thelocaldialect

There are public schools in China which will accept foreign children, you'll just have to pay more than what a local would. Keep in mind that even a Chinese child going to school in a district other than where their hukou is registered to would have to pay more. Unless you plan on living in China in your wife's hometown, there won't be a whole lot of point in getting your daughter put on the hukou book. For us, for example, since my husband's hukou is still registered to a small town in Yunnan that we're never going to live in, having it just doesn't make a lot of difference. I suppose the one major advantage would be that if my children ever want to own businesses in China it will be easier and cheaper to do so as Chinese citizens, but that is a big if. Laws could also easily change in the 20-30 years that it would take for this if to be even possible. Who knows if hukous will even exist in 20 years -- there are lots of people predicting their demise already. I still don't really think that children in China are allowed to have dual citizenship though. I think I mentioned this in more detail in another thread, but we were told that our children could not have both citizenships and that using the USA passport was an act of renouncing Chinese citizenship. The officer at the entry/exit branch of the PSB in Beijing told us this, so I dunno. Personally, even if is possible, I think there are some good reasons to not have Chinese citizenship and especially for kids not to be on the hukou. Randy is absolutely right that when your daughter is older, if she wants to, she can voluntarily restore her Chinese citizenship, but China will require her to give up her American citizenship to do so.

My parents always use uschinatrip.com when they come over to visit and they say the prices are the best they've found. I've personally used flychina.com, but that was years ago, and always use elong within China.

Hi Rob, The hukou is your wife's family registration book. It keeps a record of who belongs to the family, what their "class" is (like, worker, peasant, etc.), marital status, and where the family is legally permitted to live and enjoy privileges like public school or healthcare, if available. It isn't something that has an equivalent in the West. Your wife will know what it is though, it is a very important document in China! Or, there's always google, as Kyle says.

Exactly. For the one year L visa (extended stay) when you're at the PSB in China you want to tick the box on the form that says "visiting relatives" and specify that you want a one year visa duration. I've heard of people some places only getting six month "visiting relatives" visas, but I do think that as long as the officer at the PSB understands what you're asking for and you have all of the correct documentation (you need your marriage certificate, hukou book, IDs, your police registration, and your spouse's temporary residence permit if you're not applying in the city where your spouse has his/her hukou), you should be able to get this visa and stay in China without having to leave every 90 days. I've gotten mine in both Kunming and Beijing with zero problems.

But don't you get that from the PSB and not at the Chinese consulates in the US? Right, I get it here in China. What you can do is just come over on a normal, 30 day visa, and once in China get it changed to a year long multi-entry visa at the end of the 30 days. Once you have that visa you can renew it yearly. The advantage of this visa is that you don't have to worry about leaving the country (China I mean) at set intervals, which isn't always convenient. I understand the changing to a one year multi entry but how long is each entry of stay good for? No, that's what I'm saying here. You can stay for a whole year without leaving China. Not 90 days, a year.

But don't you get that from the PSB and not at the Chinese consulates in the US? Right, I get it here in China. What you can do is just come over on a normal, 30 day visa, and once in China get it changed to a year long multi-entry visa at the end of the 30 days. Once you have that visa you can renew it yearly. The advantage of this visa is that you don't have to worry about leaving the country (China I mean) at set intervals, which isn't always convenient.

Just get it extended in China. No need to exit China at all. I haven't been back to the US in ... six years!

Actually, marriage to a Chinese citizen qualifies you for a year long multi entry L visa. You don't have to exit China during that year. I'm on my third such visa right now.

