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asiacanuck
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Posts posted by asiacanuck
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I entered with a Non-Immigrant O (single entry) on November 19. I cannot apply for the retirement extension until at least January 19. Can I leave and re-enter before that date on my current visa. ie can I purchase a reentry permit. My son is having his own business visa problems in China and has decided to get married at the beginning of January to solve them. lol They've been together for a few years so not totally out of the blue except for the timing!
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Thanks! Yes, I was told that about not being able to get the visa in CM earlier this year but totally forgot.
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Ok, we are heading to Vientiane tomorrow night to attempt to obtain our Non-O (retirement for me, dependent for my wife) visas. I won't repeat the problems we had with our third retirement visa extension recently. Suffice it to say we need to start at square one again.
We are still receiving conflicting information on exactly what we need in terms of paperwork, etc.
We are taking the following:
1) Copies of passport pages
2) Certified letter from Canadian consulate documenting monthly pension and marriage
3) Original pension documents
4) Certified copy of marriage certificate
5) Bank book and letter from bank showing top-up money in bank account to satisfy financial requirements (thanks to wonderful Canadian exchange rate, pension is a tiny bit short for the first time) - has only been in an account under my name for the last few days, it was previously in a joint account which caused problems the last time)
6) 2000 baht for fee
Application form which we will get there.
Should this do the trick?
I assume that in a couple of months I can begin the retirement extension process once the funds have been in the bank for that length of time as we did the first time a couple of years ago.
I realize I could have obtained my non-O here in Chiang Mai but decided to do it the same time as my wife since she has to get her "follow" visa out of country. Hope that wasn't a mistake!
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Thank-you very much for clearing this up. I thought that was the case.
@oncearugge...We are doing it ourselves. I just popped into a local agency today to try to get an answer to this question since everybody has been telling us something different for the last couple of weeks. Not a lot of help!
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Thanks for the answers. So according to what everybody is saying, we could both go to Vientiane. I could obtain my "O" visa first with my documents and proof of finances in hand. My wife would be able to then obtain her "O" visa at the same time as my dependent with no financial requirements. Is that correct? I remember the last time she obtained her "O" visa after me (two years ago) she did need a certain amount of money in her account. We were told by a local visa agency that the 500,000 baht is a recent change. I don't believe it but I want to make darn sure that I have my t's crossed and my i's dotted before I try this "0" visa run again for the two of us.
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Ok, after our fiasco in KL (a bad choice to try to get non-immigrant visas), we are back in the country with tourist visas. Thanks to an oversight on my part and changing regulations, we are back to square one for the retirement visa process. We have been down this road before but apparently the rules have changed. I am hearing different stories from different people, as well as different stories from different immigration offices.
I have my side figured out...pretty much the same as it was two years ago with my first application. Pension plus savings must equal 65,000 baht per month or 800,000 baht per year. No problem. I got that figured out.
The problem child is my wife and what her financial requirements are to obtain her non-immigrant and eventually piggy back on my "retirement visa". She is American and under 50 years old. We have been told she needs 500,000 baht in the bank by some and others have said she needs the same amount as me...the difference between my pension money and the 65,000 baht per month. Does anyone know the actual amount needed?
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Our original intention was to just get Non-Immigrant O visas. We thought that this would be an easy, quick process. We should have known better! We had all the paperwork other than the criminal record reports. These were not needed the first time around when we initially obtained retirement visas a couple of years ago and didn't realize they were required now. There is no way to get them in a day or two so back in we will go with tourist visas. We are in KL and the immigration officer is the one who suggested we re-enter with tourist visas since we can't go the non-o route. I just forgot to ask her about the tickets and we want to finish this tomorrow morning. Thanks for the answers.
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Do I really need a return ticket when I apply for a Tourist Visa? Thanks to a misunderstanding on my part with some of the new regulations (and a decreasing exchange rate), I was unable to renew my retirement visa for a third time and had to leave. I need to re-enter on a tourist visa to sort everything out.
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We have been using a Kodi/XMBC box for a couple of years now and love it. It came all set up with more stuff then you'll need in your lifetime and is regularly updated automatically. You definitely need good internet and a minimum of 5Mbs is suggested, we have 20Mbs. We purchased ours in Bangkok from JSAT. You can find tons of info, FAQ and prices on their website, jsat dot tv.
