Ask HN: Those who moved careers from the West to China, what's your experience?
There's often talk in the news about China wanting to poach Silicon Valley talent to build up their own tech scene. There's also talk of founders who moved to Shenzhen to be closer to hardware development for rapid prototyping.
However, I've struggled to find individual examples of experiences. Has anyone done this, or know someone who has and blogs/tweets about it? I'm curious how this looks in reality.
177 comments
[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 208 ms ] threadHow is it when adjusted for cost of living though?
I live in the city center 5 min away from my office and can eat every single meal in a restaurant + go out every other night for a couple of drinks without even having to look at my bank account.
I'd be bankrupt in two weeks if I had the same lifestyle in Paris. Sure iphones and vacations cost the same, but restraining your day to day life (aka 95% of your life) to get the next apple gadget or plan your next vacation seems like a pretty bleak life plan.
Before I could buy iPhone for less than 10% of monthly salary, now it would be more like one monthly salary.
I use iPhone as the example, but the life for me is not 10x cheaper, maybe 2-3x.
Therefore, unless you have some other reasons, choose place with highest salaries or companies which don't adjust or work remotely.
Real Estate prices in the best areas of Beijing can easily top $1,000 a sq. foot to buy an apartment (though there may be an inversion in rent). Comparable cars are more expensive. Consumer goods are about par. Education for kids can be expensive.
Food can be cheaper in China. But a western quality life in a first tier city will not be all that cheap.
Assuming living in a Tier-1 where the tech-hubs are (Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen), rents for a 2/3 bedroom apartment somewhat centralish (these are vastly larger, more populous, and higher density than most American or European cities) will be at least USD 2000, possibly 4000 depending on taste (apartment, not house). Pension may need to be privately paid, and tax-band will be above 40% for anything that can support the above. Purchasing equivalent consumables like food and eating out western-style will be the same or double than the cost in most of the USA. If with kids then international schools are pretty expensive in China, over USD 20k per kid per year. International driving license not hard but car questionable as the above Tier-1 cities have restrictions / waiting lists / lotteries on license plates.
Cost-of-living adjustment is only relevant if: no kids, no pension, able to adapt to eat locally (quite hard for a lot of people especially when hitting the ground with a full time job), don't mind a 30-60+ minute subway commute (cheaper rents).
There's your problem, LOL.
Then again, I took time to learn Mandarin against the advising of expats who reassured me that I’d never get any good and therefore should just not try, so maybe that’s where my perspective differs.
Sounds like your problem is trying to replicate western lifestyle in China, if you do that everyone sniffs the blood and will find ways to rip you off on everything. Though yeah, schooling probably would be a pretty big expense - no way I’d send my kid to Chinese schools either.
https://www.chinalawblog.com/2016/09/the-china-stock-option-...
> no foreign person can own stock in a Chinese domestic company not already listed on a stock market. So any such option or stock transfer is void from the start. Foreigners are not permitted to be shareholders of Chinese domestic companies, nor does China recognize the concept of nominee shareholders.
Why not check out other countries? Taiwan, South Korea or Japan perhaps if one is interested in hardware.
The short answer is the west was seduced by access to the Chinese market and was willing to do one-sided trade deals to get that access.
- David Ha w/ Google Brain: https://twitter.com/hardmaru
- Adam Gibson started Skymind in Silicon Valley and moved to Tokyo a few years back: https://twitter.com/agibsonccc
In some cases, this can save a lot of tax.
www.mondaq.com/x/561782/tax+authorities/Change+In+Taxation+Of+NonPermanent+Residents
See an accountant/lawyer yada yada.
The bitcoiners that gave up their US citizenship, or otherwise left their home country and moved to Japan probably came out well tax-wise.
Mostly depends on what you want out of your career but speaking as someone that lived in China and worked in Chinese tech companies for seven years, including being the first foreign hire for a large mobile games company, it’s not something I’d recommend mid-career. Maybe just starting out or if you can be hired into a c-level role.
>of Chinese descent and speak the language
What about westerns who speak mando? Is it workable or still too much of a culture shock? Is racism abundant?
Is it a regional norm around you to refer to Mandarin as "Mando?" Never heard of this in my life...
