Explaining China

I had moved into my new apartment and all was well. China has roaches. New York has roaches. Most places on earth with lots of people and buildings have roaches. When I saw a roach or two, I wasn't overly concerned. I just used some roach spray to kill them and disposed of their bodies. I really wanted to have a good clean before we unpacked. Our stuff was just in boxes so we decided to get to work while the apartment was clutter free. After I had killed those two roaches, I found another. Then another, then another. Then I kept finding them in the living room. What was going on? The apartment had been empty for months so I assumed that had something to do with it. We were cleaning and decided to sweep and mop underneath things like the coffee table, bed, TV stand etc. I still kept seeing roaches. The sofa was next. I pulled it away from the wall and was repelled. A party of roaches; living and dead, on the floor, on the wall, on the back of the sofa. As well as a selectio

How to get a housing fapiao in Beijing. After receiving a notice out of the blue that we’d all need to provide ‘housing fapiao’ to our HR department, I’ve been through all of the palaver of actually getting one. Beyong telling us that we needed one, our own HR didn’t know anything useful until after I’d already completed the process. Even with no information and a very reluctant letting agent I still managed to get it done. The major problem with this is that almost everyone rents their apartment themselves, as an individual. However, employers (and whichever government department) increasingly need a fapiao in the company name, not in your name. You cannot get a fapiao in your employers name using your individual housing contract because it has your name on it! As far as anyone is concered, your employer has nothing to do with the rental.  I’ve met people and spoken to friends in a similar situation. If this is to become the norm in Beijing then it would a lot easier if companies j

Pack a bag, kiss your loved ones goodbye, catch a flight outta here! If you're a long term expat in China who isn't living hand to mouth off an English teaching gig, you need to pay attention to the 5 year rule for personal tax. There are various websites offering great explanations as to the rule which can be found at one , two and three . If those three websites do a much better job than I can of explaining this rule, then why bother posting about it? Well, there are a few things that you need to take note of. Firstly, it's really important to understand that this rule isn't something new but it is only fairly recently that it's managed to trickle down onto a host of Finance websites and expat blogs. If you do a quick google search you'll see that most half-decent write up's appear after 2016. Information is something that China handles carefully. Would it be far fetched to assume that this sudden release of information isn't just coincidental?