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

I’ve sort of done the move. If you are not ethnically Chinese and speak the language, there will be a few things to get used to. The degree will depend a bit on where you end up.

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.

I would like to add: Even if you are ethnically Chinese and speak the language, don’t go back to China unless you really cannot find a decent job in the west.

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.

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 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.

“Unless you’re of Chinese descent and speak the language, you won’t be able to advance in most companies.”

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.

I guess language barrier is the main issue here? In western companies, it’s also hard to advance to high/exec levels if someone cannot communicate in English well.

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?

>mando

Is it a regional norm around you to refer to Mandarin as “Mando?” Never heard of this in my life…

My Chinese friends do. Not sure if regional. I think it’s just the logical shortening when the other option is ‘canto’, but it doesn’t really make sense.

I’ve heard this a lot, especially when referring to both Mandarin and Cantonese, ie. Mando and canto

A warning for folks considering working in China (love to hear this debunked if untrue):

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.

you can via ADRs, at least for large companies they usually follow the market. However under the hood this seems unfair. Why does China get to be protective but the the west does not? Just greedy non-chinese companies that don’t care where the investments are coming from?

I’ve been considering a move to Japan. My pay would likely be several tens of thousands of dollars less (still very good, relative to the market but less than what I could command in a Western market), but it’s also an opportunity to have a very different life experience.

Money vs. experience, it’s really tough for me to figure out what’s more important.

If we’re tossing other countries in the hat, throw in Taiwan. It’s like China, minus the smog, tyranny, and bad internet!

One anecdote – I moved to Japan 12 years ago when I was 26 to work as an engineer in a game company. I stayed for two years. Like anywhere there were pros and cons but overall it was a fantastic life experience that I’m very glad I did.

If you’re relatively young, no kids, etc. then it’s definitely worth trying out for a couple of years. You won’t have lost much time.

I think this is a lot of what it comes down to. Even taking a sabbatical and working overseas would be appealing depending on how the career winds blow. I’m curious about the money opportunities, but there’s also a major value package that’s non-monetary, and it would give a better perspective and skillset when returning to the west.

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 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.

China executes thousands of political prisoners per year to harvest thier organs on an industrial scale.

Dunno if they would stop if they couldn’t harvest their organs.

Anywho, not every authoritarian regime bothers with that extra step.

I don’t think you’re going to get away from this. By living in and working in China, paying Chinese taxes, and supporting Chinese companies, you are directly supporting an authoritarian regeime.

As a Canadian living in and working in America, I have a similar although less dramatic moral difficulty. The fact is that the American government is curiously abusive compared to your average developed national government.

As an American citizen I agree with you, but I think that the comparison to China is excessive and inappropriate – and serves as some kind of perverted justification for China’s crimes against humanity.

lmao. kernel of truth to be sure but in fairness American legal system and democratic governance do strictly result in more liberty and security for individuals by and large, corner cases notwithstanding

An authoritarian dictatorship where the air pollution and other environmental pollution (heavy metals, PCBs, food supply chain chemical/pesticide contamination) will probably knock years off your life expectancy.

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.

i’ve been in Hong Kong for 6.5 years already. Worked in small consultancies, large logistics company, and local startup.

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.

Define high (at least the ballpark). I had a much different experience in the same city.

I doubled my pay by coming back home.

high as in I usually have 50% of my income available after paying rent/food/transportation and other costs. Rent is high if you keep “western” standards for your living space, likewise for food.

That’s a great point about access to Shenzhen from HK. How’s the language barrier been? Have you had to learn both Canto and Mando and read both simplified and traditional? Is there a distinct advantage to living on one side of the border over the other?

The hard part living in HK for a lot of people is real estate price. It’s extremely expensive either to rent or buy apartments. Lot of people live in apartments less than 200 sqr feet, and the average living space per person is less than 100 sqr feet.

Moreover, Shenzhen is one of China’s tech capitals while HK is mostly finance.

HK has uncensored and fast internet. The language barrier can be a issue but English is still widely spoken, even in remote areas of HK like where I live. I know enough Canto for numbers, food and the rare times I get a taxi. I can’t ready anything though. 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).

my impression is that unless you’re in a super high-demand and high-level role (ie. Andrew Ng), it’s still not that appealing compared to the US. For engineering roles, you’re going to be worked harder and for lower pay than in the US. As an engineer with a degree in Chinese, I originally planned on working in China but found much better options stateside. Some of my colleagues have been successful in getting decent business-side tech jobs in China, or doing supply side stuff for businesses based outside of China.

What adjustment for cost of living?

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).

COL is a little better, but far closer than people think.

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.

Holidays, iPhones and cars cost almost the same everywhere. As an engineer “adjusted” usually means you’re underpaid 🙂

Anecdata; I live in berlin and get about the same salary as my uni friends who stayed in Paris.

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.

So you’ve chosen the right place to live. As an engineer who changed the country and got salary adjusted, it’s just bad economical life choice. It’s better to earn more, your options are just so much wider. You can save money, invest etc.

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.

I’m in a WeChat group for Product Managers in China. Someone asked a similar question a few weeks ago. The context of their question was:

– 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.

At least Japan lets non-permanent residents avoid taxes on income from abroad (that stays abroad) for the first 5 years. Depends on your home country whether this lets you avoid their taxes.

In some cases, this can save a lot of tax.

Do you have any information about this? I’ve been looking into the tax implications of moving to Japan recently and it’s not been easy to sort through.

Agree with comments below. Don’t do it, unless you are native Chinese and earned a high degree and would join a key high-tech company working on research topics, and have high lever relationships with the company.

Haven’t moved my career here but am working remotely for a couple of months.

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

Google has offices in Shenzhen, too. And one could debate whether Taiwan is a country or part of China.

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.

>one could debate whether Taiwan is a country or part of China

At least we can while we’re in the west

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 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.