Shenzhen datasheet.
I arrived to Sz in late April. First was trying to get my Chinese visa in Phils, but it was a major hassle. Thus decided to make in Hong Kong via agent. Pretty straight forward process, apply in the morning and pick up the visa the same day afternoon. Price was around 120 USD for 3 months double entry visa (I’m not US citizen btw).
My background.
I arrived in China after 6 months of extensive travelling in SE Asia I decided to settle down for longer.
Why Shenzhen?
China is the land of opportunities, supposedly it was the nicest city in China (Chinese Hollywood as referred by this forum).
Never been to China before. 7 years ago I took a year long intensive course of Mandarin when I was studying in Barcelona. But I could mostly remember how to greet people, order a beer and wine. That’s it. So zero language skill to start with. I had some friends prior to arrive, so had a place to crash and some language assist, making a culture shock less painful.
First thing was to get a suit. Long story short, if you want a tailor made woolen suit (reasonably priced), go to Bangkok or Hongkong, not Shenzhen. I lost time, money and the final product was awful. So instead I bought a pretty decent trousers and couple of shirts for the interviews. The problem was with the shoes. Since I was previously travelling, I had 2 pairs of shoes, both rather casual. Spent a long time browsing the shoes in Sz, and found nothing that would fit my size (46 european, which I believe is 11-12 US). The biggest ones were 44. So once again, try to get them before you come to China if you plan to work here.
As to search for a job, there are various websites, like job51.com, but in reality as a foreigner without any skills in mandarin (btw, Shenzhen is in Canton, but since this is the city of immigrants people mostly speak mandarin, not cantonese) I would resort to 3 others. Echinacities.com, Shenzhenstuff.com and Shenzhenparty.com.
They are dedicated to foreigners, and although most jobs are for teaching English, there is a handful of companies looking for sales people, business developers etc. And this is what I was aiming at.
I kept sending CVs through the official websites, as well as to hiring managers/general managers via Linkedin.
After few weeks the output was… Zero responses, so it was time to take more traditional approach. Gather the address, phone numbers and pay companies visits. With a Chinese friend I figured out the addresses, wherever possible I would give the company a call say that I’m coming (till the very end they would be convinced that I’m a client willing to spend some money on their products), and just make a walk-in interviews.
I got 2 offers in the end of the month, and took one of them, (an IT stuff sales).
Now, many ask how the foreigners are treated in China.
To my surprise, I was (and still am) treated like a privileged. People would walk me to the place (If I’m persistent and lucky enough to find someone in the crowd speaking English), offer help and such. Never had any hassle with police. And to the clubs, even the posh ones, I could enter with my shorts (as long as I had full shoes, could even be sport ones). Dresscode haha.
At work I would be invited to join the team to go out dining, drinking and such. Of course, I never even saw the bill in those situations. They make it easy for me, in spite of the fact that only my boss speaks English.
Accomodation:
Since I didn’t want to get myself into 1 year rental contract (and pay bi monthly rent as a deposit), decided to go for for a service apartment. All utilities plus cleaning once a week included, pay monthly as you go with deposit less than 1 K. Easy way. And the price wasn’t too elevated (3,5 K for a studio, 4,5 K for 1 bedroom), 7 minutes walk from MTR, 25 minutes from my work.
Party, free time and girls:
Foreigners go to Coco park, but I got fed up with it after less than a month of partying there. My location (Louhu/Futian) didn’t have much else to offer, but I gave it a shot and went to Shekou (Seaworld) one night. It was a blast – in Viva club.
I loved the pool parties in Intercontinental hotel (OCT Luobao station). If the weather is nice (scarce in Shenzhen, 5 days of rain in the week on the average since I arrived in April), those parties are a blast.
Generally seek shenzhenstuff and shenzhenparty for the info. There are events going on weekly, and nightlife can be lots of fun!
Girls, as many say are the easy part. Won’t elaborate on the game here, but just have 2 things in mind – go well dressed and show status. China is all about money in my and many of colleagues opinion. In many cases I would tell a girl what I do, her eyes would literally flash with interest to “get to know me better”. Also they appreciate if a guy can cook, and once they are invited to the dinner in my place… rest is a history.
I hang out with girls I met in Interconti parties, and in clubs. Little to no day game.
Food:
After visiting some shops I realized how bad is the food in here (you don't see it when going to restaurants of course, but I cook by myself and the quality of basic ingredients is horrible) - I mean meat and veggies. Ever seen a carrot bigger than your forearm? An onion as big as girls head? This is about it - all grown on chemicals - bigger size, bigger profit.
Business& making money, costs:
As written before, China is a good place to make money. Once you tackle the obstacles, mainly cultural and language bareer, business opportunities are pretty much limited by your imagination and personal limits only from what I saw and heard. I don’t have much experience in this field though, so not to write any bullshit will leave this part concise.
Sz is not cheap as it used to be. In fact, it gets more expensive than any major city in western europe if you want to live decent life (imported cheese, wine, good quality food, some parties)...
So 2K USD/month is good for some decent life, but rather forget any extravaganza in this budget. And this is what an average English teacher can expect as a salary. If you are in different field – like engineer, sales, architecture… You should make more than that.