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Well, I have to admit that I have never been to a full-moon party but have had friends that have over the years. I will say that I have lived in several locations around the world with similar annual drunk and stoner fests. In every case, every one of them was eventually banned. Sometimes it took a couple of years, sometimes a couple of decades. Most started off as fun events, quite often even family events. But they always ended up being ruined by idiots who slowly took over with their booze and drugs. Even a police presence did not have a big effect, and these were in North America and Europe. Eventually, somebody always ended up being raped, beat up or killed. Fights always broke out in the end, probably fuelled by an overabundance of testosterone combined with a bunch of dead brains. I really would love to know what ever happened to people just going out for a good time without all the other garbage they seem to need to take with them these days. Combine tourists who think they they have the right to act any way they want with alcohol, drugs, sex and late nights and you are bound to have trouble.
As many have stated previously, if the police actually did any real policing, it would be a step in the right direction for all the problems that are currently plaguing Thailand. When the police force itself is one of the most corrupt institutions in the country, it's difficult to improve very much other than superficially. Until that changes, I cannot foresee any permanent improvements.
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We purchased a JSAT box in Bangkok a few months ago after suffering through god awful regular TV reception for the first few months we were here. I know I can't put their link here but you can easily find it if you search online. The nice thing about the system is that 1) it is totally set up and 2) they will walk you through the system when you buy it and 3) you can use it for lots of other stuff such as games, etc. It has absolutely everything included that you will ever want to watch on a television for the rest of your life and if you move anywhere else, you can just take it with you! We love it! It does freeze up occasionally because it totally depends on the quality and speed of your internet. They also do regular updates so it will go offline for a few minutes when that is happening. We have a 20mbps fibre optic connection here in Chiangmai. Supposedly it will work with anything above 5mbps.
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I am a certified teacher (B.Sc. in Chemistry, Dip. Ed., MA in Ed.Admin) recently retired to Thailand after three decades of teaching Mathematics and Chemistry in Canada, Scotland and China. As far as I am concerned, I am unqualified to teach ESL and really have little interest in doing so. Just because a person can speak English does not make him/her an English teacher. However, I have met many great ESL teachers with and without university degrees. Any native English speaker who has gone through a valid TEFL course, or equivalent, is more than qualified to teach ESL from my experience. Whether they are good teachers or not is another question. But I have met many certified teachers with post-graduate degrees that should not be in the classroom. It would be a shame to see a large number of enthusiastic ESL teachers forced to leave the country for inadequate qualifications. For the salaries and working conditions that I have only read about, I cannot see Thailand being able to recruit good teachers with the educational backgrounds they are looking for. In talking to dozens of ESL teachers I have met over the years, I can't remember Thailand ever being discussed as a worthwhile place to work. And that was before all these recent changes.
China, as only one example, is a wonderful destination for any ESL teachers that are looking for alternative places to live and work. The money is better, students are eager to learn, and the provided housing is generally pretty good. Public and private schools are always on the lookout for energetic, young, experienced ESL teachers. Although many do require a Bachelors degree, it is still possible to find schools that do not. Some will even pay for your ESL training if you show up and are hired. Although six years in China were enough, they were definitely some of the best years of my thirty-year career.
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"their requests for more relaxed traffic laws". Are they kidding? I don't think this is possible unless they decide to copy China! It's the only country I have lived where walking on the sidewalks is dangerous because of vehicles using them as another lane when necessary.
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Well, we shipped eight or ten (can't remember! ) large boxes of stuff to Chiangmai last summer when moving here from China last year. We entered with tourist visas (well not even, just the little stamp you get on on entry). We could not begin the shipping process until we had started the process of obtaining retirement visas and had an actual visa. Once we sent a copy of our visa to the shipping company they sent off our stuff. They actually provided one month of free storage while we sorted out our visas here in Thailand. We used Seven Seas Worldwide and were happy with their service. I have seen both positive and negative reviews of the company. They picked it up at our doorstep in China and delivered everything to our doorstep here in Chiangmai. From what I had read, I really thought we would be dinged with some type of duty but we ended up not paying anything. Our items included two desktop computers, monitors, and lots of other techie stuff along with mostly clothing and books. Not any large household items but several smaller appliances and such. Everything arrived in one piece.
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I rarely comment but this forum makes for great, entertaining reading each morning to start my day! As a previous poster stated, negativity sells.
