Getting a tourist or a work visa?

If you want to apply for a tourist visa to China, you need to provide your passports, fill in visa application forms V.2011A and V.2011B, the round-trip flight tickets, the hotel booking, the marriage license, the copy of your Thai wife's passport.

It is not a good idea for your family to go with you this time, you'd better go to Shanghai first and settle down the work visa and residence permit, then they apply for dependent visa in Thailand to reunite you in Shanghai. If they come to Shanghai with you, but your employer can't get the work visa and residence permit for you, you will face many troubles.

Thank you for your answer. The tourist visa is 30 days, is it not? And my wife and my children would each get 30 days, or not? The school is pretty good at getting the work visa papers in order. Does that work visa apply to my family as well?
As a return plane ticket, can it be any flight flying us out of China, or do we need to go back to our point of origin?

Thanks again!

Actually, the duration of a China tourist visa is granted differently according to the documents the applicant provide, so it's hard to say how logn your wife and children will be allowed to stay in China. I advise you accept David's suggestion. The air ticket can be any flight flying to outside of mainland China.