Information is expat gold.

There are times when you’re searching for an answer to something and the only option is to smash your laptop into tiny pieces and  go grab a coffee somewhere instead. Information in China is a scarce resource. If you manage to find anything online at all it’s often out of date, incorrect or both. Half the time, word of mouth is the just rumour disguised as information and English expat “websites” just peddle those rumours for clicks. The best and most reliable information is if you actually know someone who did whatever you want to do and they did it recently. Perhaps second best is a recent blog or forum post (which is kind of like “someone you know” anyway).

Why is it like this? Your first thought might be the crippled collection of electronics that gets called the Internet here. Actually, I would say that's a small factor in this. I feel like businesses, government and most organisations here just haven’t got to the point where they put information on the Internet. You might think that us non-Chinese are just not in a good position searching in English. I find that our local brother’s and sister’s situation is just as vexing. If you think back 20 years in the UK and you wanted to know something about tax rate or how to apply for something then you’d likely have to actually go somewhere or ring someone to ask about it.

The issue with just “going somewhere” and finding out the information that you seek is that, in China, sometimes it’s not even obvious where you need to go. Once you get there, you might be told one thing that's completely contradictory to what Bob’s mate got told when he went. The time that you actually go there (or even another time you go back), you’ll probably be told you’re a) in the wrong place, b) you need these three documents or c) Who said you couldn’t do it last time? Of course you can! 

China is just so massive, think about how many interpretations there must be across a business or government department. Unless everywhere is on the cutting edge of office and administrative technology, it’s likely information will take a long time to disseminate to each department, office and worker. The pace of change here also makes things quite difficult. Recently we had to get a particular document for our HR department. They gave no advice other than “we need this” and it made a lot of people furious. In the end they admitted to us they don’t know anything as this is the first time that they themselves have been made to collate such a document. They were in the same predicament of not having any information beyond "you need this". 

There’s also the unfortunate habit that some people have, sometimes, of when they don’t know something for sure they either say you can definitely do it or that you definitely can’t do it under any circumstances. This is sometimes amplified by the fact we are not Chinese. I’ve had different requirements and experiences registering for temporary residence permits across the city. I’ve been told that things were absolutely not possible in banks only to find my friend did the exact thing I wanted to do, in the same bank, a few weeks before I went to do it. Banks are the worst for this.

As for information being filtered down to us in English, who knows how accurately it’s been translated and where it’s come from in the first place. There are rumours every year about visa changes or crack downs on teachers. I remember hearing from 2011 to 2014 about how you would no longer be able to go to Hong Kong to get visas. When you looked at their HK visa website there was an update posted in years before saying the exact same thing. In the end it only started getting difficult around 2016.

While in China just do normal things that everyone does. That way you don’t have to go traipsing round the Internet or city trying to find out how to do things and learning contradictory information from everyone you ask. The take home message is: don't try to get fapiao's, don't think about tax or sending money home, don't visit anything that ends in 'department' and, definitely, 100% avoid asking anyone in a bank anything.