Feel free to ask questions.
I arrived to Sz in late April. First was trying to get my Chinese visa in Phils, but it was a major hassle. Thus decided to make in Hong Kong via agent. Pretty straight forward process, apply in the morning and pick up the visa the same day afternoon. Price was around 120 USD for 3 months double entry visa (I’m not US citizen btw).
My background.
I arrived in China after 6 months of extensive travelling in SE Asia I decided to settle down for longer.
Why Shenzhen?
China is the land of opportunities, supposedly it was the nicest city in China (Chinese Hollywood as referred by this forum).
Never been to China before. 7 years ago I took a year long intensive course of Mandarin when I was studying in Barcelona. But I could mostly remember how to greet people, order a beer and wine. That’s it. So zero language skill to start with. I had some friends prior to arrive, so had a place to crash and some language assist, making a culture shock less painful.
First thing was to get a suit. Long story short, if you want a tailor made woolen suit (reasonably priced), go to Bangkok or Hongkong, not Shenzhen. I lost time, money and the final product was awful. So instead I bought a pretty decent trousers and couple of shirts for the interviews. The problem was with the shoes. Since I was previously travelling, I had 2 pairs of shoes, both rather casual. Spent a long time browsing the shoes in Sz, and found nothing that would fit my size (46 european, which I believe is 11-12 US). The biggest ones were 44. So once again, try to get them before you come to China if you plan to work here.
As to search for a job, there are various websites, like job51.com, but in reality as a foreigner without any skills in mandarin (btw, Shenzhen is in Canton, but since this is the city of immigrants people mostly speak mandarin, not cantonese) I would resort to 3 others. Echinacities.com, Shenzhenstuff.com and Shenzhenparty.com.
They are dedicated to foreigners, and although most jobs are for teaching English, there is a handful of companies looking for sales people, business developers etc. And this is what I was aiming at.
I kept sending CVs through the official websites, as well as to hiring managers/general managers via Linkedin.
After few weeks the output was… Zero responses, so it was time to take more traditional approach. Gather the address, phone numbers and pay companies visits. With a Chinese friend I figured out the addresses, wherever possible I would give the company a call say that I’m coming (till the very end they would be convinced that I’m a client willing to spend some money on their products), and just make a walk-in interviews.
I got 2 offers in the end of the month, and took one of them, (an IT stuff sales).
Now, many ask how the foreigners are treated in China.
To my surprise, I was (and still am) treated like a privileged. People would walk me to the place (If I’m persistent and lucky enough to find someone in the crowd speaking English), offer help and such. Never had any hassle with police. And to the clubs, even the posh ones, I could enter with my shorts (as long as I had full shoes, could even be sport ones). Dresscode haha.
At work I would be invited to join the team to go out dining, drinking and such. Of course, I never even saw the bill in those situations. They make it easy for me, in spite of the fact that only my boss speaks English.
Accomodation:
Since I didn’t want to get myself into 1 year rental contract (and pay bi monthly rent as a deposit), decided to go for for a service apartment. All utilities plus cleaning once a week included, pay monthly as you go with deposit less than 1 K. Easy way. And the price wasn’t too elevated (3,5 K for a studio, 4,5 K for 1 bedroom), 7 minutes walk from MTR, 25 minutes from my work.
Party, free time and girls:
Foreigners go to Coco park, but I got fed up with it after less than a month of partying there. My location (Louhu/Futian) didn’t have much else to offer, but I gave it a shot and went to Shekou (Seaworld) one night. It was a blast – in Viva club.
I loved the pool parties in Intercontinental hotel (OCT Luobao station). If the weather is nice (scarce in Shenzhen, 5 days of rain in the week on the average since I arrived in April), those parties are a blast.
Generally seek shenzhenstuff and shenzhenparty for the info. There are events going on weekly, and nightlife can be lots of fun!
Girls, as many say are the easy part. Won’t elaborate on the game here, but just have 2 things in mind – go well dressed and show status. China is all about money in my and many of colleagues opinion. In many cases I would tell a girl what I do, her eyes would literally flash with interest to “get to know me better”. Also they appreciate if a guy can cook, and once they are invited to the dinner in my place… rest is a history.
I hang out with girls I met in Interconti parties, and in clubs. Little to no day game.
Food:
After visiting some shops I realized how bad is the food in here (you don't see it when going to restaurants of course, but I cook by myself and the quality of basic ingredients is horrible) - I mean meat and veggies. Ever seen a carrot bigger than your forearm? An onion as big as girls head? This is about it - all grown on chemicals - bigger size, bigger profit.
Business& making money, costs:
As written before, China is a good place to make money. Once you tackle the obstacles, mainly cultural and language bareer, business opportunities are pretty much limited by your imagination and personal limits only from what I saw and heard. I don’t have much experience in this field though, so not to write any bullshit will leave this part concise.
Sz is not cheap as it used to be. In fact, it gets more expensive than any major city in western europe if you want to live decent life (imported cheese, wine, good quality food, some parties)...
So 2K USD/month is good for some decent life, but rather forget any extravaganza in this budget. And this is what an average English teacher can expect as a salary. If you are in different field – like engineer, sales, architecture… You should make more than that.
Feel free to ask questions.