moving to beijing, absolutely clueless!

Disney or Disney English?

Sounds like you are clever enough to have done your own research.

You can only legally work in China if you have a valid work visa.

If your partner has a work visa great - but you can only get a dependants visa if you are married.  You cannot legally work on a dependant's visa.

Yes of course you can come on a toursts visa to look for work. Your employer will need to arrange the paperwork and you will have to leave the country and re-enter,

Your dog will need to have various jabs prior to arrival and will have to be quarantined.  I suggest you check the ICVS website for info on importing a dog.   http://www.icvsasia.com/   Only dogs under 35cm floor to shoulder are permitted to live in downton Beijing (inside 5th Ring Road).

So the easiet solution is for the two of you to get married and you could come as her dependent.

Thank you very much for your reply, and assuming I would be intelligent enough to understand, unfortunately bureaucratic information just goes straight over my head.

It is working with Disney English, do you know of any experiences with the company?

Thanks again

I think Disney English is only marginally a part of the Disney Corp. It's like saying that the local Disney toy shop is Disney.

I know of a couple of people in Beijing working for Disney English but do not know them personally. I can try and ask for you.

I did find this Shanghai thread which was not particualrly positive  http://www.shanghaiexpat.com/phpbbforum … 10339.html

However, it seems to be a while since the last post so maybe things have improved.

Yes there isn't a huge amount of details regarding working for Disney English at the moment,

What the contract offers and the perks suggest seem terrific (and far better than the person moans about in shanghai)

I was also curious to know, is there any part of Beijing you would strongly recommend avoiding for any reason?

I really can't thank you enough for your information and knowledge, we are talking to the bosses tomorrow morning with a lot more questions and will hopefully know tomorrow where we will be in 3 months.

Thanks again.

When taling with the bosses I would suggest to make sure that your are BOTH covered with medcial insurance. Plane tickets for both of you, adequate allowance / provision for shipment of personal possessions, housing allownace and of course salary.

You can live local style very cheaply.

However, if you want to be able to consume imported products and eat in foreign style restaurants prices very quickly start rocketing. 

Example, for lunch I normally go to a local restaurant and pay 10RMB (that's 1GBP). For that I get a big bowl of noodles with beef. The night before last my wife and I went to one of the less expensive foreign style restaurants (Tex-Mex)and we paid 255RMB for two people (no alcholol consumed), the better restaurants you can pay that for one main course.

Re area - try to be in reasonable commute time from the school and, assuming you will be using public transprt, close to a subway (tube) station.  Beware though rush hour is rush hour and the trains get packed. Ideally, in the warmer months think about cycling to work.

its safe to assume then that places designed to attract tourists will be more pricey. but yes, what we have read and seen, the cost of living does seem to be quite a lot cheaper for the most part.

obviously taking this in to account when deciding what to actually ship over and what to just leave behind.

our main concern at the moment is me finding work out there, i have worked as a freelance artist, illustrator and designer for many years and have no experience of company's based in beijing.

just facing the long, arduous task of gaining knowledge on my options out there.

Do you also have experience with web design?

Unfortunately no, but I have several friends who are web designers so could happily learn the fundamentals if it's something that you think would aid in my job search.

I shot an arrow in the air,
It fell to earth I know not where,

Get as many arrows a possible into your quiver;  shoot them all and if necessary move the target so that at least one hits the bullseye.

Yes there is often a market for (part-time / freelance) web design work but unless you are very lucky it will not solve the visa issue.