The startup culture is similar but the difference is most companies expect you to be putting in OT and weekend hours almost as a default. The idea of burnout prevention hasn't caught on, at least in my experience.
Also the dev practices are different as well, things that won't translate well if you'd like to bring your skills back.
Elevator rides were interesting because they were crowded and I was taller than a lot of people. People would talk about the "foreigner" standing next to them. One girl told her friend that she liked my boots (Dr. Martens) and when I got off the elevator I turned and said: "They are so comfortable I walk 3 miles from my hotel to work each day in them". I've never had such stunned silence of 30 people in an elevator. :-)
There won’t be a bamboo ceiling and your assertiveness won’t be seen negatively as aggression [1]
1. https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/05/study-of-...
There is no such issue when working for international or western companies and/or startups. Also a local mobile games company is not a good example to generalize with since games industry is known for being pretty horrible here. Internationally as well.
While there are some things many westeners might find annoying, there are lot of good things as well. For example income tax and living costs are very low. I moved from Europe to China to work in software engineering and my living standards have increased significantly.
You can make wonderful friends and the average Chinese is a decent, hard working person. Still, the level of mistrust throughout the society, for very obvious historical reasons, means people keep to themselves. You have to work 2-3x as hard to build brand and reputation. This coming from someone with 5 start ratings and laudatory comments in all our reviews.
And as for the "traction" techniques, quite common in US based startups. Almost none of them work so marketing and demand generation is a long, slow painful effort. Generally, they are in the historical economic cycle where they seen the "value" in an iPhone X. Services to better their lives, other than primary school education, not so much.
Disappointing to say the least as the need for career upgrades/polishing is huge. As someone once said to me, and it took time to really sink in...Just because they use the latest cellphone you do, doesn't mean they think in the same way. Truly the logic here is more convoluted and less linear. Hard to explain.
I love the adventure aspect, not sure I would do it again.
I'm not sure how you can compare the US, which does have it's problems, but is one of the least racist (and offers many more opportunities to people that start with nothing) countries in the world to China, one of the most corrupt and authoritarian.
In China, for example, you need to include your head shot on your resume and I've known people that were told the were too fat to work at a company.
If people actually cared, they would look at the gross human rights abuses by the Chinese government.
You just don't see things like this:
https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2018/country-chapters/china...
In the US.
I've see so many negative news reports about the US, that if it were even 1% as bad as you say it is, it would be shoved down our throats.
"They just seem normal to us because we're used to it."
When you live outside the US, you will quickly see the amount of poverty and corruption that just doesn't exist here. It's why I moved back and have no plan leaving again. Corruption in many countries is normal and accepted. It happens in the US, but it's certainly not accepted.
Have you seen what the EU is doing lately in terms of the freedom of speech on the Internet? China has already cracked down considerably and many other countries are using the same technology to suppress free speech and the EU is in the process of passing laws that do the same.
"I'm not saying china is perfect by any means,"
'not perfect' is an understatement. In terms of freedom, China is a horrible place to live. If you have money, it's great. You can buy yourself out of anything...including prison time.
That said, I love living and working in Germany. Somewhat higher taxes, somewhat lower salaries, far more time to enjoy life (5-6 weeks vacation! Legal limit of 48 working hours in a given week! My boss gets in trouble if I forget myself and work over 10 hours in a day more than a few times per year!)
The Nordic countries are probably the best places in the world to be average or below, but I'm willing to claim that the US is better for the top 10%.
If you look at income, wealth, employment, education, healthcare, life expectancy, infant mortality, there's a very large difference in the US between the 25% line and the median.
If you don't think you can get into that top 25% bracket in the US, pick another country if you can like Canada, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark, Netherlands, Australia, New Zealand, Germany, Austria, etc.
40%-45% of the world's millionaires reside in that top 25%. Full-time employment will get you $80,000+ at the 25% bracket cut-off. Healthcare is broadly high quality and easily accessible for the top 25%. Economic opportunities are abundant and unemployment is always very low outside of deep recessions. You can also hit that $80,000 income line in dozens of cities, depending on profession (much easier in tech, energy, healthcare, banking/finance).
Household net wealth skyrockets from about $100,000 at the median to $425k-$450k at the 25% line (and to $1.2 million at the 10% line).
