LinkChinese UK News

Part of the points-based system, the T1 visa, comes to effect today in the UK, to replace the in-country Highly Skilled Migration Programme (HSMP) application. T1 visa overseas will roll out later this year around the world.

The Guardian reports:

The new regime involves tougher penalties for employers who employ illegal immigrants. But it also involves simplifying the system used to determine whether foreigners are allowed into the country to work.

Until now there have been 80 different routes people could use to apply to come to Britain to work or study. Instead there will be a points-based system, with applicants divided into five categories.

The first tier, affecting highly skilled workers, is being rolled out now. From today people in this category already living in Britain – around 14,000 last year – will be assessed using the new system when applying to extend their stay.

Read the full report.

 

The Guardian’s Harriet Swain reports the increasing number of Chinese students coming to study A-level in UK sixth-form colleges.

Though further education colleges in general enrol about 80,000 international students a year, such students are still comparatively rare in British sixth-form colleges. But their numbers are increasing as more young people seek a globalised education and as UK colleges recognise the financial and academic benefits of recruiting from overseas.

Government initiatives to boost the number of foreign students, including investment of more than £27m over the past two years, have encouraged the trend. At the same time, students are to be included in the reform of the immigration system this year. The government will prioritise international student recruitment but also tighten the rules for their visas.

Read the full report.

 

Book review by Pin Lu

A Thousand Years of Good Prayers is a collection of ten short stories written by the Chinese author Yiyun Li. The sharp observation of human relationships, the sometimes punchy, sometimes minimalistic dialogs, as well as the warmth and empathy underneath, all make the reading very enjoyable.

Yiyun Li is at her best conveying the strange sense of alienation and liberation. In the two stories I like the most, Extra and A Thousand Years of Good Prayers, the protagonists were all thrown into an unfamiliar situation. Unable to communicate with or without the language barrier, but still trying to understand, the characters at end all manage to find their way out, reaching some kind of inner peace and freedom while the outside world remains largely indifferent and incomprehensible.

What strikes me most in those stories is the freedom gained by using a new language. Being able to, or being forced to use a new language, looks to have the unexpected effect of making one be freed from the inhibitory restraint of the mother tongue, instead of just providing the possibility of make yourself understandable. The author herself once said that she feels using English to write gives her the freedom to better express herself. In A Thousand Years of Good Prayers, we witness Mr Shi’s daughter’s transformation from a distant, silent figure into a vivid, laughing, animated person once she’s on the phone, speaking English. We, as Mr Shi, are astonished.

(more…)

 

Xinhua News Agency reports:

BEIJING, Feb. 23 (Xinhua) — A China Tourism Association official suggested on Saturday that Chinese tourists avoid shopping in the Paris-based Galeries Lafayette.

The unnamed official said the association was concerned about an incident where two Chinese tourists were treated insultingly while shopping in the famed French department store.

“We are discontent and regretted that Chinese tourists were treated so rudely in Paris. We suggest travelers not to go shopping in the store before the incident is properly handled.”

He asked domestic travel agencies to suspend organizing tourists to visit Lafayette.

Read the full story.

 

The government proposed a new system for UK citizenship application in its Green Paper published today. Besides the required duration of time living in the UK, migrants wishing to become British citizen will also have to ‘earn’ enough credits by abiding laws, participating in voluntary works, and demonstrating English language skills. The credits will also be deducted for breaking laws or other bad hehavior, or living outside the UK for long time.

The Daily Telegraph’s Philip Johnston reports:

Immigrants wanting to become British citizens would be able to ”earn’’ a fast-track passport under plans to be published by the Government tomorrow.

Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, is due to outline ideas aimed at underpinning a stronger sense of British and local citizenship.

Proposals in a Green Paper will include citizenship credits for migrants doing voluntary work.
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However, points would be deducted for people breaking the law or otherwise behaving badly.

Read the full story.

 

The in-country T1 visa, the first visa type under the new points-based system, will take effect from 29th Feburary. Overseas T1 visa will be rolled out from April, starting from India.

