A friend of mine has just begun working in China this semester. He came in on a tourist visa,
then a short time later he flew to Hong Kong to pick up his Z-visa.
This is exactly the same procedure that thousands of FT's have been through in the past.

Indeed!

Some schools, even those who have licences to issue Z visas, ofttimes ask their teachers to come to China initially on L visas for a variety of reasons. The usual reason is time constraints. If they need an FT now it is easier and faster for them to do the required invite letter paperwork with the new teacher present in China.

If new teachers arrive on L visas, they can teach during the first four weeks or so until they do an HK visa run during the October national days' vacation to get their Z visas. My province still allows Hong Kong visa processing. It is a poor unfashionable province of Northern China that has great difficulty in filling its FT vacancies. Formerly it was the number one visa fraud province for FTs in China!