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Ask HN: Is it difficult for non-Chinese to work in China?

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Re: Ask HN: Is it difficult for non-Chinese to work in China?

#51

Post by throwaway_xx9 »

zerr wrote: post #34
United857 wrote: post #9

I worked in Shanghai, China for 3 years for Ubisoft (game developer). Senior-level experienced talent is still hard to find, so it's relatively easy to get a job and work visa (which will be sponsored by your company once you accept a offer) compared to first-world countries. This is doubly true if you have a well known tech company on your resume (Google, FB, etc) I'd recommend working for a multinational company (o…

But doesn't it feel wrong when you're treated much better (e.g. have a 2x salary + subsidized apartment) compared to your peers only because you're a [westerner] foreigner?

The guy in the cube next to you in the USA is probably making twice your salary now. Does that bother you?

Re: Ask HN: Is it difficult for non-Chinese to work in China?

#52

Post by saturdaysaint »

zerr wrote: post #2

It is also interesting for Japan. E.g. if you leave on time (i.e. don't do overtimes), take 30+ days vacation, etc... what happens? :)

Perhaps not entirely germane, but I worked for the U.S. branch of a Japanese company - it was about %50/50 Japanese expats and Americas. The Japanese worked 50-60 hours a week, Americans worked in the ballpark of 40 or so, and nobody blinked an eye. They were notoriously stingy on vacation time, which led to a pretty dismal retention rate (partly why that was the only job I left in under a year).

Re: Ask HN: Is it difficult for non-Chinese to work in China?

#53

Post by dastbe »

bing_dai wrote: post #4

I would recommend that you look into jobs from the Big Three in China (Tencent, Alibaba, Baidu, in that particular order). All of them hire many people who do not hold a Chinese passport, so they have mature system in place to handle some of the issues you may be concerned about (visa, healthcare, etc). The culture in those companies would also be more international than most Chinese companies of course. You could al…

Why that order?

Re: Ask HN: Is it difficult for non-Chinese to work in China?

#54

Post by univerio »

johansch wrote: post #47
raihansaputra wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess if you are working professionally in the tech space, you'd just spring for the 5-15 bucks a month to have a vpn.

There was some noise about the GFW doing clever stuff(tm) to identify VPN traffic and punish the local IP for that. Was that real or hype?

That's definitely real. Normal, unobfuscated VPN will result in packet drops after a couple of minutes. Even obfuscated VPN will trigger packet drops if you send too much traffic.

Re: Ask HN: Is it difficult for non-Chinese to work in China?

#55

Post by Symbiote »

gadders wrote: post #27

I have friends that are black that visited Guangzhou. They felt like something of a novelty. On one occasion they went for a meal and had a crowd outside the window staring at them, watching them eat. I think they may also have had people trying to sneakily touch their hair on local transport as well. So if you're a person of colour, your experiences may be different from the other descriptions here.

I'm white, male and have long, blonde hair. I had similar reactions.

I must be in 50 people's photo collections.

Only one person asked me before photographing me. He was about 14, and on a rare school trip to Nanjing from home somewhere in the north. He said he'd not seen a white person before. I think everyone that photographed me was a tourist.

Re: Ask HN: Is it difficult for non-Chinese to work in China?

#56

Post by bogomipz »

cleric wrote: post #11

Hello. Im a Swedish Sofware engineer and I have been working in Beijing for the last ~4 years. As others have pointed out, China is huge, and I have no experience from working in Hongkong or Shanghai where the vibe is more international, or so they say. So what to expect? Smooth sailing, as long as you can deliver. There is a lot of companies that value English speakers in general, so dont be surprised if you get pam…

How does this work with the language? Do you speak Mandarin or Cantonese? My experience was that English didn't go very far in Beijing.

Contrast that with Sweden where the office language at a tech start up in Stockholm is most likely English.

Re: Ask HN: Is it difficult for non-Chinese to work in China?

#57

Post by bogomipz »

msvan wrote: post #33
cleric wrote: post #11

Hello. Im a Swedish Sofware engineer and I have been working in Beijing for the last ~4 years. As others have pointed out, China is huge, and I have no experience from working in Hongkong or Shanghai where the vibe is more international, or so they say. So what to expect? Smooth sailing, as long as you can deliver. There is a lot of companies that value English speakers in general, so dont be surprised if you get pam…

I had beers with the P1 team in Beijing about 3-4 years ago, so I probably met you too :) Seemed like a cool little company at the time. I'm surprised that you were able to get a Z visa (?) as I thought that required a degree? OP: I can recommend living in China for the experience alone. You'll be treated differently, but xenophobia is not the word I'd use. I'm white and my experience was pretty great, though I'm not…

I don't agree. English in Beijing is not so common, but Hong Kong its very common.

Re: Ask HN: Is it difficult for non-Chinese to work in China?

#58

Post by bogomipz »

raihansaputra wrote: post #21
fao_ wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hm, I'm curious: How much has the Chinese web blocking impacted on your usage of the web compared to Sweden?

I guess if you are working professionally in the tech space, you'd just spring for the 5-15 bucks a month to have a vpn.

But its a game of cat and mouse with which VPN providers are currently blocked.

Re: Ask HN: Is it difficult for non-Chinese to work in China?

#59

Post by dazhbog »

It is awesome! I've been in Shenzhen with my startup for a year now and its great.., I want to stay here forever. Apart from the slow internet through the VPN, weird but interesting food and the language barrier, its a very exciting and prosperous country to be in. Foreigners here are treated equally and sometimes treated way better than they deserve!!

Regarding jobs, there are plenty, but it depends which province/city you want to be in. Maybe not as highly paid as the US but there are definitely a lot of cool, innovative, new and weird ideas and concepts that you won't see anywhere in the world! I ask my Chinese friends what's the latest cool things you can do with your phone and they always have these weird apps that maybe in 5 years facebook or youtube will have.

For US citizens its pretty easy to get a visa, apart from the invitation letter crap, you get like a 10 year multi-entry. Us europeans have a harder time to get a 1 year one but not that bad in general :)

It is a bit of a shock the first time you come here and sometimes 2-4 weeks might not be enough to love this place, but after a while you develop a sort of stockholmy syndrome and all is good!

Hope it helps!

Re: Ask HN: Is it difficult for non-Chinese to work in China?

#60

Post by jason_slack »

I know the OP asked about an American working in China. However, I am an American, living in the US, working remotely for a company in China, about 3 years now. I thought I might offer a perspective from the opposite way.

The only difficulty I have is language. Sometimes I feel like I am being very clear about something and I still can't convey it. So I take a step back and break it down into a list. This helps. The time difference is manageable. Everyone is really friendly.

The other interesting thing is that everyone in the China office knows about the Americans working on their team. I get so many e-mails and I even won a prize at our company party. I have a certain reputation it seems for not sugar coating anything.

I did have one odd experience. It is common to use the term "Na Ge", pronounced like "Niggaa" in China and and when I first heard it, I thought that they were using the slang word we all should never use. It was weird because the conversation they were having was about a recent crime. I asked later about this because I couldn't shake that it was being used and it turns out the meaning is something like "umm" or "that one" etc.

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