Hi Kunmingren,

I am looking for advice on a few things and thought this would be the right place to ask! Thanks in advance to anyone who might be help me out with any answers.

My wonderful partner is moving over here in July, and my questions are to do with employment/visas for him. Since I came here on a government-sponsored volunteer program I didn't have to worry about this stuff, therefore I have no idea!

The first is about jobs. My partner has lots of great professional experience in Australia but doesn't speak any Chinese. What would his chances be, then, of finding a job that isn't teaching English? Impossible? If so - does anyone have any suggestions of the kinds of firms that may like to hire an Australian man in his late twenties with great management and project experience? Are there any recruitment firms in Kunming that may be able to help?

The second thing is Visas. Is it true that if my partner comes here on a tourist visa, he will be unable to transfer this over to a working visa without returning to his country of origin (Australia)? There is so much conflicting information on the internet, it's hard to know what to beleive.

Basically he would be willing to do any work that helps him out with a visa so he can have the wonderful Kunming experience with me!

If any potential employers are reading this and are interested in receiving a copy of his resume, just email me at misseward@gmail.com and I will very happily send it to you!

ONE MORE THING. I am DESPERATE to find Blu-Tak and have turned Kunming upside down looking for it! Is it just not for sale here? Or is there some strange local version I should know about?

Thanks so much for reading this insanely long post, and I would love to hear any advice any one has to offer!

(PS. If anyone has loads of advice to offer on the subject, maybe send me an email at misseward@gmail.com and we can arrange a time to meet, I can shout you a beer or coffee or whatever in exchange for your advice! I just live near Paul's Store off Wen Huaxiang.

Cheers,
Hayley

Greetings from Shanghai where I live... I wish it were Kunming, LOL!

If you are in China on a legitimate work permit and residence permit (since you are with govt volunteer agency it's likely) then your spouse and dependent kids can also get residence permits. But they can only work legally if they go through the work permit process, too.

Your partner can only get a spouse visa if you and him are married, as you say partner I guess you don't have that piece of paper.

There are a few options, he can get a Biz F multiple visa in HK and do visa trips to HK every X months.

He can enrol as a student and get a student visa which is the same as a work visa, multiple entries valid for one year (if you pay two semesters).

He can try to get a job for a company or Uni/school that has permission to apply for his work visa.

Before the Olympics you could change from a L tourist visa to a resident visa but during 2008 this changed to say you had to return to your home country, get a one entry visa (with a official invite letter from your company/school) and once in China get the resident permit (visa from 1-3 years) in your passport. However the visa regime has relaxed so I am not sure if this is still required. You can ask your employer to check this as its the same for all people in Kunming, but if your partner has no job yet he may as well just come out and wing it.

My wife (expert shopper) has never found Blu-Tak in Kunming in 4 years, so if you find some please let us all know.

Blu-tak....i was desperate for some and a classmate of mine found some good blu/green tak and gave it to me....
They were somewhat guarded about telling me where it was from, however they finally said it was from Metro....

not sure if this is true. but it's your best bet.

Goodluck.

hahhaha i love it that someone would be that stealthy over their secret blu-tak buying place. that's awesome. i'll go there this weekend and see if i can find some.

Thanks for the advice so far everyone.

Does anyone have any further advice or experience with the Hong Kong visa thing? So they can hook you up with a working visa in hong kong, but it's not necessarily attached to any employer... it's just a work visa for whatever?

Ungh, this visa stuff is sooo confusing.

If at the end of the day you can't get the blu-tak here, try the internet site taobao. I have a Chinese friend with an account. I was able to find the cheapest retailer in Kunming when purchasing my ipod and get ear plugs posted from Shanghai via the site.

I assume your partner is Australian. It is really quite easy to apply for a F visa in Sydney and they give you 90 days multi re-entry without asking, which is quite good. You can try and ask them for 120 or even 180 days. Who knows, you may lucky and get longer visas. I have heard of people getting 120 days but not 180 days.

I have managed five 180 day F visas in Bangkok, I have tried for a 360 but impossible.

For the record, I cannot find blu tak here in BKK neither

Can he write software? We can give a work visa to anyone who can write software.

Had to figure out what blu-tak was. We call it tiki-tac where I come from. Metro has it. I saw it when i was buying office supplies a few days ago. Not blue though but kinda yellowish and has something tak in the name. Its in the office supply section next to the labels. This advice is offered as is and carries no warranty as metro runs out or changes sh all the time.