CL, I thought I understood your intitial post. However, I am sorry I am a bit off on your following quite hostile one. But let me try here below;

In your intitial post (quoted below), you related to some of your personal experiences and I bet many will appreciate that

I can only relate personal experience, so others may give you different/conflicting information or a link to the relevant regulation. As I understand it, each proper employer should ensure you have a medical soon after you start your employment. So the "expiry date" is dependent on the length of your contract. If you change employers after completing your contract, (or before, if you decide for whatever reason to move to another job) the new employer will expect you to have another medical.

Now, your experiences and understanding as well as mine should be put together rather than appart for all readers on. I agree with you that foreign teachers, arriving on mainland China or just moving from one area to another in within the country, should check with the local authorities what they need and that before they board their planes for the destinations. Even though it may be quite a difficult task to find out all the pertaining info from the local authorities or their sites on, foreign teachers should make all their efforts to gather as much info as they need prior to departing. This is a really good advice and I hope both of us on agree on this whole parragraph.

Moving on to the next paragraph which CL may not agree with enough for some reasons, I have got to say on topic that there are a few practices on mainland China. One is that I have mentioned in my previous post that some areas as Chongqing, where I have worked, they offer only 6 months Health Certificates, although these are good enough for one-year employment contracts. The length of the Cert matters as if you decide to give a one month notice after half a year due to whatever reasons, you may as well get stuck with the hussle and even costs (if you pay)to have to go over the examination again with another employer. The fact is that your Health Certificate may be valid for another employment contract in the same city and even in some other locations of the country and that even if it is valid for only few months to come. Some of my former coworkers and I have done so (used such certs) previously in Guangdong and Guangxi. Moreover, there are foreign teachers on mainland that have had their medical done abroad and that have had their Health Certs accepted by the mainland authorities..but this one you've really got to be careful about as it may cost you more than it should then.

As for any relations in between the Foreign Teachers' Health Examinations and local employers, there's really little. None of my coworkers' or my Health Certificates had the employer on it and our employment contracts validation was completely irrelevant as dates on were so incompatible. My suggestion to all is that you not only check with your prospective employers who may be lazy enough to make extra local phonecalls but also with the local authorities in case as your 3 or 4 months valid health cert may be acceptable there. By the way, and I think it's worth mentioning that some localtions on mainland China have begun taking ONE TIME HEALTH EXAMINATIONS (sorry CL) which means you do not have to do it again there. I believe Shenzhen and Huizhou in Guangdong are two good examples of this.

On the end, I hope I have not offended anyone on boards and that all will find my post (s) on this topic as useful as they can.

Cheers and beers to all readers on