Just consider software developers in the US. 1.25 million of them with a median income of $103,000 for 2017 (per the BLS). So there's probably ~650,000 software developers in the US earning six figures for 2019. That's more than the rest of the world combined.
The biggest downside to being in the US if you're in the top 25%, is that many of our largest cities aren't nearly as livable or safe as those in other developed nations. This also assumes a city to income match, where you're not making $90,000 trying to live well in San Francisco or New York (in which case you're generally going to struggle).
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Sources: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overseas_Taiwanese
https://www.google.com/amp/amp.timeinc.net/time/4906162/taiw...
From the point of view of somebody who lives in a place with clear air and a decent paying job, I would require significant extra compensation to move my residence to a place with air pollution on the level of New Delhi, Lahore, or Beijing.
For most people, most of the time, one can have a somewhat ‘normal’ life even in the worst dictatorships, even in the middle of active war zones.
Having an American passport is a tremendous asset because you can just leave for the most part, unless you get caught up in politics, for some reason (a small risk for most people if they don’t go out of their way to draw attention).
I spent quite a bit of time in Nicaragua which has an authoritarian communist government and on the surface, it seems like any other Central American country. I’m sure I’d notice more problems if I got political, but just being there exploring for a month or so, it seemed okay.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
The combo of a low-information comment, a pejorative, and a divisive topic is going to be a flamebait cocktail regardless of anything else.
I feel like the question was framed properly and I can’t attribute any of those traits to it – pejorative, divisive, flame bait. Your thoughts?
There are two problems. First, the term "authoritarian dictatorship" is not as well-defined as you seem to suggest, and carries a pejorative meaning which is separate from any factual information it does contain. Second, the comment was too short to convey much information in its own right. When people post pejorative, low-information comments about inflammatory topics, that's flamebait, whether or not they intended it that way. I'm sure that driverdan had no malicious intent, but intent doesn't protect a dry forest from dropped matches.
I can understand why you would be frustrated by this response if you look at the comment as an atomic, standalone thing. But comments on internet forums aren't standalone. They're prefixes of the subthreads that follow from them, and commenters are partly responsible for what follows from their comments. Certainly they are responsible for following the site guidelines, which distill much of what we've learned over the years about how to comment in ways that don't lead to degenerate subthreads.
But that aside, the pull seems to be China's incentives and access to local hardware manufacturing. Not just the idea of living in Asia instead of the West.
At least we can while we're in the west
All of my work is European and I'm on the verge of leaving due to how bad the internet gets at night.
Throughout the day you've got ExpesssVPM and Shadowsocks but at around 7pm every night there's a huge crackdown on foreign traffic where even obscure sites fail to load.
It's probably fine if your work is 9-5 but outside of then the internet for foreign usage is pretty much unusable that I want to curl up into a ball and cry most nights.
Baidu and Chinese sites will consistently ping at around 40ms consistently but at night you're looking at something like 70% packet loss and 2sec pings outside
- product management (not engineering)
- working as an employee of a Chinese tech company (not starting something themselves)
With those caveats out of the way, below is the text of my answer to them:
"As I understand it, until maybe 2000 or 2005, there was a lack of people with specific experience in many many areas. So the median foreigner coming to China had better experience (and ability) than did Chinese people with a similar educational background and age.
As China's economy has developed:
- many more Chinese have gained that experience
- many Chinese who worked in US/Europe for many years have come back (or can be tempted to come back)
As a result, most foreigners are equivalent to a local Chinese person, except that:
- they know English very well (advantage for policy/comms/bizdev roles)
- they don't know Chinese well (e.g. hard for a Product Manager to work in a Chinese company when the working language is Chinese and most engineers and other peers don't speak Chinese well)
- they aren't in touch with local culture (e.g. don't use the new live streaming platforms that everyone else does)
- they need a work visa (only a minor issue for all but the smallest companies)
There are foreigners here [in this WeChat group] who work for Chinese companies (e.g. @[REDACTED] @[REDACTED] ) and are very good at what they do. But it's not easy.
I've interviewed at two large Chinese companies you've heard of. Both of them tested my level of Chinese early in the process. One took me by surprise because the interviewer had grown up in the US and so could obviously have interviewed me in English. In the other, I was expecting interviews in Chinese, but one of the interviews was with a data scientist and that kept me my toes as I didn't have the vocab to explain my answers fully/concisely."