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Well, I just retired to Chiangmai after spending the last six years of my teaching career in Wuhan, China. I have to say it was the best six years of my career. The kids were great, no discipline problems. I was teaching Mathematics in an International School and earning around 30,000 RMB per month when I left last June. The starting salary for regular academic teachers was 20 000 to 25 000 RMB per month. However, the hours were comparable to a regular school week in North America. There was also an ESL department in our school that students had to graduate from before they could be admitted to the regular academic program. Those teachers started at 12 000 to 15 000 per month. Free accommodation, international medical insurance, visas and annual flights home were provided as part of the package to all of us, both academic and ESL staffs. We also had a total of about three months holiday including the summer and winter breaks.
12 000 RMB - 15 000 RMB per month is pretty normal for a regular ESL teacher. For that salary, you should at least be provided with a decent place to live. They should also look after your visas, work permits, etc. If you're lucky, maybe even a trip home once a year.
The same money will get you a much nicer condo or apartment in China than in Chiangmai. For the most part, the cost of living is similar or less expensive than Thailand. But you won't have the amount of westernization you have in this country. Depending on where you are, the probability of finding any western restaurants (or I should say that have authentic Western food) or people who speak English will be way less than in Thailand. There are tons of ESL teachers all over China living a pretty good life on 12 000RMB per month!
If you are flexible and can roll with the punches, China is an incredible place, despite what you hear. If you are a sensitive, non-smoking vegetarian who wears a face mask at the first hint of fine particles in the air, then it is not for you! I think I ate more weird food there the first year than I have eaten in my whole life. Along with our regular fare of pork and chicken, we munched our way through dog, rabbit, frog, snake, pigeon, bull penis, rooster testicles, turtle meat and shells, to mention a few. There is nothing they don't eat.
Most Chinese beer contains less alcohol than what we are used to but it is also very cheap when purchased in the stores or smaller bars. A good variety of foreign beers are available in most places. Like anywhere, city centres are going to be more expensive than the outskirts or rural areas. If you'll drink anything, you can get totally zapped for a few yuan by drinking bijou, the traditional Chinese hard liquor but you'll regret it the next day!
Many Chinese girls are obsessed with white foreign males the same way that the foreign guys here are obsessed with Thai women. If you have a job and are decent looking, you won't have to try very hard; they will find you! But they are not interested in men that are forty years older than they are! You don't have to be rich to date them but marrying them may be another story. At the least, most guys are expected to provide a car and a house before marriage is even considered. But as a previous poster stated, don't take them lightly. Big brothers and their friends have been know to beat the s#@t out of foreigners who use and dump their sisters. Many women in the larger westernized cities such as Beijing and Shanghai are used to casual dating and may be less conservative than their counterparts in other parts of the country but overall, they are still a very conservative, naive group when it comes to relationships.
We loved the country and would recommend it to anybody for a few years. You will love it or hate it! There are no grey areas in China. I have friends who couldn't wait to leave after their first year and others who have been there for decades. But six years was long enough for us!
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I, too, have only made a couple of earlier postings but had to chime in on this one. After only living here full-time for a few months, I don't really feel that anything I have to say is going to have much credibility compared to those that have been around for decades with thousands of postings!
And there is not much point in responding to all the whiners…maybe I'll feel the same way in another year or two!My wife and I lived and worked in China for the last six years (no, I did not teach English and have no desire to teach English here!) before I retired to Chiangmai last summer. I guess I am not the typical expat, although I can't say I really know because I have yet to talk to any other foreigners except briefly in passing. My wife is twenty years younger than me but is American, not Thai. I haven't been to a bar here yet and have no interest in running off with any local women. My better half has already told me she will go one step further than Ms. Bobbitt and use a meat grinder if I even think about it! Our own interests have kept us busy 24/7 since we arrived here nine months ago. Anyway, enough introduction.
I have to say that China is a great place these days if you can deal with the pollution. We loved the people, the cities (other than Beijing and Shanghai), and the food. But six years was long enough. If it wasn't for the language and the pollution, we would have thought about retiring there. There are many beautiful, unpolluted areas of the country and the cost of living can be very similar to here for similar types of areas. We did make many good Chinese friends but it does certainly take time to get to that point. But the language was a real stickler and I just didn't have the energy or staying power to memorize God knows how many thousands of characters. The daily pollution we dealt with makes Chiangmai seem pristine on a bad day. And driving here in Thailand is so much easier than there, although I did love driving my big motorcycle in China! At least the vehicles and city buses don't drive on the sidewalks in Chiangmai at rush hour. Anyone who has not lived there within the last five years has no idea what is happening in that country. It continued to rapidly change from the time we arrived until the day we left six years later.
