Hi,

I've taken two semesters of Chinese in college. I'm working to fluency so that I can get good jobs as an adult. I assume that Chinese is the language to know. Is anyone familiar with this kind of stuff who would be so kind as to help me? What kind of jobs would the corporations allow me to do if I knew Chinese?

I had a friend who got a job in Japan shredding sensitive documents; the main requirement was that he couldn't understand Japanese.

Chinese, like any language, is a tool that you use in conjunction with something else. You can do stuff in Chinese, but you can't just do Chinese itself and expect to make money.

Any kind of business major or minor would be really beneficial to you, or maybe an international relations major if you want to work with diplomacy. It all depends on what you want to do.

Fluency is unlikely to be enough to get you a good job; a few hundred million Chinese will be fluent in Chinese and passable in English in a generation.

Education or translation are two potential areas where Chinese would be strictly required, although you'd need to develop additional skills.

Many (even a majority) of foreigners working in China have only a basic level of Chinese. For those with great Chinese they still utilize a set of skills required in addition to that Chinese level. The range of jobs held by foreigners in China is as broad as that back in the west - education, government, business, etc.

German- I want to work not alot, be extremely skilled at what I do so that the job is easy for me, and make between 100-200 thousand dollars per year. I like the idea of Diplomacy, seems glamorous, but I doubt that such a position would be gauranteed to me without having 'connections.'

Icebear- Excellent points, thanks. I'm going to have to do more research. I like graphic-design type stuff, and marketing, although helping the corporations swindle the public in this way is not a guaranteed plumb job (as greedy as that makes me sound -.-), because many want to work in graphic design. The "starving artists" of the corporate world.

I think you may want to down grade your expectations. Earning $200k per year without putting much effort in is something that most people merely dream of. I think you'll find that most people earning that amount of money are very intelligent, well connected, had some amount of luck and consistently work incredibly hard.

I think most of the people who are responding forgot their mentality in college. What the OP is saying is the thought process for most young male adults.

I have never met anyone who is truly bilingual. If you can really master Chinese you'll make millions; probably as an actor or singer.

icecream: You've never met anyone who is truly bilingual? That surprises me.

You've never met a Chinese person who spoke flawless English? Or do you mean you've never met a Westerner who spoke Chinese fluently?

Being bilingual will not earn you millions. There are plenty of people around the world who speak multiple languages (not just two).

In regards to foreigners speaking Chinese, I know plenty of Americans who have lived in China long enough to be fluent in Mandarin. They're pretty well off, since they all went into lucrative fields like business or medicine, but certainly not millionaires.

Icecream, claiming that someone who is fluent in Mandarin can make millions by working as an actor or singer is a bit illogical. It doesn't matter if you speak 54 languages, you need to actually have talent in singing or be skilled in acting to do such a thing.

As an example, I can give you a picture of a Chinese language career path with a stable future and yearly earnings in six figure range.

According to what I've read and people in the industry I've talked to, Chinese-English translators certainly are in demand. That is, there is a shortage of translators who are native speakers of English that have Advanced Chinese ability. For native English speakers, the earnings of Chinese-English translators tend to be markedly higher than pairs such as Spanish-English or German-English. Now perhaps the market has shifted since I did my research, but one specialty that is lucrative is translation of technical/scientific patents.

To prepare for this field would look something like:
1) Chinese language study - to get to an Advanced level of Chinese take years and years. This is the reason there is a shortage. An undergraduate degree in Chinese language and literature, especially combined with a year abroad, is a great start, but will still most likely leave you with a level of Chinese that is distant from what it needs to be.
2) A Bachelors degree in science or engineering.
3) A Masters degree in translation studies.

The above is certainly a viable career path. You could go on to start your own translation company, get hired by a multinational company, etc. But there's no way around it - it requires an enormous amount of preparation, roughly equivalent in time and effort to getting a doctoral degree. And as you can see, the "Bachelors degree in science or engineering" detail makes it not quite so pure of a Sinology path!

Being fluent in a language is different than being bilingual. The former is much easier to achieve than the latter.

If you can properly emulate a Chinese person as a westerner you are already an amazing actor. Making millions in movies is merely a milestone.