Oh, and take note of the last sentence of rlglwx's earlier comment: "Maybe just starting out or if you can be hired into a c-level role." If you're just starting out, then the pace and intensity of working at an early-stage Chinese tech company could be an amazing learning experience. If you bring distinct experience that can get you a very senior role, then you will work very hard but could also be very well compensated. If you're in the middle, it's tricky due to the competitive issues I mentioned above.
I've heard this argument often, but as a someone actually living and working here, I have to say that this hasn't changed at all or at least not in the tech sector.
Local senior developers here in Shanghai and Beijing are usually equivalent to a western mid- or junior+ developers. Often you see senior devs that couldn't even be hired for junior position in the US or Europe.
Managers are often selected through relationships and connections and only in few rare cases have any kind of ability or competence for their role.
Pros:
- Salaries these days in China's big cities are pretty much same or better than in Europe
- Income tax and living costs are significantly lower
- Former two combined: your living standards will increase a lot here.
- If you live in big cities, life is good and you can live really western life style
- Extremely safe and very peaceful. Street crimes and violence are pretty much nonexistent.
Cons:
- You really have to take much more responsibility. You might find your dream company with excellent salary here or you might end up in sweatshop with shitty salary. General rule: Avoid really local Chinese companies and work for international ones like Apple, Microsoft, Google, western startups etc.
- Internet is blocked (can be easily bypassed with VPN though)
- Chinese culture might be hard to deal with for many foreigners.
- Competence of Chinese developers and especially managers is really low when compared to the West
In general: It's a wild and scary ride, but I'd recommend it at least temporarily.
Do yourself a favour and go to any other Asian country where you won't be supporting modern day Nazis, and where you won't be treated as dirt by the government. Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam, etc. are all great options that will most likely give you a better experience.
China is that country that checked out the show Black Mirror and was actually inspired by the dystopias:
https://www.inkstonenews.com/china/chinas-13-million-discred...
This reminds me the trip to Shanghai in 2013. We were a group attending Student Cluster Competition at ASC13 [1]. The first night we arrived Shanghai, we were rejected by one or two hotels, with the reason that they cannot accept foreigners （外賓: direct translation to "foreign guests"） to stay. It is so irony that Taiwanese are treated as Chinese citizen at airports but not at hotels.
An another funny but out-of-topic story during the trip is at the first day of the competition. Team members got their T-shirts with school name, "National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan." But after the opening ceremony, we were asked to return the T-shirts soon. The new ones arrived in the afternoon with "Taiwanese Tsing Hua University" on it. But you can find that the first press release [2] was not updated correspondingly. My personal interpretation to this was that, it is safe to assume that CCP ideology is not rooted in Chinese academic people, but as they notice anything that might be inappropriate they would still eliminate potential threats to ASAP for their good.
[1] http://www.studentclustercomp.com/tag/asc13/
[2] http://www.studentclustercomp.com/asc13-field-of-ten-chosen/
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
So I assume the positives outweigh the negatives?
Think Canada could do better as the world's police force? Would have Canada handled 911 differently? Would Canada have invaded iraq? Would the middle east be better off without that war? The US takes a lot of heat but by not doing anything would things be worse.
I don't think Canada is ready to handle that responsible. You need to be mature enough to do the good and bad. Canada just wants to do the good anything else that would taint that imagine in the collective mindset wouldn't be acceptable by the dominate few media narrative.
Regional powers are in check. Iran or Iraq were trying to get the bomb. Pakistan and India were on the edge of dropping a bomb on each other. Israel has been trying to get someone to attack Iran.
Keeping warlords in power is easy but longterm it works against your interests. Having a free Iraq has changed the region. It has given voice to oppressed people. It probably has caused Turkey uproar over the Kurds in Turkey wanting to join with the Iraq Kurds. But that is to be expected.. each problem solved will reveal two more.
Anywho, not every authoritarian regime bothers with that extra step.
Some facts that increase the plausibility of the claim:
1) China has among the shortest wait times in the world for organ transplants
2) China has little public engagement for voluntary organ donation. There were 373,536 registered organ donors nationally at the end of 2017. That number of donors would equate to 29 donations annually, going by US rates. Let's be generous and grant that 100 or so donations come from a voluntary donor.
