[Suits]

(04-29-2015 06:47 PM)jbkunt2 Wrote:  

This is a no contest.

USA all day long.

China is, frankly, a shit hole.

Have you been to China?

Quote:

The USA has some incredible places to live - NYC, Chicago, San Francisco...

Agreed.

And it is incredible living in these places if you earn a lot of money.

If you don't, it'll really take the joy out of the experience.

OP mentioned having only 'soft skills." He wouldn't be earning much money in the US.

China is a great place for someone, who normally wouldn't even be given a chance, to make their mark.

I spent three months in Canada last year before moving back to China. My heart was set in Beijing, in fact, I had a job lined up already.

However, with time to kill while I waited for a family event to come and go, so that I could leave the country, I did an exploratory job search just to see what my value was in Canada.

I applied for over thirty positions. I got invited to three interviews.

One was at a school that didn't have a position to offer. They took some real interest in my resume initially, but I never heard from them again after the interview.

I was interviewed for and offered a low paying part-time retail sales position. All the other candidates at the interview were high school students. I was a recent university grad. I probably could have earned $15-20K a year doing this job. I would have needed to survive by living with my parents and using public transportation.

I was also invited to an "open house" interview at a non-profit. Another 150 people showed up. We were all interviewed for three minutes and asked 3 questions. The line was so long that one woman passed out while waiting her turn and collapsed in perfectly comfortable weather.

Now, Canada is not the USA, but I did my university studies in the US and have a lot of contacts there and I'd argue that even with regional variation, my friends there aren't having results that different than I was having in Canada.

So, instead I went to China. After one year of hustling and taking risks, I have a good list of clients lined up and I make over $50K USD a year -- just teaching English.

I guarantee you that I would not be making that type of money any where in the USA or Canada one year after university graduation with my liberal arts degree in Asian Studies and International Relations.

If you've got some hard skills, like my brother, the engineer, you can do well in the USA. If not, you can join all my university graduate friends with third shift cleaning jobs and part time sales positions at Meijers.

[rudebwoy]

Suits - it probably is the same in the USA or worse. I don't know about Chicago, but the rents in NYC and San Francisco doesn't make it appealing unless of course you have money.

[booshala]

Agreed with Suits: soft skills vs hard skills. Additional data point in that being White and speaking Canadian/American/UK English IS a hard skill in Asia. It's not going to parlay into the equivalent of an engineering degree, but it's going to get you infinitely more than you would in the West.

OP, is your spoken English really "fluent", with very few traces of Polish accent in it? Your written English is nearly impeccable, which is very impressive, so I'm not trying to clown you. It's just that in my dealings with English teachers in Korea, the ones with really thick Scottish brogues and Afrikaans-English speakers from South Africa used to get by some years ago because they were white, but now a lot of schools and language institutes are specifying US/UK/Canada/OZ only.

I think the Chinese are not as keyed into it yet, but according to some friends on the ground there, it's gonna happen sooner or later.

[Brodiaga]

^Is was going to ask OP the same question. I have a Russian friend who used to teach English in South America. His English is pretty much flawless (much better than mine), but he has a bit of a Russian accent and uses his Russian name. As a teacher, he was more popular than many native speakers, but he would still get questions from time to time about his heritage and nationality. He spent most of his adult life abroad, though. I don't know how a Polish guy like OP can learn English so well in Poland.

[monsquid]

Go to USA. More opportunity and better infrastructure for whatever you want to get into. You already know English, which is probably the biggest hurdle for most immigrants.

[jbkunt2]

I think people make valid points regarding the soft v hard skills debate.

Hard skills in the US or W. Europe and you are golden. I grew up middle class in Oxford, UK and learnt those hard skills to pay the bills.

I have friends that did shitty university courses and generally lack hard skills. A couple went to Asia and are leveraging there birth right of being from a native English country into having cushty jobs that pay well, proportionate to local living costs.

People make a very good point about the fact that you are not originally from a native English country. You may well be a native level speaker but that is going to still probably hurt your personal branding.

Personally, I'm not a big fan of Asian girls. I have spent 8 months in Asia and the don't float my boat. If they float yours though, being a whitey there is golden for picking up women.

US kills it for women you have hard skills in this area. China easily wins if you not and you like Asian girls.

Chicago, Austin and Seattle are affordable fantastic cities.

[rudebwoy]

I believe the main point Suits was making is that the economy in Canada is crap except maybe the oil sands in Alberta.
The US is not much better, unless you have hard skills and experience.
I mean no disrespect to the OP, most Polish men that live in Canada do manual labour.

