Career Challenges of Learning Chinese and Working in China

[MarsBlackman]

What unforeseen career challenges, pitfalls, and/or hurdles have you encountered because of your ability to speak Chinese and/or time spent in China?

 

Perhaps you found it difficult to find a job in your home country after time spent in China. Maybe you're labeled "the China guy/girl" at work despite bringing more to the table than just language and cultural skills, or even the opposite - you're trying hard to get China related work in your field but are fighting to get your voice heard. Perhaps you're pursuing translating/interpreting and are having difficulty competing with native Chinese speakers. Maybe you have considerable experience with China but are choosing to take your career in a different direction and feel pigeon-holed. The list goes on. 

 

This forum largely focuses on learning Chinese and students' first time studying in China. While we are all focused on our own personals goals, and one day seeing the fruits of our labor, its worth mentioning unintended consequences of the path we've chosen. I thought it would be good to share individual experiences.

 

I've worked in Dongbei as an engineer with two state-owned companies for the better half of the last 3 years representing an American company (I consider myself lucky). The company I work for is medium sized (~1000 employees with half being factory workers) and a fairly conservative, cradle-to-grave office atmosphere with only a handful in China at any given time. My company hasn't valued or incorporated my China experience as much as I would've hoped. I'm the only one who speaks Chinese, actively learns about China, and has spent more time working in China on the project than every employee but one. Yet I've seen people make grave strategic errors that affected our business simply because they didn't understand the business climate in China. While I have chosen to leave my job to study at ICLP in Taipei this fall, if I had chosen to stay, I would've likely been frustrated that my voice wasn't being heard.

 

However, it has reinforced that knowing Chinese and having work experience in China is not a golden ticket, despite China's growth. Competency in something else is a must in most cases (there are obvious exceptions). My advice for anybody studying Chinese in addition to something else, make sure you maintain competency in your field irrespective of China. As China's local talent continues to develop, excelling in your career outright should be your priority. Knowing Chinese and being able to navigate Chinese culture and society will be icing on the cake. Life's a marathon, not a sprint. 

[stapler]

I think this is definitely a useful reminder! There seems to be a lot of talk around in general that white fellas can just walk into China and find a job easily, and if they also speak Chinese, they'll be running a major company in a few months! The combination of orientalism and naivety is quite amusing. Dangerous for some poor souls who buy into it. And for people like myself, the source of many annoying questions like "why don't you just go work in China?! It would be so easy! You can read some things on a Chinese menu!"

[AdamD]

Yes! There's a gulf between your friends and family, who think being able to speak Chinese is itself an employable skill (in a country with 1.3 billion people who can do it better? uh sure okay), and the reality, in which you're only going to get good work if you're experienced and competent in that actual field.

 

I would dearly love to incorporate Chinese into my work, but only within my experience and skill set, not as some magical 大山 type of character.

 

In my recent work, apart from some involvement in scoping language projects, the closest I've come is "what does this say?" on someone's Facebook news feed. (It doesn't help that I've not yet had the guts to speak Chinese in the office.)

[Basil]

 

 

 (It doesn't help that I've not yet had the guts to speak Chinese in the office.)

 

Why start doing something today when you can postpone it till tomorrow? 

[AdamD]

Because my Chinese is still so bad that I'll embarrass myself. Believe me, it's self-preservation!

[Basil]

It'd get better surprisingly quickly. Develop a thick skin. Keep trying, be apologetic. Otherwise their English will improve very quickly and your Chinese won't...

[anonymoose]

I don't actually need Chinese for my real job, although I choose to use it whenever appropriate. Essentially, though, it is absolutely not a requirement. It is more just useful for building interpersonal relationships with Chinese people (who are usually more comfortable speaking in their own language than English).

 

I did work in a hospital in Shanghai for a year as an intern though, which involved direct patient contact, and performing medical procedures and participating in surgery. Needless to say, in this situation, Chinese proficiency was imperative.

 

I shall be returning to the UK shortly, and I expect that my Chinese will be completely redundant professionally, but I hope to keep it up, and improve hopefully, as a hobby.

[ZhangKaiRong]

After my scholarship year in China, I had to come home, take my final exams and start my professional career. I graduated from the best regional business university with a double degree in Finance and accounting and IR. Finding a job would have been easy even without my Chinese skills, however having even an "elementary Chinese" on your resume gets some additional attention from HR people. I got this job (at one of those big worldwide accounting and advisory companies) before going to China, and they considered me to be a strategic hire as the company that time started to build a special department for Chinese customers. My home country is in the less-developed part of the EU, which is not considered to be a good market for Chinese outbound investments, however there are some bigger ones operating here, so this move was understandable from the strategic point of view. However, thank god, I was hired for a professional service line and not directly for this new department.

In my first year I have very limited Chinese exposure, only to the extent of attending some networking events. In my second year I changed my original service line to mergers&acquisitions which is much more related to Chinese. I worked on some Chinese-related projects, but this is still not my main occipation. And to be honest, it's not a problem. Being good in your actual field of profession gives you more safety than relying on your experience with China or your Chinese skills. Hell, if you really want to go and work in China, and you're really good in your job, have the necessary experience (which takes YEARS, and not just one or two years) and qualifications (let it be CFA, ACA, CPA, MBA or any other related professional qualifications) without any problems, even without the language skills (but command of the language is a big plus, nevertheless). And it is not an anecdotical, "friend of a friend of a friend went to work in China" story, I personally know people who get transferred through their MNC employers to China, HK or Singapore from Germany, UK, the Netherlands and even from the Czech Republic. I got a job offer from the Xiamen office of one of my company's three competitors just after two years of work experience. The package they offered was not that desirable for me, so I refused to go, but I'm convinced that such opportunities will come more often if I invest some more time in my career and professional knowledge here. Of course, maintaining my Chinese level will do no harm either.

In my country, students studying Chinese from the same teacher know each other, so we keep in touch here and with schoolmates in China. After seeing two scholarship teams coming back from China, I get an impression that most of them living in the dream called "everything is super good in China, so I definitely have to work there". Yeah, life is easy if you receive a decent scholarship and earn some hundreds/thousands RMB more by teaching English or doing some other "unofficial" job. I also had this problem in the first year after I got back home (some kind of "China-homesick"), and it git even worse when I received comments like some of you mentioned before ("omg, you speak Chinese, why did you come back and not started to work in China, etc.). But it got better after the first year, because I accepted how things work. What most of my classmates don't understand that you have to meet work visa criteria in the future, and odd English teaching and modelling job experience does not count, as they are not legal... And most of them do not want to do any other jobs here in our home country which are unrelated to China, but very relevant to their original education background. Failing to find such jobs, they apply for master's scholarship in China. But this only delays the frustration they have to face later.

If somebody asks for some insights on whether or not taking Chinese major/language course, I always recommend them not to believe the hype and consider Chinese as a plus investment in their skill set, which might result in a gain or a nothing in their career.