Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: Those who moved careers from the West to China, what's your experience?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 178 posts

Re: Ask HN: Those who moved careers from the West to China, what's your experience?

#161

Post by qlk1123 »

abc-xyz wrote: post #112
captainjustice wrote: post #16

I moved from Europe to China to work as a mobile/backend dev. 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 an…

More cons: you're directly supporting a surveillance state that has no regard for human rights, that is engaged with concentration camps and medical genocide, and that won't hesitate a second to kick you out of the country and ban you from entry without telling you why or for how long, likely resulting in you losing any type of investment (relationship/financial/etc). It doesn't matter if you've been a good citizen f…

> You'll also be denied entry at most hotels that aren't 4-5 star because they don't allow foreigners, ...

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/

Re: Ask HN: Those who moved careers from the West to China, what's your experience?

#162

Post by sureaboutthis »

mtw wrote: post #143
sureaboutthis wrote: post #124

My sister-in-law's ex-husband traveled to China for weeks at a time and often. After their divorce, he moved there permanently. Two things happened. 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 marrie…

Doesn't really make sense to me. Guy travels to China for weeks and often. After all this, he discovers that he didn't like the food?? 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

He discovered he didn't like the food on day one. What's your point? The question is about experiences moving to China.

Re: Ask HN: Those who moved careers from the West to China, what's your experience?

#163

Post by sureaboutthis »

osrec wrote: post #125
sureaboutthis wrote: post #124

My sister-in-law's ex-husband traveled to China for weeks at a time and often. After their divorce, he moved there permanently. Two things happened. 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 marrie…

Wow, that doesn't sound great. Hope he at least has some job satisfaction?

I'm not sure but he's been doing it a long time for a really big company that makes notebooks and you might own one.

Re: Ask HN: Those who moved careers from the West to China, what's your experience?

#164

Post by throwawayhyes »

usaar333 wrote: post #144
throwawayhyes wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ll add to this. If you’re ethnically Chinese, can speak Mandarin, and have a desire to move to an executive position, then highly consider it. 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-...

How well does this apply to people who grew up in China (adept to culture) vs. not (and only might know Mandarin from talking with relatives)?

Not knowing the culture will definitely hinder you compared to someone that does, but you might be able to carve out a niche as a “Western/English” facing executive. Basically you will be the executive that interfaces with foreigners.

Re: Ask HN: Those who moved careers from the West to China, what's your experience?

#165

Post by ubercow13 »

jimrhods23 wrote: post #57
koala_man wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me it was the money and opportunities. I turned a blind eye to the power abuse, human rights violations and corruption, and moved to the US anyways.

"I turned a blind eye to the power abuse, human rights violations and corruption" 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…

What's having to include a headshot on your resume got to do with corruption and authoritarianism? China isn't the only country where that is normal.

Re: Ask HN: Those who moved careers from the West to China, what's your experience?

#166

Post by vfulco2 »

rlglwx wrote: post #5

To be honest, don’t don’t it. Unless you’re of Chinese descent and speak the language, you won’t be able to advance in most companies. The work culture is alien to most westerners and the benefits to your career are negligible. 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…

Jumping on this thread, I came 4 year ago starting a company to mentor and coach young people who want to get into MNCs. Think English resume editing, LinkedIn Profile enhancements, interview coaching. Right now, Chinese is intermediate level (I am behind as my work is almost entirely in English).

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.

Re: Ask HN: Those who moved careers from the West to China, what's your experience?

#167

Post by vfulco2 »

avinium wrote: post #148

I can't speak for "founder/tech startup" scene in China, but I did spend 4 years as a manager in the property development arm of a large foreign retailer. 1) As far as I know, the overpaid expat days are over. A lot of Chinese have returned from long stints overseas, and they're bringing that experience back with them. If you want a good position, now you actually need to offer something unique. 2) It's not impossibl…

Excellent point on #3. I have heard so many reasons for this. I have no idea how a foreign CEO sleeps at night with all the backroom embezzlement activity I have heard about. Hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars in inflated P.O. going into the wrong aka less efficient, less competent hands because it can.

Re: Ask HN: Those who moved careers from the West to China, what's your experience?

#168

Post by jason_slack »

educationdata wrote: post #95
refurb wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Care to expand on your last point? I haven’t heard that before.

A) Parenting. You will mostly have no parenting on your own in China. Tech companies will make you work long hours. It is not uncommon that when you finished work and back home, your kid is already asleep. When you leave home early to catch the train, your kid is still asleep. It is not a joke but many Chinese young couples only see their kids during weekend, even they live together. You think leaving your kid to you…

To your point B - When I was in China for an extended work obligation I made sure that I told people I was diabetic because lots of food has sugar in it. My co-workers kept asking me daily if I needed any medical treatment for my diabetes and one of them could take me to a clinic. Even on weekends co-workers would ping me to ask. It was very sweet of them but a bit comical.

Re: Ask HN: Those who moved careers from the West to China, what's your experience?

#169

Post by jason_slack »

rlglwx wrote: post #145
jaxbot wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the insights, much appreciated! To be clear, are you a westerner who made this move, or a Chinese native? If the former, how did the startup culture compare to the US startup culture? >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?

I am a white guy from the states who speaks Mandarin. It's not really racism per se, it's just more that it's harder to win their trust if you're not one of them to begin with. 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 di…

I found that people didn't expect me to speak/read/write any Mandarin being white and from the states.

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. :-)

Re: Ask HN: Those who moved careers from the West to China, what's your experience?

#170

Post by philsnow »

chaostheory wrote: post #133
philsnow wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's a big question mark as 2047 looms closer, which is till when China promised to keep HK the way it is now (capitalism, different currency, open, legal system and so on). 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.

> Already many (most?) elementary schools in HK speak Mandarin instead of Cantonese. Mandarin is far easier to learn and speak than Cantonese

I don't know what you're getting at. Shouldn't they learn Spanish or something because it's "easier"?
Post reply on HN