[Go-getter]

Quote:

OP, is your spoken English really "fluent", with very few traces of Polish accent in it? Your written English is nearly impeccable, which is very impressive, so I'm not trying to clown you. It's just that in my dealings with English teachers in Korea, the ones with really thick Scottish brogues and Afrikaans-English speakers from South Africa used to get by some years ago because they were white, but now a lot of schools and language institutes are specifying US/UK/Canada/OZ only.

It is near native, of course a native speaker has a more abundant knowledge of idioms and vocabulary but unless we're talking about exercising some not-so-commonly-used vocabulary then my pronunciation is spot on. I got rid of the accent over the last 1-2 years and I'm still improving but I already got mistaken for an American by some Canadians at a bar. I've stopped counting situations in which Chinese students with good English mistaken me for an American too.

Quote:

He spent most of his adult life abroad, though. I don't know how a Polish guy like OP can learn English so well in Poland.

I guess I'm a little phenomenon but if you look hard enough you'll find other Russians or Poles who spent most of time in their home countries yet speak with no accent, those are mostly majored in linguistics though. I'm not.
While my Polish friends would surf the web, watch movies, write essays, make presentations, have their phone/PC UI etc. all in Polish, I would be choosing English every god damn time. I would be journaling in English and public speaking at Toastmasters in English. When jotting down ideas, I'd be using English. At one point I was only using Polish at my University and with my friends and family (the 2 things over which I had no choice), but nowhere else. So there you go, perhaps those are some of the reasons.

Quote:

Teaching China will still be there a few years down the road. To Diversity Visa lottery won't necessarily be waiting for you a few years from now. Go to the U.S. Your experience will be invaluable, even if you want to move to China in a few years.

ESL wages in China have been mostly stagnant, most training centers, kindergartens and public schools pay around 12k, about the same as back in 2002. I don't have the data on how much the costs of living have risen over those years but things get increasingly more expensive in China by each year. 2008 was a lot more cheap compared to now. Since 2002 the costs of living have probably increased at least two fold.

At the same time the demand for foreign teachers is huge but the government just keeps on making it more difficult to legally teach English here. And teaching on a business visa, while still very doable in certain working places, is increasingly more risky too.

But more importantly, in many industries, it has never been easier to start a business in China. Particularly true for private labeling and product development.
I'm starting to think more and more seriously about doing both, in that order. These days you can validate your product before you ever spend a dime on it (almost... perhaps just pay for a render) and have interested customers before you even start designing the prototype and 3d printing it. Then you can get crowdfunded.
Whereas 10 years ago you would probably need a big startup capital and a Chinese assistant working for you full time, these days you could be a nomad with a laptop, perhaps some basic Chinese language skills, $2k to throw into business and after just few months of hard grind you could be getting funded on Kickstarter and having a successful business very fast.

Now let's say you're making $120k annually off your e-commerce business and you have a location independence except maybe those few times a year you need to come to China. Now you have the freedom to choose to live almost anywhere as long as you can keep renewing your visas, or be a perpetual nomad traveler.

So the best opportunity to get on the grind and teach English on side while kickstarting a business is now. In 5 years there'll be different opportunities but I can imagine such kind of path becoming more and more competitive.

Quote:

I mean no disrespect to the OP, most Polish men that live in Canada do manual labour.

That is correct, back in Poland they used to be manual laborers too, places like Canada are an incredible step up for them financially wise. Talking about making literally 5-6x, sometimes 7x more with living costs just 150-190% higher.

Also bear in mind that in Poland, almost everybody from your employer, government official, jealous relatives and friends (jealous cause you're making anything above national average) will treat you like shit, especially the employer and government officials.
So when Poles go abroad to work and get treated normally, they can never go back. This is especially true if they want to start a business. Poland is literally one of the toughest countries for a small company to thrive, the vagueness of laws, the laws themselves, very aggressive enforcement and corruption make the smartest and toughest business people bail and set up companies in other countries.

[Holy(Muff)Diver]

(04-29-2015 08:39 PM)booshala Wrote:  

Agreed with Suits: soft skills vs hard skills. Additional data point in that being White and speaking Canadian/American/UK English IS a hard skill in Asia. It's not going to parlay into the equivalent of an engineering degree, but it's going to get you infinitely more than you would in the West.

OP, is your spoken English really "fluent", with very few traces of Polish accent in it? Your written English is nearly impeccable, which is very impressive, so I'm not trying to clown you. It's just that in my dealings with English teachers in Korea, the ones with really thick Scottish brogues and Afrikaans-English speakers from South Africa used to get by some years ago because they were white, but now a lot of schools and language institutes are specifying US/UK/Canada/OZ only.