I can read and speak fluent Mandarin, so this isn't a problem. Please provide the link. I've been here long enough to be used to this. However, I'm not willing to gamble on the ²î²»¶à nature of big issues like this. The last thing I want is for anyone to be detained, deported, refused entry, etc. At this stage, I'm pretty sure we're just going to go ahead and register him as an American, get his passport and exit visa, and go from there. Now, the million dollar question is: how do I keep my son with me in China as an American with an American passport indefinitely? I have a work resident permit which is renewed each year. What about my son? Here's the link: Beijing Entry/ExitLook at article 4, where it says Òò¹ú¼®³åÍ»£¬³ÖÓÐÍâ¹ú»¤ÕÕ»ò¾ÓÁôÐí¿É²»ÒËÇ©·¢Öйú»¤ÕÕµÄ, that part. Keep in mind that this is for Beijing, and some smaller places might interpret/enforce the law differently. I'd just call up and ask. As it turns out, we have to get our kids' documents in Kunming because that's where my husband is from. After you get the exit permit and exit, it is like yangxifu says, you will get visas for your kids. If you have a work visa your job can actually get residence permits for your kids, or your kids can get L visas (should be year long, but not always) based on their relationship to their Chinese mom (or dad, in our case). knloregon gives another reason why dual citizenship is not a good idea. Kidnapping and human trafficking is a big concern in China and a parent leaving the country with an American passport while the kids are on Chinese passports could set off some people's red flags. I've actually had a couple of friends in international marriages in Japan have trouble taking their kids home, while traveling without their Japanese husbands, on the kids' Japanese passports, which they are allowed to have because Japan recognizes dual citizenship. My experience with my Chinese husband applying for our son's American passport was actually fairly simple, and our son was nearly a year when we applied. I think the fact that our son looks very clearly mixed made the process simpler. He has very light hair and is quite obviously not an adopted Chinese baby. We brought a lot of stuff to prove that I had lived in America for 5 years after the age of 14, as the rules state, but they didn't ask to see anything, just gave us a bit of hassle for waiting till he was almost a year to apply and sent us on our way with a receipt for his passport.

It is my understanding that returning to China on the US passport would be what renounces the Chinese citizenship, but I am not 100% positive. I had friends who needed to get the exit visa and the PSB would not issue it until they'd given up their Chinese hukou, which seems to sort of imply that getting the exit visa is linked to not having Chinese citizenship. Another acquaintance couldn't get the exit permit without applying first for a hukou, and then renouncing it, which just seems ridiculous and pointless, because why go through the hassle of getting a hukou just to turn around and give it up?! My suspicion is that, as we often say (fondly) on another board that I frequent, this is a case of TIFC -- this is f'in China -- and different local PSBs interpret and enforce these laws in different ways. You'll see people with conflicting experiences regarding the Chinese beaurocracy all the time because the rules change depending on the time of day, the alignment of the planets, and the outcome of that particular officer's majiang game the night before.

Right. What we've heard from the PSB in Beijing is that even children are not allowed dual citizenship. Using a foreign passport is considered an act of renouncing your Chinese citizenship. We asked about this particularly because we were planning a trip to Thailand last year and didn't realize you needed the exit permit to use your American passport. This is all explained under a section of the Chinese visa laws regarding "conflicting nationality." I have a link, but it is entirely in Chinese so I don't know if it would be much help? Now I think it is possible to keep your kids' Chinese passport on the DL -- keep quiet about it -- and have both, but it is not what you're supposed to do and I imagine if at some point you were found out the Chinese authorities would force you (or your kid) to choose. Also, if you don't leave China, your kids don't technically need any sort of registration. They're just Chinese kids without hukous in the eyes of the government. Honestly I would not get my child a Chinese passport or register him to your wife's hukou. Considering that American citizenship is easy to get, and the exit permit, while a bit of a hassle, is also relatively straightforward, there really isn't any advantage to being a registered Chinese citizen, especially if your wife's hukou isn't registered to someplace like Beijing or Shanghai, but is a countryside or small town hukou. In fact, it could actually be a disadvantage, since if your children are appearing on your wife's hukou book then you are opening yourself up to scrutiny under China's family planning laws. If your kids are only American citizens they can't do anything about it, but I know people who had their children put on the wife's hukou and who were subject to a bit of harassment by the local authorities over having too many kids. I've never heard of foreign/Chinese families being fined under family planning laws, but it is just a hassle you'd rather not deal with all the same.