I also disagree with the notion that learning Chinese or any other language will make it easy to become a successful actor/actress.

Not even in China. DaShan became a celebrity because he was a pioneer and he learned Chinese back when very few westerners even tried to learn it. I think DaShan is also successful for a few other reasons as well

Just to share my own experience: I have worked in a big multinational company at a high management level in China (Group CEO), more than 7 years in China and more than 15 years in Asia. The company has employed in China around 40.000 people, of which less than 3% are expats. Almost all expats were transferred to China from the company's home country, they have long-time experience with the company and are working either on a higher management level or in a liaison position, where permanent exchange with the headquarter is required and as such, the knowledge of the company's business, its products, processes and organisation is a must.
Only very few foreigners were hired in China, those people had a very specialized know-how in a certain area, which was difficult to find on the local labor market (e.g. IT, R&D, project management for large infrastructure projects).
If foreigners were employed, they were paid according to the local labor market and their skill level, not according to passport or nationality.
The salary you are looking for is a level, which is paid for senior local managers, 200K is the level for a senior General Manager or a Managing Director of a smaller subsidiary company.
The company itself has not employed one single translator. These jobs are mainly done by Chinese, who have a good command of English, e.g. secretaries, marketing & public relations executives, etc. For conferences, translation offices were employed, big translation tasks also had been outsourced to such companies.
Foreigners are mainly employed by either small or mid-sized companies, who are newly coming to China, they expect somebody, who already has experience in China in this business field, or by Chinese companies going abroad, however, they don't need the foreigners in China, but abroad where they are still able to communicate with the Chinese headquarter - and at the same time, have knowledge and experience in the respective local market.
As such, I support icecream's view, if you don't have any other qualification than speaking the language, it will be very difficult to find a job at all, unless you are very lucky, even if you reduce your expectation to a realistic 20K $ per anno for an entry level.

I have a related question.

I've got a bachelor's in business management. After graduated I thought speaking Chinese and some experience living in China would be pretty beneficial to a future career. At this point though, I'm a little less optimistic about how many options will be available to me.

I've got a little working experience, but none in management itself. On the other hand I've heard that in China it can be difficult to find a good manager, and having someone with western training is valuable.

Anyone know if I'm likely to be able to find a management position based on my degree and conversational level Chinese?

Bgraham7, you are right, it's difficult to find experienced managers in China, it' a rare breed and local people tend nowadays more to take jobs in a local big Chinese corporation, as they might be able to make a faster career there compared to an European or American company. The good old days, where all qualified Chinese people wanted to work in a multinational company, are coming to an end.
If we talk about managers, then we talk about General Managers or Managing Directors, not a group leader or department manager.
Another area, where the job market do not provide enough skilled people is marketing, promotion, advertising, etc., because China has started to develop this area only in the last 20 years. Also Consultants, Chartered Accountants, etc. have a higher proportion of foreigners than other industries.
For a future career, I would regard a 3 - 5 year working experience as absolutely beneficial. It will broaden your horizon, develop even more intercultural understanding and also train your interpersonal skills, softskills which are needed to become an effective manager in the future. Even if it's a lower level job, it will be beneficial for you.
It's really difficult to find a job, but difficult doesn't mean impossible.
My advice: think about the industry and / or company, where you would like to work (Consultancy?, Marketing Agency?, Chinese Company?...). Then write to these companies and tell them, that you would like to work in such & such area, that you would like to gain experience in working in China and that salary is of no concern for you. I know of a case, where the guy directly wrote to the CEO of the company instead of the HR department and he got a much better response rate, because he was not sorted out by the HR department.
I've paid max 10.000 - 12.000 RMB for a fresh graduate (gross). However, if you see this just as an investment period, let's say for 2 years, it may pay off many times in the future.

@Roland, From other forum posts I seem to recall you're working in Shanghai and in the some industry dealing with wood. It seems like not have a lot knowledge in the area and working in a non-teaching field in China. I'd like hear more about your tips for securing a job of that nature.

I'm living in China and I'm looking to relocate to Shanghai. I have a degree in IT with a focus on networking and database. In my free time I do web programming and study Chinese. There are many teaching jobs, but my passion is technology. I've gotten several calls back from small companies and in the end it seems they don't end up hiring anyone for the position. Have any tips for finding jobs, specifically the in the Shanghai area?

