Guardians for minors studying in China

[mekky]

I applied to Shandong uni ( yes, I put in Beijing because I couldn't find Shandong/jinan,please forgive me) but today I got an email from the admissions office asking me to provide an appointed guardian that lives in jinan city.

question is, what exactly is a guardian and where exactly can I find one ?

 

Moderator note: I moved this topic to a slightly better subforum. Lu

[889]

They are saying that if you are not yourself of legal age, then your parents must appoint someone in China who will be formally responsible for you. This is not a surprising request. Perhaps the school could arrange for someone to act as your guardian.

[edelweis]

@mekky

Do you intend to live in the university dorms?

I heard about some minors (not accompanied by their parents) studying at Chinese universities, but they lived in host families.

In that case obviously the host acts as a guardian. Because the parents entrust the "child" to the host family, and count on the host family to help the "child" with any health issue or administrative issue or money issue.

 

So if you will be accompanied by a parent or other relative, you should put that relative as guardian and explain that they will stay in Jinan with you for the duration of your studies.

And if you will be hosted by a family in Jinan (for instance a paid host family, or friends of your parents, ...) you could put that family as guardian.

Or, if you intend to live in the university dorms, but know someone in Jinan who can help you in case of problem (friend of your parents, parent of a friend of yours, ...), you should first contact that person to check that they accept to act as your guardian, and then put their name on the form as guardian.

 

But if you are traveling by yourself and don't know anyone in Jinan, you have a problem...

 

Maybe you are a minor now, but will you still be a minor when the course starts?

[zhouhaochen]

It depends on what that guardian is for. If they require a legal guardian, then this is quite a process you will have to go through. We organize programs for minors studying for a semester at Chinese high schools and for this a legal guardian is required. That means that person needs to get registered and authorized by local authorities and it is quite a bit of work. I dont organize those myself, so I am not sure on the details but I hear my colleagues complaining about it a lot. I can ask if you want me to, however for this you would definitely need a Chinese person who is willing to invest a bit of time and work (plus responsibility) into this. If you are not paying an organization to do this for you, then that would need to be a pretty good and generous friend probably?

If they just want the name of a Chinese person who lives in Jinan they can call if there is an issue, then that would be a lot easier to organize - though I unfortunately dont know anyone living there.