Funny thread on China Daily. I guess that's where the Chinese hide their sick, lame, lazy, crippled, blind and crazy. I have meet probably over a thosand English teachers over the years here and the vast majority are normal, decent and hardworking albeit naive about life. The scum are also to be found, but the percentage is minimal. I'd say there are more dirtbag Chinese in China than there are expats. I would agree 100% with you on this statement. I also have met many women teachers here in China. I dont think they are only here for the chinese women .... From what I have seen on the China Daily BBS I think this is more a reflection of (1) the education system that chengdu4me describes and (2) the rising nationalism and sense that China is on the verge of being "king of the world" among the younger chinese I was going to say something to this effect. I would take what is said on the China Daily BBS with a huge huge grain of salt. It is a breeding ground for ultranationalist sentiment and lots of angry young Chinese come there to bait foreigners into a pissing match. What you read there really doesn't reflect the sentiment of everyday normal Chinese people. It is also well known that there are plants on sites like this, that is, people being paid to post, so you definitely can't take everything said at face value. In fact, I'd recommend visiting the China Daily BBS for the entertainment value only, especially if you're prone to high blood pressure. Perhaps it is because I'm a woman, but I don't feel unwelcome at all in China. I think regardless of whether you are male or female, if you come to this country and make an effort to learn the language, make local friends, educate yourself about the culture, abide by the laws, and don't buy into the idea that you're somehow better or worth more than the locals (no matter how much more you get paid or how much butt kissing you experience!), then Chinese people will, by and large, be happy to have you in their country. I've lived here for seven years and I can count on one hand the number of times I've personally felt that my foreign-ness was unwelcome. There are always the few jerks, Chinese and foreign, but they're by no means representative of the majority, although by the noise they make it is easy to come to the conclusion that they are. As for teachers working without proper visas, like others pointed out, those teachers are often victims of dishonest schools who made promises they can't/won't keep. Most foreign teachers do not rock up to China planning on working illegally. Foreign teachers gain very little by working in China illegally afterall, and stand to lose a lot. In any case, sending home the illegal teachers would only mean that the schools would hire new under the table teachers in their place. Unless the authorities actually go after the schools who employ foreigners without providing the proper documentation then nothing is likely to change.

Tim, we have a similar issue except my husband and I live in China and would like to be able to freely travel to the States without committing to living there long term (yet). Coincidentally, I also lived in Austin for many years and am a UT graduate. I am not overly optimistic about our chances of getting my husband a visitor's visa (my husband is 37, no living parents, a musician without a "set" job, and we don't own property here), but I do think if your fiancee has the chance to travel abroad to other countries besides the USA that will help. I teach at a high school here and one of our students was having trouble getting approved for his visa to go to university in America and one thing he did to combat the problem was go visit Korea for two weeks. As far as I know, with that Korea trip on his record he was finally approved for his (student) visa. Having a large amount of money in the bank certainly won't hurt either, but I don't think you can just transfer funds and call the money hers and apply the next day. I think the money has to have been in her account for awhile to be considered "her" money. Again, this is mostly what I hear from my students, all of whom go abroad for university so they are pretty familiar with non-immigrant visas (although student visas are a bit different from travel visas, they do require the holder to prove that he/she has ties to China and will return after graduating).

Its Yin and Yang ... I asked my husband if there was any hidden meaning in the avatar and he says there's nothing wrong with it, just the two words written in different styles, nothing offensive.

China doesn't actually aknowledge dual citizenship. If your child travels abroad, one of the citizenships is supposed to be forfeited. China calls dual citizenship a "conflict of citizenship" ¹ú¼®³åÍ», and it is a situation that isn't supposed to exist. I do know of people who have kept two passports, but only because they didn't give one up like they were supposed to.

Aha! Mystery solved.

I swore I replied to this, but I must not have ... My older son has an American passport (actually we didn't get it until he was a year old and the embassy said we should have gotten it sooner, but still gave us his passport and we didn't have any trouble from them or the Chinese). My daughter is just a month old, but we have an appointment to have her passport done later in the month. I think the registration stuff about 1000RMB fines is referring to kids born to foreign/foreign couples in China, since China considers foreign/Chinese kids born in China to be Chinese by default. Since my children are half Chinese the government here actually won't put them on visas until we've left the country on the exit permit that was mentioned before. We have to go back to where my husband's hukou is registered in Yunnan to get the exit permits. We plan on doing that this summer when I have enough time off for us to travel, but we've been down to the Beijing entry/exit authority and they've assured us there is no rush to get this done. The only issue is that until their passports have been used to enter China, the Chinese government still considers my kids Chinese, albeit Chinese without hukous. We discovered all this exit permit stuff when we tried to take a trip to Thailand last year and couldn't becase of the lack of an exit permit for my son. Anyhow, the kids won't be an issue by the time we're ready to go to the States, we're going to do the exit permit ahead of time and just get it out of the way.

My son has an American passport, my daughter is only a month old but will be getting her passport soon. It doesn't matter if it is the mother or father, all kids born to an American citizen are eligible for American citizenship. I knew about the entry/exit permit thing, but we have to go back to where my husband's hukou is registered, in Yunnan, to get those processed, as they won't do it in Beijing. Since the permit is only good for three months after it is issued we plan on doing it this summer and then taking the kids to Hong Kong or Thailand to "activate" their American passports (for lack of a better term) and get them Chinese visas so that we don't have to deal with it again next time we want to travel.