T1 visa will replace the current HSMP (Highly Skilled Migrant Program) which is already point-based. There will be minimum changes in terms of qualification between the current HSMP and T1 visa. T1 visa also includes other categories like Investors, Self Employed Lawyers, Businesspersons, Writers, Composters and Artists, and Innovators.

Another important aspect of T1 visa is that it will include a T1-Post Study Work category, giving overseas students graduated from UK higher education institutions two years time to work in the UK without an employer sponsor. T1-Post Study Work will replace the IGS (International Graduate Scheme) and FT:WISS (Fresh Talent: Working in Scotland Scheme). T1-Post Study Work visa holders are encouraged to switch to other visa categories as soon as possible. The time spent as a T1-Post Study Work visa will not be counted when applying for ILR (Indefinite Leave to Remain).

The T1-Post Study Work visa is expected to be rolled out in May.

Download Home Office document: Highly Skilled Migrants under the points based system. Statement of Intent

 

BBC reports London’s Chinese New Year celeration and parade:

Thousands of people have gathered to see in the Year of the Rat at Chinese New Year celebrations in London.

The festivities started with a two-hour parade of hundreds of performers including dragons, lions and dancers travelling through the West End.

The opening ceremony at Trafalgar Square featured Chinese dragons, martial arts, and traditional and contemporary music and dance.

London’s celebrations are the biggest outside Asia, community leaders say.

BBC reports the celeration in Birmingham

Hundreds of people have been celebrating Chinese New Year in Birmingham city centre.

The beginning of the Year of the Rat was marked by traditional displays of dragon dancing, kung fu and firecrackers at the Arcadian Centre.

It also included children’s dances, acrobatics and karaoke.

Please send your Chinese New Year celeration photos to us at uk@linkchinese.net.

 

BFI Southbank Jia Zhangke Season is showing four features and two documentaries made by the Chinese director Jia Zhangke. The Golden Lion-winning Still Life (三峡好人 2006) is released in the UK this month. Also in Jia Zhangke Season are Dong (东 2006), a companion documentary of Still Life, a new documentary Wu Yong (无用 2007) about Chinese fashion industry, and Jia’s early works including Unknown Pleasures (任逍遥 2002), The World (世界 2004), and Xiao Wu (小武 1997).

 

The new Saatchi Gallery in the Duke of York’s HQ will open with a contemporary Chinese art exhibition The Revolution Continues: New Chinese Art.

Jane Macartney from the Times interviewed Zhang Xiaogang, a leading Chinese artist, whose works are in the new exhibition.

Zhang Xiaogang seems almost untouched by his rise to fame and fortune. An unassuming, bespectacled man of nearly 50, he is unimpressed that his paintings can now command between $500,000 and $1 million per canvas. And several times that at auction.

But he is excited that several of his paintings will be on show soon at the Saatchi collection in London as part of the China Now festival.

Read the full article.

 

Anna May Wong (黄柳霜), a thrid generation Chinese-Amercian, was the most admired Asian actor in western cinema, starring in a number of films both in Hollywood and Europe, from 1920s to 1960s. A new documentary about her, Frosted Yellow Willows - Anna May Wong, Her Life, Times and Legend, made by Elaine Mae Woo (胡美金), will be shown at National Portrait Gallery on Friday 8th Feb (020-7312 2463) and at BFI Southbank on Saturday 9th Feb (020-7928 3232).

Mattew Sweet writes about Anna Way Wong’s life on the Guardian: Snakes, salves and seduction:

In 1933, Doris Mackie of Film Weekly magazine visited Ealing studios to observe the shooting of a sweaty tropical melodrama called Tiger Bay, and found its star railing against cinema in general and Hollywood in particular. “Why is it that the screen Chinese is nearly always the villain?” asked Wong. “And so crude a villain. Murderous, treacherous, a snake in the grass. We are not like that. How should we be, with a civilisation that is so many times older than that of the west?”