I think the Chinese are not as keyed into it yet, but according to some friends on the ground there, it's gonna happen sooner or later.

Yeah, I work with a few Eastern European/Russian guys in ESL. One has a slight accent. As of now, they don't seem to give a shit. That might change in 10 years.

But for now they are pretty much desperate for anyone with a white face. This especially applies to second and third tier cities.

[Suits]

(04-30-2015 12:13 AM)Holy(Muff)Diver Wrote:  

(04-29-2015 08:39 PM)booshala Wrote:  

OP, is your spoken English really "fluent", with very few traces of Polish accent in it? Your written English is nearly impeccable, which is very impressive, so I'm not trying to clown you. It's just that in my dealings with English teachers in Korea, the ones with really thick Scottish brogues and Afrikaans-English speakers from South Africa used to get by some years ago because they were white, but now a lot of schools and language institutes are specifying US/UK/Canada/OZ only.

I think the Chinese are not as keyed into it yet, but according to some friends on the ground there, it's gonna happen sooner or later.

Yeah, I work with a few Eastern European/Russian guys in ESL. One has a slight accent. As of now, they don't seem to give a shit. That might change in 10 years.

But for now they are pretty much desperate for anyone with a white face. This especially applies to second and third tier cities.

Yes, even in Beijing, white faces rule supreme here. Most people struggle to find a reliable teacher and often have to go through a center or agency to connect with one, so it's not like they have their pick of the litter.

Since even the educated people are rarely educated enough to legitimately play "spot the difference" with different accents, you'll generally be able to find work if you look the part.

The going rate for part-time English teaching was 150 RMB per hour back in 2007. Back then it was about 1USD=8RMB.

Now China is easily twice as expensive with an exchange rate more about 1USD = 6RMB and the going hourly rate for part time is still only 200, with a lot of gigs paying less. I still have schools suggest paying 150 with a straight face. I never insult them for this, but I'll politely inform them that's its been a very long time since I worked for that little money and that odds are I'll get a better offer soon if they try to pay me so little.

There are some better paying gigs that will pay 300 per hour for part-time, but you have to be in the right place at the right time to snatch them up. Those jobs are not usually advertised on the Internet, so it's a question of how networked you are.

[aguasin]

Living in Asia for a western guy, it grinds on you. Slowly, you don't notice it at first. You're too focused on how easy the girls are, and shit like that. But after awhile, you miss being around your 'own people' and always feeling like the perpetual outsider.
When I watch those videos of old guys swearing on trains in China, cursing everyone out and looking deranged. I think it's just another normal guy whose had to live in Asia for too long, it drives you crazy.

[Vacancier Permanent]

Aguasin,
Could you expand on the ways that living in Asia would drive you crazy? That's a fascinating topic!

[Suits]

(04-30-2015 12:17 PM)aguasin Wrote:  

Living in Asia for a western guy, it grinds on you. Slowly, you don't notice it at first. You're too focused on how easy the girls are, and shit like that. But after awhile, you miss being around your 'own people' and always feeling like the perpetual outsider.
When I watch those videos of old guys swearing on trains in China, cursing everyone out and looking deranged. I think it's just another normal guy whose had to live in Asia for too long, it drives you crazy.

Yes and no.

You're right, living in certain parts of Asia (certainly the case here in Beijing and definitely in Tianjin) has worn on me heavily.

When I left in 2012, I just needed to get out. So I did.

When I left, I didn't think that I'd be back in a very long time.

At my going away party (there are a lot of these here), a Chinese-American business man who I'd help out a little in finding some staff for his new business looked at me and said, "You'll be back."

Sure enough, barely a year later, I was planning my return.

Two days ago I finished my first year back. Previously, I always had plans to leave and go do more school by the end of a year in country, but I have no plans to leave at this point or even go back to Canada for a family visit.

I've worked hard the last year to keep a positive attitude. There have been a lot of stressful moments, but I know how to manage these and stay positive.

This is a skill that must be learned.



My goal is to make enough money in the next five years that if I want to leave I'll be free to do so on my own terms.

[Go-getter]

Quote:

Living in Asia for a western guy, it grinds on you. Slowly, you don't notice it at first. You're too focused on how easy the girls are, and shit like that. But after awhile, you miss being around your 'own people' and always feeling like the perpetual outsider.
When I watch those videos of old guys swearing on trains in China, cursing everyone out and looking deranged. I think it's just another normal guy whose had to live in Asia for too long, it drives you crazy.