3) Officially, the government of the PRC says that around 10k organ transplants happen per year. Most outside observers claim this is a significant undercount, but let's go with it.
4) The PRC claims that most of its organs come from voluntary donors.
Where do the rest of the organs come from? There's a huge discrepancy here. You can find plenty of people who attest that they've witnessed them coming from Falun Gong practitioners. I don't find individual accounts of anything that compelling, but they're easy enough to find. Plus, any mention of any particular individual would bring in a large number of accounts dismissing and attacking that individual, derailing the conversation.
If someone responds complaining that a lot of this is ultimately speculative: sure. The government of the PRC could easily address and dismiss this issue by offering transparency into its organ donation system. This is low risk and shouldn't undermine the PRC's informational priorities, as there's no reason for it to be a heavily politicized area of discussion (aside potentially from some class issues involving Western medical tourists).
For a well sourced overview, see https://www.chinaorganharvest.org/app/uploads/2018/06/COHRC-... . Yes, the domain name seems sensationalist, but it's appropriate.
Like most people, I haven't the time to study this question in detail, so I don't know the truth about it. But that's part of how propaganda works. By repeating something often enough in enough different places, the impression of a well-documented consensus is created. When one does research it in detail, the entire narrative usually falls apart. But so few people actually have the time to do that, it doesn't matter.
Please see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19504235.
PROS: a) Salary is high, especially if you get to work in finance/insurance/luxury retail fields b) disposable income (aka savings) is extremely high as income tax is low, no more than 17%, also, no capital gains tax! c) great hub to work and explore Asia
CONS: a) IT jobs (development mainly) aren't that exciting as they are mostly outsourced to cheaper countries so you ended up being a lonely team member in HK or in management type of jobs. There's always exceptions to this (Credit Suisse, Lalamove, Chengbao to name a few) b) tech is lagging behind in all aspects, from testing to devops. For example; Continuous Integration I'm yet to see a team in mid to large companies effectively having and respecting the build. This can be seen as an opportunity if you are willing to try. c) You work longer hours, more stress and generally fewer vacation days
However, if you come here to work as a founder to be closer to Shenzhen (factories), you also reap the benefits of an established legal system in Hong Kong. Plenty of highly motivated fresh graduates as well.
I doubled my pay by coming back home.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Hong_Kong_protests
They're not going to wait until 2047. Already many (most?) elementary schools in HK speak Mandarin instead of Cantonese.
Mandarin is far easier to learn and speak than Cantonese
Sarcasm aside, Spanish is not easier for Chinese people since barely anyone speaks it in Asia other than nouns in the Philippines. Mandarin is easier because it's already the primary language for most Chinese people and not just the mainland. It's also generally easier to speak and understand compared to Cantonese. Having one standard language is an advantage vs having a million "dialects".
There are many bad things about the HK handover. Standardizing on Mandarin is not one of them.
Erasing the language erases part of the culture that makes Hong Kong unique and interesting. It's a poverty to do so.
Moreover, Shenzhen is one of China's tech capitals while HK is mostly finance.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLmaIbb13GM
I think in that episode they were talking about the Hax incubator. https://hax.co/
Money vs. experience, it's really tough for me to figure out what's more important.
The truth is, it just seems that nobody cares about politics here anymore. Taiwanese media have been so sick that gossip is more than serious news. And guess what, most of the cable TV channels are Chinese-funded nowadays.
So when you say "The only problem is that they constantly have China talking about how they want to invade and retake it," you are either lying, or you have other intentions.
For example:
- pollution can be a big problem.
- if Chinese company, work culture can be very different. More top down, longer hours etc.
- noisy. Most places you go in big cities you are surrounded by noise. Cars, people, construction. It doesn’t end.
- I find the general quality of things to be lower. Buildings are poor quality generally. Side walks aren’t as maintained. A lot of things look nice from a distance only.
- internet obviously. Things are blocked and vpn can be flaky.
- many every day things will be more difficult. Banking, medical care etc. On the other hand many things are also much more convenient. Food delivery, transportation (unless you want to drive yourself) etc
There are pros too of course. You get to learn about a different culture and language. You’ll be relatively wealthy compared to most people there. It’s really easy to meet new people.