I would encourage any young person with ambition and energy to try China for a bit. There are many opportunities available once you get out of the main tourist cities such as Beijing and Shanghai. Despite all the crap propaganda you read, the economy is booming. The place is exploding like nowhere else in the world. The infrastructure has surpassed most developed western nations and despite all the doom and gloom reports you read in the western media, there is no end in sight. You just need to look around you to see the increase in Chinese tourists, even if they don't spend big bucks here. I never spend big money when I travel either! It was an incredibly exciting place to live for six years. Once you get out of the tourist areas, you would be hard-pressed to find a nicer, harder working group of people. Like anywhere else in the world, large tourist centres such as Beijing and Shanghai prey on the naiveté of foreigners. Our six years of big city life (over 10 million) in the middle of China more than trained us for dealing with the wheelers and dealers around this country!
My 30 year old son quit his job in Canada a few years ago to travel and ended up visiting us in China three years ago. He got a job in Changsha teaching English and opened a small bar/deli earlier this year in the same city. Within six months, they had earned back their original investment and he is busy every night. As he said, it is not going to make him rich, but he is learning many valuable skills on running his own business, making connections, ordering supplies, etc. He has always wanted to have his own business and never would have been able to do this in North America for the small initial investment and minimal paperwork it took in China. He loves it there and has no intention of leaving in the near future.
So I say to the OP, go for it. There are tons of opportunities. If you need to teach English for a bit just to get your foot into the country, so be it. It can open many doors for you if you cannot find something right away. We had foreign friends working in business who did not speak Mandarin. They were working in such diverse fields as the film industry, cement production, technology, university education, restaurants, website development, you name it. The country is starving for western culture and willing to spend money on it. For a young foreigner, there are few better places in the world to be right now, despite the opinions from all the naysayers. You just might have to make your own future, but it is certainly yours to be made if you have the education, ideas and ambition. Don't necessarily rely on the businesses there, start your own. Thailand suits me just fine as a retired person escaping the cold weather and high cost of living of North America, but I never would have moved here for employment or business purposes.
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Well, I have just moved from to Chiangmai from China after living and working there for the last six years. I wrote a blog entry last year about "How to Drive in China". I believe I could change the title to "How to Drive in Thailand"! Although, I have to say, despite the statistics, it is much saner driving here in Chiangmai then it was in Wuhan, China. You can check out the blog entry at *link edited out*.
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Thanks. When I first glanced at the rules, it looked like I needed a valid, current license of some kind before applying.
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I currently have a Non-Immigrant O Visa while I put in my 3 months before I can complete the retirement visa process. I still have my Canadian drivers license but it has expired since i have been out of the country for so long (the last six years driving in China where none of us had a license!). What is the procedure to obtain a Thai driving license in this situation?
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Thanks for your prompt reply. She only has the entry stamp...not a real tourist visa so that would be fine if it ended up being the only thing issued. I can't see why issuing that would be a problem anywhere. However, after living in China the last six years, I know that logic cannot always be depended on. At least that would give her a way to stay here until my retirement visa is processed and then apply as a dependent.
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My wife and I moved to Thailand from China two weeks ago. I am Canadian (62) and she is American (under 50). We have been married for seven years and I satisfy the financial requirements for a retirement visa. To make a long story short....this is where we stand now. I was successful in obtaining my Non-Immigrant Visa as the first step towards getting a Retirement Visa down the road in another 3 months. She has been told by the Chiangmai Immigration Office that she cannot obtain a Non-Immigrant Visa as my dependent unless she applies from outside the country. No problem. We were going to arrange a quick trip to the Thai Immigration office in Singapore to do this. We have a letter from the Canadian Consul here in Chiangmai confirming the marriage and our financial status. However, I have since read on this forum that she cannot piggyback on my Non-Immigrant Visa but must wait until I have the Retirement Visa before she can apply. Which is correct? We don't want to spend the money shipping her off to Singapore for a few days if it is going to be unsuccessful!
And there is not much point in responding to all the whiners…maybe I'll feel the same way in another year or two!
Looking to profile expat-owned business
in Jobs, Economy, Banking, Business, Investments
Posted · Edited by asiacanuck
I write for an international magazine that has a subscription base of over 100,000. We also have an Incomes-abroad themed issue where we profile expats who either have portable incomes (working online) or own brick and mortar businesses in Thailand. If anyone fits either of these categories and is interested in possibly having a profile article of them or their business appear in the magazine, please send me a PM for further info. Generally, it would involve a short Skype interview (one hour or less) with a few follow-up questions for clarification at a later date. Thanks.