Like Suits wrote, yes and no.

Yes, it's easy to feel like the perpetual outsider.
But this is what your social network of foreigners is for. Hanging around in international settings - now that's much better for me than hanging around non stop with Polish people who all mostly share the similar kind of mindset I've grown to dislike.
I also don't wholly consider myself to be a Westerner. Although I'm in alignment with much of Western mindset, I'm also from EE and can understand mindsets of Russians just as well as those of Americans. I find it mind-stimulating to hang out with friends from NA, ME, EE, SEA etc.

Those deranged old guys you're seeing in videos have probably come to Asia/China merely few years ago. It's obvious that a 50-something foreigner coming to Asia is not gonna have the flexibility and open mind of a 20-something. And so the insanity ensues.
I've met some foreigners who've been here for 10-12 years, sometimes more. They seem to get used to many things here and live pretty peaceful lives, they often have Chinese wives and speak a decent/very decent Mandarin which obviously helps them a lot with living here.


Of course if you find yourself in a Tier 3 Chinese city with very few foreigners and you rarely go out of that city then the 20-something open-mindedness and positive attitude might not be enough after some time spent there. And there wasn't ever a foreigner who haven't had their China Day.

[Fast Eddie]

(04-29-2015 07:31 PM)Suits Wrote:  

(04-29-2015 06:47 PM)jbkunt2 Wrote:  

This is a no contest.

USA all day long.

China is, frankly, a shit hole.

Have you been to China?

Quote:

The USA has some incredible places to live - NYC, Chicago, San Francisco...

Agreed.

And it is incredible living in these places if you earn a lot of money.

If you don't, it'll really take the joy out of the experience.

OP mentioned having only 'soft skills." He wouldn't be earning much money in the US.

China is a great place for someone, who normally wouldn't even be given a chance, to make their mark.

I spent three months in Canada last year before moving back to China. My heart was set in Beijing, in fact, I had a job lined up already.

However, with time to kill while I waited for a family event to come and go, so that I could leave the country, I did an exploratory job search just to see what my value was in Canada.

I applied for over thirty positions. I got invited to three interviews.

One was at a school that didn't have a position to offer. They took some real interest in my resume initially, but I never heard from them again after the interview.

I was interviewed for and offered a low paying part-time retail sales position. All the other candidates at the interview were high school students. I was a recent university grad. I probably could have earned $15-20K a year doing this job. I would have needed to survive by living with my parents and using public transportation.

I was also invited to an "open house" interview at a non-profit. Another 150 people showed up. We were all interviewed for three minutes and asked 3 questions. The line was so long that one woman passed out while waiting her turn and collapsed in perfectly comfortable weather.

Now, Canada is not the USA, but I did my university studies in the US and have a lot of contacts there and I'd argue that even with regional variation, my friends there aren't having results that different than I was having in Canada.

So, instead I went to China. After one year of hustling and taking risks, I have a good list of clients lined up and I make over $50K USD a year -- just teaching English.

I guarantee you that I would not be making that type of money any where in the USA or Canada one year after university graduation with my liberal arts degree in Asian Studies and International Relations.

If you've got some hard skills, like my brother, the engineer, you can do well in the USA. If not, you can join all my university graduate friends with third shift cleaning jobs and part time sales positions at Meijers.

I'm going to expand on that. Now, keep in mind that much like the OP, I'm not really a Westerner, either. I've lived most of my life in the US but never really felt fully a part of this society, so my perspective is certainly colored by that.

I don't want to write a book, so to keep the story short while providing the requisite background, I'm gonna say this: I did not grow up with money and providing for myself was already a "thing" in high school. By the time I got to college I had to hustle my ass off just to pay tuition, food, etc. So believe you me, money has always been uppermost in my mind. It wasn't that long ago that I had to support myself and my education $8.50/hr at a time.

After I graduated college I found myself in a position very similar to Suits'. I've always had very high ambitions for myself and not to toot my own horn, but in my own mind I am just as good as any of the kids who work at Wall Street or in SV. Nevertheless, I didn't go to HYPS so finding a job corresponding to my ambitions was proving difficult. Those were the days I was dreaming with what I'd do with a $50k salary. Anyway, after working tech support for about half a year after graduating, I said fuck it and moved to China as a test prep instructor. I had wanted to go to China for many years before that, so it was only a matter of time regardless.

