Money machine goes rrrrriiiiiippppp

NASA is an acronym, because we pronounce it “NASA”

FBI is an initialism because we pronounce it “F.B.I.”

An acronym is something that uses the first letters as a word that is pronounced.

An initialism is something that uses the first letters as something that’s said using each letter.

The whole process took about three hours, and entirely consisted of giving paper printouts - of documents that they already had in digital form - to the agency that had already issued them to me.

They charged me a small fee, but I had exactly what I needed now, and went back into complete my application with the government agency, which accepted it quickly and everything was completed.

I’ve walked in and explained the situation to them, and they said yes, of course - then handed me a printout of the front of the card of every foreigner work permit.

So I had to find a shop that could print it for me.

I left and after walking around for a little while, I found a shop that advertised printing government documents for foreigners.

But because I didn’t have a printout of the front of the card (again, exactly the same as every card in the country - and a card that was issued by the same government department that was requesting it) my application was rejected

The front of the card (again, that they issued to me) is generic - it is EXACTLY the same for every work permit card in China, with exactly the same text

Think of it like the front cover of a passport that is exactly the same for everyone (pictured for reference)

The back of the card (a little plastic card the size of a credit card) has all of my information - picture, name, date of issue, etc.

I arrived and gave them the paper printout of the card (again the one they issued to me)

They rejected my application because I had only given them the scanned copy of the back of the card…

The document they needed was:

A paper printout of the scanned copy of the card (that they had issued me)

I recently renewed my work permit here

Then received a call from the government social insurance department that I need to go, in person, to give them an update about that same work permit - issued by the same government…

They usually come out around Christmas because of subliminal messaging - Ballad of a Thin Man is a remake of You’re a Mean One Mr Grinch. You can’t miss that kind of IP stack and all the A-Listers want to be involved…

I remember giving a training to lawyers a decade ago that included Styles in Word, Slide Masters in PowerPoint, and Macros in Excel…

It was like they saw a magic trick - something incomprehensible that they desperately wanted but didn’t seem possible

That reflects what I’ve been seeing with law firms in China - although it seems like a lot of the switch is because of market forces where transnational M&A projects have significantly decreased, leading to lower demand for foreign lawyers