Josh, I'm a computer engineer and have worked in telecommunication for 25 years, before starting my own business importing wood (I had zero experience about that before).
Sorry, but I don't know of any easy way to find a job here. The only thing, I can say is the normal stuff: think about which industry and company you would like to work for and then become clear in your mind, why such company should hire you and what the benefit were for them. E.g. a company / organization with a high proportion of foreigners or foreign customers might also want to have some foreigner in their support organization. Then think about, what organizations this could be (Consultancy, Headhunters, Chartered Accountant, Law Firm, Foreign Non-Profit Organizations, IP Provider, Business Centers, International IT Support Centers, Software Companies, having international clients,....) No one will hire you because of your benefit, only because of their benefit.
As stated above, then write to the CEO or the Head of the organization and tell them.....

This post is worth reading through for those interested in getting jobs in China; it includes perspectives from both early and mid-career professionals.

http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/36925-finding-work-in-china-wo-knowing-chinese/

Thanks for the thorough response. Seems like I'll just have to tough through it and might have to settle for a partial match. The emailing the CEO directly is interesting. I agree going through HR often ends up with your resume in the wastebasket before the first line is read.

One option for working in China is opening up a small business. For instance, I visit Yangshuo (near Guilin, Guangxi Province) frequently, and I know lots of foreigners there that operate cafes, hostels, boutiques, rock climbing shops, etc. With varying degrees of profitability, of course, and fraught with dangers. Business opportunity flash: there is no good gym for lifting weights in Yangshuo!

I would guess that the main advantage a fluent expat would have is not being bilingual per se (as there will be many Chinese natives who are better at that than you) but in having useful connections to your home country and its culture. For example, you might be able to bring a new kind of product or service from your home country, something which isn't currently available in China.

A Chinese friend of mine is studying business here in NYC, and he's constantly trying to figure out how to transplant successful Western business models to China.

James

@Roland Thanks for the tips and insight. Particularly trying for direct contact with the CEO. I'm glad to have a little better idea of what I can hope for in the future.

Right now, I am preparing to return to the United States after three years in China. I emailed a few former professors for advice on where to look for jobs (my background is accounting, I taught English here for three years, and speak eh, 'socially fluent' but certainly not business fluent Chinese).

Three of them got back to me, all suggesting work in supply chain management, logistics and sourcing. A lot of companies in those fields are looking for people with language skills, particularly Chinese, Portuguese and somewhat surprisingly, German. You'd certainly need business skills, or at least sensibilities to be considered.

Thanks all you old guys, really helpful stuff.

Being still at Uni I can't tell you if this has worked yet, but I'm learning Chinese in parallel to studying architecture and engineering. I had some work experience in London and they all but told me that I'd be guaranteed a job there if I could speak Chinese - I would be based in London (on a London salary!) but would spend a lot of time in Beijing. This is my hope at least!

I have heard from many people that it's very risky to just go out to China and hope for a job, its much better to secure one somewhere you're familiar with that can send you out there.

On another note, my friends who are doing degrees in Japanese have a much lower employment rate compared to those who have a highly regarded academic degree with a much lesser knowledge of Japanese.

icecream: "Being fluent in a language is different than being bilingual."

"bilingual - Adjective: Speaking two languages fluently."

Dictionary disagrees with you :P That is exactly what bilingual means.

But semantics aside, it'd be great if someone would pay me millions for all the effort of learning Chinese. If anyone figures out how please let me know!!! :P I'd love to get paid six figures without having to work much!

This thread keeps reminding me of this essay:
http://paulgraham.com/love.html

Chinese translation:
http://www.wanglianghome.org/zh_CN/translation/HowToDoWhatYouLove.html

I used to think that I wanted to not work very much, because I had never done work that I liked. A teacher told me to lower my expectations. I wish she had told me to increase my ambitions. (I eventually figured it out.)

Since studying Chinese has become less and less a rarity in the US, the advantage of knowing Chinese may be becoming less and less. Think of it like this. So I speak fluent French. In and of itself, what advantage does that give me as far as getting a job other than translating or interpreting?