In the end I’d say move there if there is a good reason: Higher salary, better opportunity you wouldn’t normally have or if you just want a change / adventure AND you can live with the cons, at least for a while.
Especially if you are young and educated in the west, here are the things to consider:
- It is not very hard to find a STEM job in the west, and the pay is good.
- Your parents are healthy now, not much to worry. It's better to get a green card before they get old.
- You may start a family soon. It is much much easier to raise a child in the west.
It's already pretty bad in the US, but it's nothing compared to China (or Asia in general.)
B) Medicare. Every time your kid gets fever: IV. Your parents just love it. They think it is the best. Chinese people love to have their kids get blood test, X-ray for just cough... Children's hospitals are crowded by (grand)parents and kids who simply have cold (see pictures and story http://www.sohu.com/a/212568582_407108). Most Chinese people (including educated middle class) do not understand get cold is not because of cold, it is because of virus.
C) Also everybody knows: the highly competitive education system is a huge burden on kids and parents. It is common to spend lots of money to purchase apartment at good school district (xue qu fang). And many parents do this for kids going to elementary school, middle school, high school... Middle class life is not easy.
These guys were also the first in the office, last ones out.
I doubt a Western company would be as eager to split a parent from their babies, but this was a common thing, especially when you're the linchpin.
parent age and green card -- how do these two things relate to each other?
Once you have the green card, you can travel freely back and forth.
This would already be a showstopper for me. I have spent a week in Mumbai and never want to be in such an environment again.
Like bamboo ceiling is a thing in US, similar ceiling will be put upon foreigners in China, unless it is your own company.
Personally, I think how much you enjoy it will depend on how much you enjoy Chinese culture. From my experience, expats who stays "expats" forever, only hang out with other foreigners and don't learn the language, are less satisfied than people who integrate more, have local friends, learn the language, and enjoy things like KTV and hotpot. The locals are generally quite pragmatic and in some sense libertarian, in that many will do what they can to skirt laws and regulations that get in their way (which at least in past was perhaps necessary for survival in the corrupt, oppressive conditions there). So if you like "hustle", you'll like it, but if you think Uber are monsters, laws are made to be obeyed, or principles trump pragmatism, then you probably won't have a good time. Also if you're insecure about your appearance you may not enjoy it there; people can be very frank (like, a colleague might observe "wow, you've gotten fatter, what did you eat?"), and many job listings require a photo attached to the resume. Similarly people are more comfortable mentioning racial stereotypes than Americans are, so if (often well-meaning) racism bothers you then again, maybe better not to go.
Reasons to work there? The food is amazing and there's so much variety, the sheer number of people and opportunities is greater than almost anywhere else due to the population size (more people --> greater absolute number of people at the tails of any distribution --> there are some really awesome people there), and it's extremely safe. Things like delivery and transport are excellent due to economies of scale. There's also a lot of personal freedom there; the government aside, normal citizens will generally leave you alone and mind their own business, and won't e.g. call the cops or child protection when you let your child play alone outside. If you have kids there they're also much less likely to develop a drug or alcohol problem, should that be a concern; drug use is much less common there, and although the legal drinking age is something like 13 there generally isn't a binge drinking problem (maybe because the kids have too much homework).
[1]:https://www.youtube.com/user/churchillcustoms
https://www.blubrry.com/execpodcast/20878353/036-from-zero-t...
[1] https://strangeparts.com/
I'm late and most of what I have to say has already been said, but I'm a bit of a different story, given as I'm Western but started my career in China. I've worked at a top 50 startup in Shanghai (Video++) and most recently at Alibaba. Given that I'm 22, and have spent the majority of my internship/working career in China I'll give my take:
- Living in China has been better than anywhere I've lived in the US (CT, NYC, ATL, SF). There's abundant food that's both very good, and very cheap (both relative and absolute).
- Not only is the food cheap, but healthy. Very little food is processed (most is prepared fresh) and everywhere I've worked we've had wonderful meal services that prepped healthy portions. I lost a ton of weight working there without even working out or changing my diet!
