buy a replacement high security barrel including a set of 6 keys for about 400 RMB that will take a professional about 4 hours to beat. High security barrel/key sets are available locally.

    Chances of recovering our property are officially about 10% but since the thieves did not leave finger prints and since the security camera is not working on our building and the entry door lock has been broken for months I guess it will be a fluke if they fall over a thief with our goods.  My wife is currently in discussions with the complex’s management regarding the level of compensation they will give us for failing in their responsibilities.

    This videos on this link shows you just how easy burglary is these days without having to resort to force: http://www.highsecuritydoorlocks.co.uk/

     

    in reply to: PayPal & Bank Cards #43011
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    Finally resolved it:

    Credit cards and debit cards must be issued in the country where your PayPal address is registered before you can link them to your PayPal account. If you use a UK card against a UK account and are on a computer in China or on a VPN then alarm bells are liable to go off in PayPal’s security office.

    China Construction Bank supplied a UnionPay debit card which now works. You need to upgrade the China Construction Bank debit card before you can use it so that it can be used on the internet. For a week or so PayPal refused this card as being an “Invalid debit or credit card type” as they did with every other card I presented. However, it seems that this is not necessarily a problem with the card but may well be with the flaky connection between China and the rest of the world. Perseverance is advised and the signal is typically better in the morning than the evening.

    The UnionPay debit card from China Minsheng Bank did not work with PayPal. The Bank of China took about a hour before they gave up trying to open an account for me because of “system failure”.

     

    in reply to: PayPal & Bank Cards #42942
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    I now have a collection of 4 cards – 2 UnionPay Debit cards and a Debit and Credit card issued by HSBC in the UK against my bank account registered to my address in Chengdu. While the cards are all active, working and enabled for internet use, when I try and add one (I have tried all of them) to my PayPal account, Paypal does not appear to have a feature enabled for me to select the type of card e.g. Visa, UnionPay or whatever and reports back “Invalid Debit or Credit type.”

    I have sent them an email but since this is PayPal I am not expecting a solution.

    in reply to: PayPal & Bank Cards #42861
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    It seems that PayPal will accept the Chinese Union Pay card but only if it is issued by one of the Chinese banks on their list and activated for internet use. Bank of China is probably the next stop as they didn’t accept the Union Pay card issued by the China Minsheng Bank. I suspect it has something to do with making payments in foreign currencies.

    So there this clerk was, in possession of my passport containing an up to date picture of me and he expects me to know what my passport number is to prove my identity. Jobsworth!

Viewing 20 posts - 81 through 100 (of 219 total)