Don't eat at McDonalds?

If you hate yourself that much, don't worry about the cost. Worry about your self-esteem.

There is a French company in Shanghai who deliver country wide called Cheese Republic. Look them up on We Chat. French, and recently Italian cheeses at reasonable prices. Combination platters available.

I just spent the evening in the company of a Canadian pilot who flies for the new Guangxi Airlines and his Chinese boss.

Now the Canadian bloke has been training and flying with this airline for a year and a day. He didn't even get in the air until he'd completed 3 months training under CAC rules even though he'd flown Embraers for four years in Canada. It took him another three months to get from First Officer to Captain.

It really is not easy to get a pilot's licence in China if you speak to those who have actually achieved it.

So, on that basis, I wouldn't believe something off a website. Classroom is one thing, taking a plane up is something entirely different and much further down the road/runway.

The Nanning Guangzhou HST opened on Boxing Day last year.

There are at least two HSTs to Shenzhen every day now, from Nanning. It makes for cheap and easy access to HK. If you do have to change at Guangzhou, there are HS trains to Shenzhen every 20 minutes or so.

Howdy folks,

Don't mind me butting in, but I live in Nanning, Guangxi, and we're experiencing the same issues. A customer of mine, a Phillipina, had enrolled at a local college to study Chinese. She was granted a visa until the end of the semester. When she re-applied at the PSB Entry/Exit Bureau they knew exactly how many times she'd attended class. They tested her Chinese, refused the three year course duration student visa and gave her one year, after which they told her, her Chinese and attendance had better have improved. She was also warned not to work on a student visa.

I think that this is a reaction to the difficulties that Chinese students are facing at home (UK).

The other aspect of it is that when they changed the visitor visa regulations last July to prevent people working on visitor visas, there was an immediate shift to student visas for cheap Chinese courses at private colleges whereby ESL teachers can attend college during the day and teach evenings and weekends.

Incidentally, my customer has given up and will return to the Philippines when her visa expires in September.