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anonymous
Q: If you knew you had to stay in China, would you have still come?
Due to age, finances and the UK's "wonderful" spouse immigration policy (Impossible!) if I want to proceed with a relationship in China it means I am here for good.....or as "good" as it can be.
Would others take the risk and sacrifice their homeland for a relationship?
Or is that just plain dumb?
9 years 18 weeks ago in Relationships - China
what kills me is I see semi-normal guys feeding them in buffet restaurants,, funny to watch as she steals from his plate...How's China look now?
I'm making my third trip to Philippines to try to find a place to live that isn't a shit hole. I actually do like China (mostly) but China won't let me stay. I see herds of beauties in China, nicely dressed, Philippines not so much, but most speak English and the women are soooo much nicer.
TedDBayer:
I had heart oblation done, think I'm OK, time for test drive, a few times in China thought I was going, my friends would like the circumstances
expatlife26:
I hope the oblation helped ted, my grandma just had a similar procedure done. Very risky at her age but it really helped her quality of life.
Best of luck.
TedDBayer:
if I'm going,it will be with a smile on my face,NP, have sisters waiting
If I knew I would have to stay in China, I would definitely ask for much better conditions of the contract !
Are the UK spouse visa restrictions that high? I thought there was just an income limit?
What's so difficult about getting a UK spouse visa? Just asking.
I thought every man and his dog had moved there.
ScotsAlan:
From memory, the UK partner needs to earn about £19k per year, £23k if there is a child involved and another £1.5k for every other child. But he/ she needs to show 6 months worth of pay slips to show the job is stable. Or, he/she needs to have a minimum of £60k in the bank.
You also need to have either your own house in the UK or a long term lease.
I think the foreign partner also has to do an English test now.
Basically it can be done, but if you are living and working abroad with your wife you will have a seperation for at least 6 months, because the UK partner needs to go back and get established before applying for the spouse visa.
However, if you are a highly paid person working here on secondment with an ex-pat package, it is fairly straight forward because you have a job and house to go back to.
You are not allowed to go back to the UK and take your foreign partner with the intention of staying with relatives till you get a job.
royceH:
Thanks for the info. Yes, quite a difficult thing to do.
In our case an Australian resident permit for my wife and 16 yr old step daughter needed nothing more than a commitment from me to look after them. Oh, and Y45000 to get it done.
No job, no house. Just the scattered ashes of a once productive life remain there for us when we get around to getting the funk out of this joint.
If we save lots of RMB for about 57 years we'll have enough for a shack in the bush in Queensland.
As for getting a job in Aust.....woah! Difficult for anyone aged over 45 odd.
And as for staying on in China for another 57 years.....I don't effing think so!
57 more days might even be a stretch.
Anyhow, Happy Friday Al. Here's cheers!
Mattbaker:
You should look into the 'surinder singh immigration route' While we remain in the E.U (although that may be for a limited time) it is a perfectly viable way of entering the UK with a non-EU spouse by exercising your rights as an EU rather than UK citizen. What you have to do is get a job in another EU country, like Spain or Germany or Ireland, register yourself and your partner there, pay taxes for 3 to 6 months, and then enter the UK and at customs inform them that you are entering the UK as an EU citizen and exercising your rights as set out by the EU in the Surinder Singh judgement. It's a really interesting legal case actually, wikipedia it for more details.
The political parties in the UK have become very anti immigration over the past few years.
First of all, the Conservative party were voted in. Vote Conservative and you get Conservative policies. Then the anti-immigration UKIP party came along and won the european elections in Britain. That gave the established parties a fright so they all toughened up their own immigration manifestoes.
The OP has a point to an extent. You need to be fairly well off to marry a foreigner and take them home. But that is not the fault of anyone or anything in particular. It's the result of the democratic process working in the UK. Democracy in action as they say.
Of course, it can't be denied that UK newspapers such as "The Daily Mail" are somewhat guilty of throwing petrol onto the anti-immigration fire.
expatlife26:
One day you'll get enough votes to finally vote in the BNP, then you'll have nothing but good old fashioned prosperity. Who knows maybe get a couple great colonies too.
Tons of places out there are sitting ducks. Turkmenistan. Egypt. Costa Rica. Namibia. Belgium.
As an American, I for one would love to see a return of the British Empire and a return to those 1910 values.
ScotsAlan:
Ha ha expatlife.
Fortunately the BNP and their ilk are not doing too well at the moment. "Britain first", an offshoot of the BNP recently fielded a candidate in a by-election and only got 69 votes I think.
