...weird story, never heard of that.

You also need to deposit 15 cents and a nail, and the shell of a great great great grandfather snail.

20 minutes? lol...

And all tourists walk around carrying exactly 21,000rmb at all times. It's a fact.

it's a pedantic argument. a scumbag english teacher is more likely to already have an account in china, a modicum of chinese and a mate they can borrow USD3000 from (to return within the day), making it easier for them to do this transaction. a tourist is more likely to just say f*** you and leave, which is seems like is exactly what they mean for tourists to do. you know, just go away and come up with USD3000 or we'll kick you out.

it took me at least 3 hours including all the standing in line, all the discussing in my broken chinese, all the back and forth between exit and entry and back to the bank to redeposit my money and i already had an account. must be more for someone who doesn't have an account at all.

i agree that probably any country wouldn't want a person here without USD3000 so that they could pay for their medical expenses in an emergency, but does any other country make you prove it by joining a national bank? and prove it AFTER you already obtained a legitimate visa outside the country with NO proof?

i know it seems easy. "just go to the bank and do the deposit thingy". considering it's a visa EXTENSION for a visa you already paid for and got legitimately outside china without needing to prove sh*t, it just seems like an extremely over-blown and unreasonable measure. one of those stories the legitimate tourists will go back to their home countries and say "god, you wouldn't believe what they did to me in china..."

the only people complaining are dishonest anyway.

like they're actually f-ing tourists

shut up

When you apply for your first L visa offshore, there may be an assumption you will bring money with you, as a tourist.

When you ask for an extension then its because you are staying longer than planned right? otherwise you would just have got a longer visa to start with.

So they give you a 30 day visa extension for an unplanned trip extension. You will not be bringing money with you for those days originally, as you only had a 30 day visa. As you are not allowed to work on an L visa (officially anyway) they want to make sure that you can fund these thirty days.

So it makes sense.

I heard last year that the chinese govt only really wanted foreigners to stay in hotels that were 3 star or above. I think it may well have been an 'olympic' thing that has been relaxed now, but assuming it isn't.

What does a 3 star hotel run to per night? No idea what hotels in Beijing cost these days but lets say RMB600. so over the full 30 days you will be entitled to stay that's RMB18,000, that's without food.

As you are a tourist you will be doing tourist stuff too right? What's wrong with them making sure you are not trying to work without the correct visa? or that you can at least fund your own hotel?

Really I don't see the issue.

actually it's true. i wasn't a tourist when i got a visa to to come here and i have always had an L visa gotten in a foreign country and extended at exit and entry or an F visa obtained through an agency, but i am not a "scumbag english teacher" either, just someone who likes to have some flexibility and when the opportunity is offered, will take it (and see fourth paragraph, am lucky to be able to do that).

i said all the above because it's very frustrating when you have to go through the unusual USD3000 process which you are not warned about in advance, and i can imagine it would be for any tourist no matter whether they are rich enough to have USD3000 handy or not. that would be a hassle for a rich person too! transferring money, paying the fee to take it out of the ATM, opening a bank account with a bank that doesn't speak english (like all the banks around exit and entry) etc. etc. i understand the extension is because you weren't planning to stay that long, but in hong kong, thailand, the US, i have never been offered the possibility of obtaining an L visa with a maximum stay of longer than 30 days. where can i get one of these visas?

getting a visa extension is a typical process for travelers without a plan, isn't it? maybe that's the problem. it doesn't fit in with the idea of a package trip, where everything has a two-week planned itinerary. getting a visa extension is not illegal, it's not shady or weird. you just want to stay longer. if you had enough money to come in the first place and didn't need to prove it, why do you need to prove it now? if the USD3000 process had ever happened to me when i was traveling around se asia for 6 months when i was 19 i really don't know what i would have done except get scared and leave. and i guess china don't really care about their reputation to 19 year old backpackers (which i think is quite shitty, but grudgingly admit it makes some economic sense).

but it would be way less frustrating than applying for an american visa as a chinese and having to do millions of different kinds of paperwork and getting rejected over and over or any one of many other similar scenarios. probably should remember that i am lucky i can come here and essentially use the existing "infrastructure" to just buy a visa.

so i should probably stop complaining and let all those irritated/irritating tourists faced with the inexplicable and un-forewarned charge of USD3000 sink in to the huge mire of all the other more important problems the chinese government and PSB have to deal with...

lol, life isn't so easy in a foreign country,

No-one is forcing a tourist to have 21,000 in an account to come here. Nor are they forcing a tourist to have 21,000 in an account while they are walking around china on the trip they planned.

However if you want to change your plans whilst here (which is the only official justification for extending a tourist visa) then you have to be able to show that you actually have funds to hand to cover a minimum level of expense for what is officially a previously unplanned part of your trip. That sounds reasonable to me. Why is that not reasonable?

If you are saying that is unreasonable because they did not ask you to show these funds when you got the first visa then I think you have to take some responsibility for providing misleading information on your visa form. They may assume if you have planned a trip in advance you will bring enough funds to keep you going through your planned trip. That sounds reasonable too right?

If you apply for 1 entry and state your maximum stay will be 20 days but you already plan to get an extension you are providing false information. Whats that word Otto used earlier.. oh yeah, dishonest. If you had planned to apply for an extension but still filled in a 1 entry L visa application form you were dishonest on your form.

The extension is really there to allow some flexibility for tourists who's plans change when they are here already.

Yes, that's more to the point.

Bloody foreigners not wanting to follow the rules in China.. well why should they, most of the time the Chinese don't.

But that's another issue.