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

Do people talk politics there? Accidentally let slip the wrong sentence when the wrong pair of ears is around and bam , your life as you know it is over.

When the company proxy is down, development grinds to halt.

Google Twitter, Facebook Dropbox Github Every site that uses Google Fonts will not load without fiddling etc etc etc. VPN or a good proxy is a must. Or you just space out and stop reading the news, use a simple ssh tunnel for Git and live in happy non social media bliss.

But over the years I learned a lot of corner cases with proxy settings in almost everything. Like if you set a http proxy in Ubuntu, apt-get dont give a fuck, you have to set that separately, but if you want to use a password or different port you end up in config hell. Or if you want to use http proxy on your phone, there is settings for it in Android for both Wifi and 3g, but if you put a password into the password field, your phone goes "well thats nice, lets not use it".

You can pre cache google maps on your phone. But if you use a app that displays a google map, that app will not use the google maps cache.

But since almost everything is blocked or slow, there is Chinese alternatives to everything. And we mostly use Wechat here for everything so there there is not that many convenience missing for me.

The hardest part for me was playing Ingress since the GPS location is shifted in China, and the login requires Google servers, and running a VPN drains batteries. But I would not really see that as a major concern :)

I left home when the whole "just toss it into AWS push the scale button and go for IPO" started in the West, and got behind the gfw when if you want it to be good it needs to be inside the gfw even if the server outside are reachable.

There is alternatives now like the aliyun from alibaba, but for us that was not an alternative since they have not really reached the same level as AWS.

So its kinda fun to do the basic stuff since its usually easier for us to build everything ourself than to outsource.

Overall question first. In terms of 'difficulty' to work, I suppose the key issues are: language, office culture, visa situation, job availability, overheads.

Language is really not a problem if you work for any reasonable company as all young people can speak some English and basic spoken Chinese is not hard to pick up with a little effort once you are in the environment.

Office culture is highly company dependent: I have interviewed at companies with stupid amounts of capital and connections but no idea what they were doing whose upper management were so afraid of a foreigner in their midst (with technical knowledge) that they flat out refused to hire ("threat" alarm), even though it was self-evident we would have taken the company good places together. On the other hand, there are companies where it would be fantastic. In general, it won't be as easy as the west, and it may be difficult or even unworkable. Be careful with this. You can sidestep this by starting something yourself.

Visas became much harder in 2007, before the 2008 Olympics, and never got easier. It is true that Americans can get 10 years repeat-entry visas (60 or 90 days per stay), you are not allowed to work on them, though many, many, many, many people do. I believe Canadians and UK citizens may be able to get these now or soon. In general, it is illegal to 'work' (as in sit in an office every day, receive a Chinese salary) on these visas, but you can definitely 'work' in the sense of consulting on the ground from an international position without legal recourse. It's all about how you structure your alleged situation to authorities, if they come asking, which they basically won't. The safest is to get paid overseas, the next safest is probably to be paid cash. Getting paid in to a local bank account on a non-work visa is asking for problems. You can sidestep this by starting something yourself, which gives you a work visa.

Job availability wise, probably the larger east-coast cities are OK. Outside of those cities, there is almost nothing, unless you want to compete with locals for web development or other piecemeal work, which is a losing bet in my observation. You can sidestep this by starting something yourself.

Overheads wise, you can get by nicely on about the same as in Europe, which is to say hotels + food + transport + visa overheads would be 200-1000元/day (about USD$30-150/day) depending upon what kind of city you are in and how much consumption you can pack in. In second tier cities, I would say 400元 (USD$60) is a fair budget, whereas in the east coast first tier cities perhaps 800元 (USD$120) is more realistic. You can halve this if you have your own house or apartment, which is basically viable if you are staying 6 months or longer. Foreigners often have share houses available in larger cities, if you want to dip a foot in without total commitment to your own space.

What to expect? Surprises, weird cultural adjustments, great food variety, honestly friendly people, less regulation.

Xenophobia? Not usually, it is rare but it does exist.

Culturally, Chinese are pretty straight shooters ... more so than westerners, in my opinion. You can make friends easily, but the depth of a friendship is often defined by how much effort you put in to maintaining it. Mutual favors can make the world go around. Banquets solidify friendships, and are awesome.

What sort of work would you like to do? A good way to start may be identifying companies working in the areas you would like to gain experience in, then simply volunteer to work for them for awhile (say 3 months) possibly for some token cash-in-hand salary with a view towards a full time position. It will not cost you much and you can arrive on your own visa, you are not 'working' (as you are 'not' receiving money) and you maintain total freedom with regards to leaving / changing your situation / looking elsewhere while you clue up and decide on your next move.

City wise, Shenzhen or other Guangdong cities and parts of Zhejiang and Fujian provinces are good for a firmware focus. From a traditional software-focus, Chengdu, Shenzhen, Shanghai, or Beijing are probably the big ones.

Looking back coming to China was the best thing I ever did in life - I'm an Australian who's lived in Europe and America. It's not for everyone, but if you can make it work you'll be richly rewarded in experience.