I've been out of town for a while, and frankly I'm surprised that this hasn't been dealt with yet. It's actually a very simple problem to solve. All you have to do is have the phone operator report the price over the phone (I always insist when I call them), and issue printed receipts with each order, showing clearly what all the fees are. It's not rocket science.
I would actually be surprised if they moved out to the new city. They tried something similar once, moving to a hard to find building on the north end of town when it was getting developed. People had a really hard time finding it, and eventually they moved back to Beijing Lu. I'm sure the central PSB headquarters will move a lot of their offices to the new town, but they'll likely keep that building, and the visa guys will probably stay.
Jmph,
Try again today. The visa office was closed Monday and Tuesday for the national holiday
From what I understand you only need the certs to provide certified translations, or if you want to register a company as "XX translation company". My company has translation as part of the business scope on its license, and I routinely issue fapiao for translation services, all without any certification. I just can't say that "this document is a certified translation".
Also, any certification would have little to do with the HSK, if anything. It would be about taking certain training programs, passing examinations, and of course paying fees.
@Nattyg:
My main niche is Chinese contemporary art, though I do a lot of work in the general cultural field.
I did not take any formal training myself, though there are lots of places that offer such courses, and even degrees. It really depends on whether you want to be a certified translator/interpreter, or if you just want to be a good tour guide.
Contrary to what tigertiger says, there are no strict legal requirements as to who is allowed to translate in China, outside of general employment and tax laws. There are various types of official certifications, but they have nothing to do with the law. Some clients, such as international conferences and the like, will only hire certified interpreters, and you can charge more if you have certification.
The only legal requirement is regarding certified, notarized translations. That comes into play for legal documentation. As it has basically zero relevance to my "niche", I'm basically ignorant about the requirements for that.
No results found.
Right next to my office, so I eat here pretty often. The place has a nice garden design with lots of outdoor seating for nice days.
A nice menu of Western food with solid brunch choices, fresh fruit juice mixes, and good salads. The burger is also very good.
Excellent Thai food served in a beautiful art deco setting. The bar is also top notch, with great cocktails, whiskys and cigars.
When the weather is good, try to get a table on the rooftop garden, which offers views of the Bird and Flower market.
May be a little pricier than some of the other Thai restaurants in town.
An exciting new gallery space built from an old factory warehouse in the Paoluda Creative Industry Park. Looking forward to seeing what they'll do with it.
A great little place in the middle of a beautiful valley chock full of great climbing spots.
The beds and rooms are very comfortable, though the bathrooms are shared, and of the "eco" variety (a plus as far as I'm concerned).
The owners are very helpful about everything from info on climbing spots to trip planning and getting around the area.
Also, the place is dirt cheap. I wholeheartedly recommend it.
Kunming Mayor Zhang Zulin to serve second term
Posted byActually, they usually only list ethnicity when the person is not Han, or gender when the person is female. I don't know why they listed his ethnicity there. I guess they're used to listing it for everyone in Yunnan.
Interview: Deng Bin
Posted by"we looked at several places in Beijing and Shanghai and found that mixing creatives' office space with performance spaces and galleries made things too chaotic and often resulted in creatives moving out."
That's so true. 798 was first filled with artist studios, then the creative companies and galleries moved in. The bars, shops and cafes came last.
798 is very active now, with dozens of exhibitions opening every weekend, lots of music events and plenty of places to grab a bite to eat. But there are only a few artist studios left, and most of the creative companies are gone.
Wenhua Xiang filling up with financially overextended youth
Posted byLaotou00, you're kind of off-topic there.
There are a lot of issues arising from Qiu He's moves, but the construction is going along rather smoothly, considering the scale.
As for the debt, you have it backwards. The government sets up local development corporations and gives them large parcels of land. They use this land as collateral to finance the infrastructure projects, and when the new infrastructure is built, that land, now highly valuable to developers, gets sold to pay off the debt. It's happening across the country. Almost all of the other bonds and funding mechanisms are sold domestically, so if something happens, it will be more manageable than, say, Argentina's international debt crisis of a few years back.
American conservative group makes inroads into China's classrooms
Posted byI don't care where FOTF folks go to church. I have no problem with teaching "good judgement, self control, integrity, healthy relationships, communication skills with parents, resisting peer pressure, and respecting yourself and others", but I am no fan of this organization.
Do you want to know what they're spending all that lobbying money on? It's on fighting to make abstinence only education the only form of sex education in American schools.
Do you know what else they spend it on? Convincing congressmen to cut off AIDS and reproductive health aid money to any country that allows abortions in public clinics.
I really don't care what people believe about God and the universe. But it offends my American sensibilities when people try to impose those views on others.
When the Ministry of Education finds out about this organization's religious agenda, not only will they kick them out, they'll impose a whole bunch of new rules making it harder for foreign education materials to be adopted in China, because they'll view all foreign education institutions as possible guerrilla fronts for religious insurgencies. Thanks a lot, guys.
Did Kunming's bus station reshuffle create more illegal taxis?
Posted byThe proliferation of illegal taxis has stemmed pressure on the city to revamp their woefully inadequate taxi system. Licensed cabbies have a lot of legitimate complaints, but their attitude and the shortcomings of the system are becoming untenable. Drivers frequently refuse to take people to places they deem too far or unprofitable, something which is illegal, and it seems every taxi in the city switches drivers at dinner time, which is when they're needed the most.
For now, people just shrug their shoulders and hop in a black cab. I hope that the crackdown will expose the deeper problems, and the local media will start to follow this story. When I came to Kunming 10 years ago, it had one of the best run taxi systems in the country. The problem is, it's still the same system today.