Thanks, helpful information all. To rant a moment, it bugs me that America doesn't seem to consider the possibility that American citizens might reside in their spouse's country but still want to go home for visits. Tourist visas to the USA are not easy for Chinese citizens to obtain, and ironically they seem even more difficult to obtain if you're married to the tourist. So if I want to bring my husband back to my country for a short visit, but we don't intend to immigrate, what do we do, assuming he's denied a tourist visa (which is a distinct possibility)? The immigrant visa process is so costly and time consuming that doing it if we're not positive we want to immigrate seems to be a huge waste. The Chinese side isn't much better though. While the USA seems to assume we all want greencards for our spouses, the Chinese government didn't even offer permanent residency based on marriage -- or permanent residency at all -- until a few years ago, and even now they're fairly impossible to actually obtain. While I can't get my husband a tourist visa for America, a tourist visa (for "visiting relatives") is all my marriage will get me in China!

Thanks Kyle ... I realize a greencard doesn't make you a citizen, my concern was as you stated, that it could be revoked, or not renewed after 10 years, if we didn't actually use it to live in America. I guess this isn't a given though, if I understand correctly, but just a possibility and up to the discretion of the USCIS? I do have a friend who has been living in China for about 15 years with his Chinese wife who has a greencard and he had to find some sort of loophole (I think something to do with the residency requirement not applying to missionaries, and he got ordained as a minister online in order to take advantage of this if I recall correctly) in order for his wife to keep his greencard when it came up for renewal 5 years ago. We'll consider the tourist visa possibility. I had heard that having a rejection from a b-2 on your record could make getting other visas more difficult later on, but maybe I shouldn't worry about that and should just apply and see what happens.

Hello all I'm new here and have some questions, but first I'd like to introduce myself and dgive some background info ... from reading up on past threads, it seems like my situation is a bit different from that of the majority of the posters here! I'm and American woman married to a Chinese man -- we've been married for three years and I've been living in China for almost seven. My husband and I met and married in Kunming, where I lived for about five years (he's a Yunnan native), but we now live in Beijing and will have been here for two years in April. We have two kids, a son who is two and a daughter who is just one month old. I teach high school in Beijing and my husband is a professional musician (a singer/guitarist). We have a pretty good life here in Beijing and aren't entirely sure we want to move back to the States, but if we do, we'd like to move when my son starts elementary school, in about 4 years. However, I would like my husband to visit the States before we make any final decisions, to see how we both feel about life there. I already know that I can handle China, like I said, I've lived here for seven years, four of those being before I was married (my husband and I actually met in 2004, but did not start dating until 2006, and married later the same year!). While I speak near-fluent Chinese (I studied it in uni as part of my major), my husband does not speak English. We communicate entirely in Chinese. His lack of language ability plus his career as a musician make us both nervous about moving over -- he will certainly have a hard time finding a job, and supporting our family on my salary alone in America would be difficult (in contrast, in China I make very good money currently, better than the average foreign teacher). So we do not want to rush into any committment to a life in America when we might not be able to have the quality of life over there that we have in China now. But regardless of whether we eventually move to the States or not, I do need to bring him back for at least a vist. My parents have visited us in China 3 times, but my younger brother has only made the trip once, and I have aunts, uncles and cousins in America who are all dying to meet my husband and kids. So with all that in mind, here's my visa question. It seems to me that getting a tourist visa for my husband to visit the States would be out of the question, for my husband's ties to China are not substantial. His parents are both dead, he doesn't have permanent employment, we don't own an apartment here, don't have a huge amount of capital ... it would be futile I'm sure to even apply. So if I want my husband to even visit the States, we have to apply for, or at least start the process for a greencard. Since we've been married for more than 2 years I gather he's eligible for an immediate 10 year green card. But if my husband is issued a greencard, that means we can't live in China, right? Is it plausible to get him a greencard and then continue living in China? Or would it be better to apply first for the k3 visa, use it for two years, and then decide? What if, after using the k3 visa we decide not to immigrate to America? Will that affect later visa/greencard applications? So I suppose my question is, what visa should we apply for given our situation, and in what timeframe, given a five year deadline on making an ultimate decision as to where to live (we could decide earlier, but much later than that and I worry about schooling issues for my son)? Thanks in advance for any help. I'd like to stick around here, hopefully I can offer some help in return, especially regarding China and life on the other side.