Thank you for your response.

1) Yi, who made the posting that I commented on, clearly did not have the necessary visa and therefore, unlike you, he came in from outside.

2) You claim that summer school teachers are "Guest Lecturers" which is not true. You're all doing the work for a salary or wage. A "Guest" Lecturer is generally paid (at least officially) just his expenses. Moreover, the term "Guest" does not appear in the list of "F" visa eligible categories

3) The Chinese description of an "F" Visa is as follows: "Issued to an alien who is invited to China for a visit, an investigation, a lecture, to do business, scientific-technological and culture exchanges, short-term advanced studies or intern practice for a period of no more than six months."

Your colleagues were none of those, though I accept that a school can generally cobble together a case - albeit false - to include summer school teachers even though they are in reality paid employees.

4) However, my understanding is that even an 'F' Visa must be pre-applied for. So I repeat that Yi and Co probably had 'L' Visas when they got on the plane to China or they would not have been allowed to board it at all. If however, one can arrive in Hong Kong Airport and apply for an 'F' Visa through the visa agency in the terminal building there, then they would still have to prove their eligibility to be issued with such a visa - and that could only be done by showing some invitation from the employer in China.

5) Thus I insist here that all the signs point to a lack of prudent research on their part. Certainly when they were planning to travel to a foreign country for work, even more so when their contract was signed a long time previously - they would have done well to contact the employer before spending their money, to check that all was still according to plan. Not least - they should have contacted a Chinese Embassy to check whether the contract they had signed was a legally valid document in China. In my posting I didn't actually comment on the employer's behaviour because I had no idea of the details. Indeed I accepted that Yi and his friends may have had every right to complain. To save you the trouble of reading my posting again, Adam, I reproduce that part of it here:

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"whilst they have every right to complain about being led up the garden path by the college or its agent, the fact remains that they could easily have avoided their predicament by asking for Letters of Invitation from the College. Had they have done that and found the Letters of Invitation not forthcoming, then they simply need not have bought their tickets and commenced their journey."

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Is that not a fair statement? Or have you chosen not to recall it so as to avoid weakening your present argument? What I said there is quite reasonable and true. Yi and others did not have the required visa - whether "F" or "Z" before arriving in China. I don't need to ask questions about it, for his own posting made it clear they did not have the required visa. That was their fault!

Moreover, the Chinese immigration system changed over a year ago and once in China the employee now has a plain Residence Visa. The 'Z' visa is issued through a Chinese Embassy to those wanting to enter China for work of whatever kind or duration and once he enters China his employer has, I think, 30 days in which to apply for a Residence visa. Then the 'Z'visa (which has no expiry date stated upon it) becomes void. The normal residence visa is customarily issued to cover the employee's one-year contract, and I understand that it is the same for the "F" visa cases except that that the Residence Visa is issued for a maxiumum of 6 months from the employee's date of entry

They could easily have avoided their predicament by checking on the proper procedure with a Chinese Embassy and then following up with an e-mail or two to the College beforehand. Anyone who is travelling has a responsibility for his own care - that is to say that it is HIS responsibility to ensure that(among other things) he is travelling with the appropriate travel documents having regard to his purpose of travel.

Had they have done this, they would have avoided the time trouble and the expense that I can well imagine they were put to. Thus, their only complaint would have been against the college for not honouring its contract. Their main complaint, however, was about the predicament they found themselves in and I contend that this was due to their own complacency.

Already being in China, you will also be aware that no employment contract is valid in China until the employer accepts responsibility for the employee by first signing both the Chinese and English employment contracts and then a Residence Visa can be granted.

Alternatively where the employee is hired from outside China, the employer must obtain a Letter of Invitation for the employee to enter China. Technically, as an "F" Visa is issued to people for the unpaid purposes I have earlier outlined, I believe it cannot legally be used to support an employment contract that requires services in return for money no matter how short its term. Possibly this could be worked around by calling such visitors "Consultants" but this is all a bit academic because an "F" Visa also has to be in the passport before entering China and in their case it was not, otherwise they would not have found themselves destitute on arrival.

In your case, being as you are sponsored in China by another party you would have been put out by the college's about-turn on its contracts too. Though not to the extent they were. Did you not call the college or send them e-mail immediately before you went off to join their summer school? With the number of unscrupulous schools that proliferate in China I would have checked with them - at the last minute - that their job still existed and if not entirely satisfied with their answer - I would have stayed home in bed.

Finally, Adam, I have been in China approaching three years and I too have had my fill of the devious nature of many employers seeking summer school teachers. Moreover I have have spent the previous 30 years travelling and working in many countries in the world. I really do know a thing or two about covering my backside and that explains why I have so far not been involved in a single horror story at all - let alone one such as theirs.

For many years now we have had the telephone and e-mail and it would have been very easy for Yi to have made a last-minute check on the validity of his plans before zooming off into the wide blue yonder. If he failed to do this then frankly he must accept the lion's share of the responsibility for whatever happened. This is little to do with whether the school acted badly - it seems to have been a case of sheer complacency or ignorance of procedure.

As I'm sure you are aware, the Chinese tend to regard written contracts as rather more abstract than we do in the west and this is one of the main reasons that the Chinese Authorities require a formal Letter of Invitation to be obtained by an employer wanting to bring someone in from outside. It is not so much a petty obstruction but more as a means of affording some protection to incoming employees.

So, having reminded you that I did accept that the school was in the wrong in not honouring its contracts, I nonetheless stand by my contention that Yi and Co have only themselves to blame. They evidently set off for China based on nothing but a worthless contract that even you admit was signed months previously.

John