China was epic. In the interest of brevity I'll keep it at that. As it happened, I got a job offer from one of the companies I had applied to before leaving for China just a month into my stay. I felt torn but ultimately decided to accept the offer and return to the US, especially since I was virtually promised I would be posted back to Asia at some point. In the end, I was able to spend a little under a year in China before I had to onboard with the consulting company I currently work for.

So I came back to the US and started working. I finally had, if not my "dream job," then at least one I felt was a good starting point. Management consulting, travel every week, paid flights, food, hotels, rental cars, and a little over $1000 after tax getting deposited to the ol' bank account every week. It was fun for a few months. But as those months kept flying by, shit developed into a routine and I realized that I'm just wasting my life.

Week blends into week here. I had money, but not really enough to do anything with. I was eating out for free at fancy restaurants 4 days out of every week while traveling, so that was no fun anymore. I'm fascinated by the outdoors, so I went on a few excursions to Colorado, Utah, Montana, etc. These were fun, and almost getting lost, by myself, on the top of the completely deserted second tallest mountain in the US in the middle of winter is a good memory and story I can tell girls. But other than that, life was just passing me by in a way it simply wasn't when I was still in China.

Even before I returned to the US I knew it could only be a temporary interlude, and that sentiment has only intensified the more time I've spent here. At this point, all I'm doing here is working, hitting the gym, and studying Chinese/programming. I have zero enthusiasm for anything else and my only near term ambition is to go back to China, even if it means those big paychecks I was pining for not so long ago are sacrificed at the altar of movement in my life. I do not want to be one of those fucks brainlessly watching life pass in front of my eyes while mechanically going through the motions day after day, so that I can top out at $200k as some kind of middle manager somewhere. Fuck that. I'll take my chances in China at living dynamically and striving to make something happen, rather than coasting through a boring and uneventful life in corporate America.

The point of this long winded narrative is to say, stagnation equals death. Less than 2 years ago, I was thinking similar to the OP: yes, it would be nice to be in position "X" but I'm sure it would get boring after a while. Lo and behold, I managed to achieve position "X" and sure as all fuck, it is boring as hell. It's an absolutely pointless existence. If my time and job experience in the US is to have any utility at all, it will be to allow me to get a job in China that I can then parlay into further opportunities. So basically, I think the OP chose the right path. Stagnation can still happen in China, but it's much less likely than in the US. Things just have a way of happening there that they don't in the US.

[Brodiaga]

(04-29-2015 11:59 PM)Go-getter Wrote:  

It is near native, of course a native speaker has a more abundant knowledge of idioms and vocabulary but unless we're talking about exercising some not-so-commonly-used vocabulary then my pronunciation is spot on. I got rid of the accent over the last 1-2 years and I'm still improving but I already got mistaken for an American by some Canadians at a bar. I've stopped counting situations in which Chinese students with good English mistaken me for an American too.

Man, I won't believe it until I hear it. That bar must have been loud or maybe you just said a couple of words.

There are lots of Eastern Europeans and Russians where I live (NY), and most of those who moved to the US after around 14-15 never get rid of the accent. It may be very slight, but it's still there. There are very talented people out there who are kind of like parrots and can do all kinds of accents, but these people are very rare. Like this guy on youtube:

[Go-getter]

Awesome post @Fast Eddie. What you write seems to be congruent what the Elevator Life guys have said at one time - that everybody in their surroundings who moves to China (ambitious and young people) seems to be doing so much more than back home. People hustle part time jobs, get full time jobs, start side businesses, take up new hobbies and still have time for abundant social life. At the same time whenever the Elevator Life guys go through their facebook feed or talk with friends back home, all they see is 'same old thing', people living in a rut and pretty much what you just described. My belief is that countries like US, Canada, Australia or Norway can be great if someone likes peaceful stagnation, i.e. people in their 50s, 60s and onwards.
I mean I would definitely go for vacation there but to live there would be something completely different.
Chinese friends of friends emigrated to Australia and they've been telling my friend how boring it is there.

@Brodiaga

Yeah, the pub was a bit loud and I said couple of words, it's true. In a quiet setting and after saying few sentences most Americans/Canadians would get a hint that I'm from Europe, but not sure which country.
My goal is not to speak just like an American, actually I've never made a conscious choice to speak with an American accent, it's just that it's the most prevalent language in the Internet, media, movies and what not. It's also easier than British accent unless you go to live in UK.

Quote:

most of those who moved to the US after around 14-15 never get rid of the accent.

Most of Poles who move to UK still speak poor English after several years, but then you have plenty of more educated Poles in UK at managerial positions who after 5-7 years speak just like Brits.