- Cell service is really, really good and affordable. However, internet service is quite bad and no amount of money can remedy this. At Alibaba, we had fibre laid in Hangzhou so this is the only time I've ever experience moderately fast connection speeds.
- GFW etc isn't as bad as people make it out to be. Any reasonable company already has a proxy or VPN for you to use at work, and there are a number of good VPNs for personal use. I never felt I missed out on the Western web, only that it was a bit slower to connect (see above).
- Technology is abundant and fast-paced. You can rent umbrellas, bikes, phone batteries, etc. If you can think of it someone probably is working on the problem and you'll experience things you've never seen before in the US.
- Pollution and noise are a problem but not terrible. You certainly adjust and you do have to make some concessions i.e. I never cycled while living in Shanghai, and sometimes wore a face mask on particularly bad days.
- Transit is much better. In Shanghai and Shenzhen, the subways are practically brand new. Not only is there cellular/WIFi connectivity but they're always on time and people queue very neatly for them. High-speed rail is ubiquitous and cheap. Didi is objectively worse than Uber though.
- The work environment is quite different:
1. Management (where I've worked) has been practically non-existent as compared to the US. This might be because I do research, but I've never had a micromanager, or standups, etc.
2. Daily naps are a thing. Expect to find people taking an hour nap after eating lunch.
3. 996 is real. Most people at tech companies will work 9am-9pm 6 days/week.
4. It is expected you basically live in the office. You'll eat all 3 meals there, and spend a lot of time with your colleagues. Family time, and going home for dinner isn't a thing like it is in the West.
I'm sure I've left a lot out, but the above has been my experience in China. I'm planning on taking a full-time offer that'll put me back in China, and clearly, am biased as I think the quality of life is better there compared to the West.
Feel free to ask me any questions.
I was lucky enough to have help from a pretty notable entrepreneur in Shanghai (a friend of a friend) who sent my resume around. The interview process is very slow in China (also recruiting happens at different times than the West) and so about 4 months and a bunch of interviews later I decided on Video++ in Shanghai.
Unlike the US the visa process is very straightforward. It works as a points-based system in a number of categories, where if you hit the point minimum (overall of 60 I believe) then you get your visa. So once you get an offer it's not particularly hard for the company, but smaller ones will certainly be more averse given the time and expertise it takes to produce the documentation to provide to the consulate.
N.B.: I'd add that a lot of Chinese companies are intrigued (not necessarily the right word) by foreign candidates. You'll stand out in the pool. So if you apply through normal means, or even reach out they'll pick you out and talk to you. It depends a lot on the company and the timing but in my experience, it's been far easier than doing interviews in the US.
i assume this is a typo? otherwise i'm a little concerned about a culture where a 22-year-old has that much work experience, haha.
curious if you could talk a little more about the experience of finding a job in china, and what differences there might be from applying for jobs in the west.
and not sure if you have any experience with this - there's quite a bit in this thread about it being difficult if you're not ethnically chinese, but is there discrimination against overseas ethnic chinese who are not familiar with the language or culture?
for context - i'm thinking about working in china for a few years, primarily to build fluency and an understanding of the culture. i'm western-born; my mandarin is 'pretty good' but it's obvious from my accent and the way i put together sentences that i'm not native. i'm concerned that i might not be afforded the same leniency in misunderstanding the language or cultural norms that non-chinese westerners might receive.
I can't imagine trading being able to cycle or access uncensored internet for the ability to rent an umbrella.
Right away, he lost a lot of weight because he didn't like the food. Too many things he would never consider eating but he had to eat something. I don't know if it's the area he was in but he is still too thin today.
They divorced because he met a Chinese girl and married her. I don't recall the details--it might be a cultural thing--but it sounds like he was bamboozled into providing a lot of financial support to her Chinese family. The impression I get is that he's now stuck and it's a heavy burden.
yeah well... this is a recipe for marriage disaster, people need human contact
It would like someone traveling to the US for weeks and often, decides to relocate and then doesn't like the place because he discovers most people speak English
A "996" job refers to an unofficial working pattern (9 am - 9 pm, 6 days a week) that has been gaining more popularity. Serving a company that encourages the "996" working pattern usually means working for at least 60 hours a week.
TLDR; A protest going on right now of developers in China. ICU means Intensive Care Unit.