I see UKIP as the real problem. They have made it ok for people to say "oh...we don't want THEM here...".
I think UKIP are similar to the American Tea Party.
Mattbaker:
You should look into the 'surinder singh immigration route' While we remain in the E.U (although that may be for a limited time) it is a perfectly viable way of entering the UK with a non-EU spouse by exercising your rights as an EU rather than UK citizen. What you have to do is get a job in another EU country, like Spain or Germany or Ireland, register yourself and your partner there, pay taxes for 3 to 6 months, and then enter the UK and at customs inform them that you are entering the UK as an EU citizen and exercising your rights as set out by the EU in the Surinder Singh judgement. It's a really interesting legal case actually, wikipedia it for more details.
ScotsAlan:
Yeah. I have heard of this. In my case if I were to do it I would go to Ireland. I have some contacts there.
But I'm happy enough in China. I have no plans to go back. I don't see myself as being trapped here.
MissA:
Scotland: two pandas, one tory. If I were you, scotsalan, i wouldn't be taking any blame for the tories.
If ScotsAlan is right that it's 60K GBP you need in the bank that's hardly an insurmountable goal.
Provided you aren't a CFTU troll and not a real person...
WHAT YOU SHOULD DO
I'm guessing you're an english teacher. What you SHOULD do is show some damn initiative and long term planning skills and get your ass in gear. Get a job at a training center in a big city or whatever combo of gigs gets you the highest pay. Live modestly. Be willing to commute.
If you're willing to work, you can easily make even a bit more than 20K. Your wife can probably only make maybe 3K, but every little bit helps.
60K GBP is 584,000 RMB, divide that by 36...comes to 16.2K per month. If you can bank 16.2K RMB per month...you're in the UK in 3 years. Totally doable by ANYONE from a native english country...espeically if you have a wife chipping in.
Hell she makes 3k set that as your budget bank your whole salary.
WHAT YOU ARE PROBABLY GOING TO DO:
Keep working a shitty job making <10K/mth and whining about how the policy is unfair and asking why oh why is the world so cruel to you?
I'm making a pretty big assumption here, but honestly if you look at 60K GBP as some kinda magical amount of amount that only the "lucky people" can ever have than you are most likely a loser with no long term planning skills.
Honestly how do you think anybody saves up to buy a house in the normal world? It's not like your income is capped around 3K like a fresh chinese graduate...you're a UK citizen you can make 20K here easily (with a massive savings rate) if you're not a lazy POS.
If you don't wanna work hard enough to save what amounts to a down payment on a house when you EASILY have the ability to do so than the UK is probably right to want to keep you out because your kids will be lazy 'victims' too
and yeah
I take this all back if you have some kind of medical condition that means you shouldn't be on your feet 60 hrs a week.
Then it's outside your control...in that case you legitimately would be a victim and i'm truly sorry.
But if your reasonably healthy than the immigration policy is only "impossible" because youre lazy. 3 years and you guys are out of here. Maybe that sounds like a lot to you but either you're going to die or it's going to pass by anyway. And then you'll either be here complaining or you'll be back in the UK glad you had the initiative to save up 60K...which they don't take away from you either...you can use that money to get established for f*cks sake!
Learn to plan more than 1 month of your life at a time and you won't be a victim anymore.
It's only £60K if you're moving back immediately with no job!
The key number for getting a non-EU spouse into the UK is an annual salary of >£18.5K/annum BUT you must have been in that steady employment for (I think) 6 months. So if you want to move your wife with you from China you're going to have to leave her here for at least 6 months! For ever kid you've got the figure increase by about £2.5k/annum.
It's a moot question. We take the plunge because of our curiosity and the mystery of China. So you're basically asking if we'd have taken the chance if there was no mystery; if we already knew all the bad things.
To answer it: China isn't a death sentence. There are major risks involved in China life, but some decent perks too. I came because my GF said "live together now or break up", so I rushed over and it worked out OK.
But if we had tried a little harder to get into Europe, life would have been better overall. Now it's not easy to go there with 2 young sons.
ScotsAlan:
I remember checking the UK foreign spouse rules a few years ago.
At that time, if you were married to a foreign national and lived together for 2 years in his/her home country then they could pretty much get a spouse visa automatically. Same with the kids.
That seems a lot fairer to me. Even if they made the rule 3,4 or even 5 years it would be better than the current system.
If two people want to be together they will do whatever it takes 
.
If you regret then run away ... Otherwise there are just few questions/problems without solution
