Field Trip to the PSB office!

I made it to the PSB office yesterday. The PSB are hunting down ALL the foreigners in the Hongquan, WuZhong Road area in an effort to catch those with either illegal passports or those not carrying passports with them (as in my case). This area houses a good number of Koreans and a good number of them were also at the PSB office with us, including local business owners we know.

Our place got fined a couple thousand RMB plus about 1000 RMB each for its 3 foreign employees. This is because the organization is Chinese-owned. Other places, schools, restaurants, bars & such, got sacked with a lot more, some ranging up to 60,000 RMB including sending a few people home packing. These were foreign-owned. Their fines included up to 10,000 RMB per person, for some, deportation (with the option of returning on a new visa) and a nice long speech from the PSB declaring how they were rich, yet should abide by the local laws. Where the rich part comes in, I've no idea. I've heard so far, roughly five Koreans, one American & one Canadian got deported, within the last few days. And this has been going on for about a month now. You do the math.

The real reason, however, is because the local jurisdiction is gearing up for the Spring Festival. For every foreigner & foreign-owned business they bring in & fine, they get a bigger, better New Years Bonus. By the looks of the PSB office we were at, they're making some decent bonuses. About 20 people were waiting, and that's only for the afternoon. I can see eventually other jurisdictions following suit & jumping in to cash in on the rich foreigners. So watch yourself.

As one of my colleagues mentioned, eventually you stop asking how someone on only 4000 RMB/month can afford a BMW.