When I get greeted at any business it is always "lei ho", "ni hao" or "hey guys" depending on the setting.

After the handover, the government of Hong Kong adopted the "biliterate and trilingual" (兩文三語) policy. Under this policy, Chinese and English must both be acknowledged as official languages, with Standard Cantonese being acknowledged as the de facto official spoken variety of Chinese in Hong Kong, while also accepting the use of Standard Mandarin.

The majority of the population in Hong Kong speak Cantonese, a Chinese spoken variant originating from Guangdong province. It is the main variety used in education, broadcasting, government administration, legislature and judiciary as well as in daily social communication.

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help me out, have no clue how to organize this "visa run"

Catch the ferry across from HK to Macau ferry terminal not taipa. Go to a travel agent in either hong kong or macau to book your hotel you should be able to get sweet deals at the wynn encore at the moment and the wynn have the biggest games. Definitely one place you should check out is the rio spa once in a lifetime experience even though ts quite expensive.

The only people you will hear speaking Mandarin in HK are people visiting from the mainland. Cantonese is the most widely spoken language in HK.

Even news and most TV programs are in Cantonese...

never played live before ... wondering if there are low stakes like equiv of 200nl or 300nl available there?

nvr mind .. found it

This Thread is exactly what I have been looking for. I just got done reading the whole thread. NICE JOB!!!

I have a question about extending my tourist visa. I have a visa for 90 days, but I want to stay in China for 120 days (so another month longer than my visa allows). I am in Beijing. I do not know how I should go about obtaining another 30 days. Oh, and my visa has multiple entries.

I tried to get this taken care of, while I was in the states but it appears comprehending English is not the strong point of The Chinese Embassy in America. So, I had a huge surprise when I tried to come to China and the things I discussed with the embassy were not exactly correct. sigh....

Yeah I actually lived in HK for two months in summer 2004 but I was on HK Island and it was no problem but I don't know how different it would be if I lived in Kowloon/NT. I also don't know what the cost of living would be like as I stayed with family during that period.

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The standard way to do this is to leave China and come back.

Where in beijing are you?

there is an American consulate in bj, you can talk to them.

Dont extend your stay just on your own. I did that my first trip out here and they hit me with a 8k RMB fine, which i needed to pay in cash, right then.

I did not plan to overstay my visa. I was wondering about getting a legit extension. I am close to the tiantongyuan subway station. I did not know how to go about getting this extension.

What do you mean leave China? Go back to America, get a new visa and then pay 2k+ to come back for a month? That does not seem feasible.

No. Like go to Hong Kong or Macau. Obviously easier from southern China.

Weekend in Tokyo? Visa runs are common.

I c. Thank you so much for your help. I have another problem. How do I do this visa run. Sorry, this is probably a pretty lame question lol. Do I just fly to Hong Kong and go to a Chinese Embassy there? Do I have to do any special paper work? I do not know how exactly works. I am sorry for my ignorance on this subject.

As long as your Visa has multiple entries, you don't have to do anything but leave the country and then reenter it.

It starts the clock again.

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. I thought what you just said, and I asked the ticket agent at the airport and he said that was not correct. Have you done this before? How sure are you?

Again, I can't express my gratitude enough. THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I've never stayed long enough to need to do it myself, but I've worked with Americans who lived in China and made visa runs to Hong Kong on a regular basis. Just google "visa run China" and you'll get multiple hits.

I looked up visa runs extensively 2-3 months before I came to China. But I was hoping to talk to someone who had done this. I appreciate your help. I have been stressing over this since I had not gotten a hit on my post for a long time. I will look up more links. If you know any that would be great.

I hope I can hear from someone who has done this, so I can get more advice.

Again Thank You. If you have any more advice. That would be great

If you ask them directly if you can leave and reenter as a way to extend your visa, I'm sure they'd tell you no. OTOH if you take a weekend vacation in HK, no one will bat an eye.

he he he. I like vacations

Wow thats far as hell.

im at 四云寺桥 on east 4th ring... why did you choose to settle down there?

Yea, it is not very close to the city center, but it is less crowded and fairly cheap

There is a way to obtain a visa without leaving & reentering china... but I think it only works on business/work visa with a Chinese company and papers behind and its still tough.

hey people, what internet company do you use? I'm having terrible connection problems in Guangzhou with loads of disconnections each day and I'm pretty sick of it...