Visa Delayed

My husband and I are taking English teaching jobs in Beijing. We have already left our current US jobs, packed our apartment and purchased the flight tickets to China. However we just received an e-mail from our school saying the visa process has been delayed and we would have to push back our flight a month. This leaves us homeless, jobless, and on hold for over a month. Is there anyway to enter the country on a tourist type (without working) and then eventually get the Z types while we are in the country. The process has already started on their end