I'm having some confusion regarding negotiations I am going through with a private school in China. The school sent me a sample contract in .doc format and told me to email back if I had any questions. So I wanted a few things added to the contract, and the school said that's fine, just edit the .doc file then sign it and send it to us. So I edited it, sent it back, and they said the changes I made were fine, and I should sign the contract and send it back to them and they would send me the paperwork for the Z-visa. Now I understand that the Chinese school would want some official form of commitment before sending me the Z-visa stuff, but there are a few things that are confusing me about this:
1)How am I supposed to sign a .doc file
2)Because a .doc file is not a legal document I am not entirely sure why I should sign it
3)I am concerned about identity theft from sending my signature over the internet
Am I missing something? Is it possible that there is a translation error, or is this obviously someone trying to scam me in some way?