Expat Exodux = Easy to find a Job in Shenzhen

In the past few months, there has been a huge exodus of foreigners from Guangdong province. Due to the Olympics, China employed a lot of regulations that could help control the flow of foreigners into China. Not only was it much more difficult to obtain a visa but it was almost impossible to get a visa in Hong Kong.

Also, foreigners who were living in China and working on Tourist visas were shooed away. This usually stemmed from police approaching expats on the street to see adaquate identification. For people who were employed, he/she faced increased scrutiny in applying for a work visa. While most of these regulations were a surprise to expats, they were all on the books but werent really enforced until recently.

All of these efforts led to a huge decline in the expat community in Guangdong. As a friend of mine described to me, supposedly as much as 90% of the foreigners in Guangdong had left before the Olmypics started. That's just crazy.

Just walk around the Shekou area and you can see the effects. Once filled with foreigners from all over the world, Shekou is now mostly empty. Business is down for both restaurants and bars. I went there on a night out with friends this past Wednesday and there were barley anyone there. Woah.

Another side effect of this exodus deals with jobs. Many foreigners working in Guangdong were employed as project managers for various trading or manufacturing companies - usually under tourist visas. Since most of these people have left China, it has created a vaccum of talent for people seeking jobs. It is now incredibly easy to find a project management job in Shenzhen that pays a very attractive salary. I would assume this is the case as well in other cities like Beijing and Shanghai. It was always easy to find English teaching jobs in Shenzhen, but it's definitely even easier now.

As the US economy tanks and the world economy goes into a recession of sorts, I see China becoming an increasingly attractive place for young people to come to. Recently, another 100+ newly college-grad English teachers have deceded on Shenzhen through the CLTC Program's deal with the Shenzhen Government Education Bureau. Students are arriving every semester to study Chinese at different universities all over the country from places like the USA, Europe, South America, Mexico, Korea and Japan. Even people who have gone back to the USA are returning to China for round 2.

If you want that job, get over here early.

The 2nd tier city: Harbin

For the past week, I’ve been staying at my grand parent’s house in Harbin. I was born in this border city many years ago and lived here until I was 6 – after which I moved to the US. I come back intermittently every so often to visit friends & family – especially my relatives on my mom’s side.

Since moving to Shenzhen almost 2 years ago, I have went to Beijing, Shanghai, Nanjing, Guangzhou and other cities in China many times. I have even been to Bangkok twice. I have yet come back to Harbin, until now.

Harbin is the typical “2^nd tier” or “3^rd tier” city that all business people talk about. It is the 10^th biggest city in China, famous for its winter Ice Festival and ready to grow like its counterparts.

Personally, going from the most modern city in China (Shenzhen), to a less-developed city (Harbin) in which its population is synonymous for eating with their shirts off, drinking a lot of beer during lunch, being “rednecks”, loving to fight and being generally uncivilized and barbaric when compared to the rest of the China. This is the place I call my “hometown”.

In the past couple of years, however, there has been a growth in construction immediately outside where my grandparents live. A medium sized mall has been built with a KFC, McDs and Carrefour about .5km away. The “Paris apartments” now tower the skyline with five 30+ floor buildings within view of our 2^nd floor balcony. Even a highway, overpasses and parks have been connected nearby as well. Walking around the city in the past few days, I’ve been unable to recognize many neighborhoods in which my family used to live. The amount of construction in the past 3-4 years has been tremendous – a constant cycle of demolition and construction.

What I’ve seen as the best part, or the most interesting part of Harbin is that it still has some of the same charm, innocent & traditionally Chinese life it has had in the past. I see this very keenly from my grandparent’s house.

My grandparents’ house is nestled in a small community of about 30 6-8 story buildings within the grounds of a university. I can honestly say that very little has changed in this area. The same old people are walking around in the morning and outside playing cards or mahjong in the afternoon. Every morning at 4:30am, scores of old people go out to parks, tracks and local gathering places to practice qigong, exercise and do the same routine they’ve done for such a long time. The same fruit & veggie markets are still selling the same cheap produce right outside the gates. Even the day-care kindergarten that I went to when I was 4 years old – more than 20 years ago – is still in the same place still taking care of small kids. Starbucks still has not opened its first coffee shop in Harbin.

Wages have also been lacking. The average monthly wage of my cousin’s wife, a social worker in Harbin, is 1000 RMB. She’s 40. My cousin is now working as a driver for the 271 bus route. His previous job was a taxi driver. They can live and get by due to the low living standard.

The people here in Harbin seem to be much more content with living life. They might not have the income of the people in Shenzhen, Beijing and Shanghai. They might not have the starbucks-drinking, bar-hopping, constant traveling life of the people in the 1^st tier cities. They don’t have these luxuries. They do, however, have the constant relaxation of enjoying life, not taking things too seriously and having a slower pace to life. They don’t need the stress and constant desire filled consumerism existence that comes with it. Coming from a place like Shenzhen, this is something new and really special.

Not to mention, I really like the densely blue skies and the long-sleeves summer climate as well.

Chinese Hiring @ the Factory

I’ve been working in China for 7 months now. It’s weird how fast the time has flew by.

When I arrived at Toy State, I worked with 2 other project engineers, working and maintaining all of our new/old projects. In December, one of those engineers was fired. Within one day of being told that this was going to happen, Thompson had already cleared off his desk and left our company. It was a pretty quick turnover.

After Thompson left, I took on more and more responsibilities. Instead of hiring a new person, I wanted to work with my partner, Rosson. I believed that we could handle the work load of our fired colleague. As I got into gear what exactly the job needed, I was able to create different processes and make our efforts more efficient. Within a couple of weeks, we were completely up and running…effectively doing a 3 person job with 2 people.

In the past month, something interesting has happened. After the Chinese New Year, the toy industry effectively starts preparing for the next selling cycle. We have begun a large marketing campaign to develop tons of new projects. This year we were projecting to do130 new projects compared to only 45 last year. This effectively means that the 2 of us have to not only manage a 3 person job, but are now doing 3x the amount of new projects as before. Quite a challenge, ill say.

Realizing the potential need for extra man-power, our higher up management told me in early February that we were going to add 2 project engineers into my department. More than 2 months later, we still don't have any extra people hired. In turn, I’ve been juggling more than 2x the amount of work I’ve had previously.

Human Capital

A week ago, we had a few people go through the interview process. A female graduate student and a male college graduate came in. I was mostly ignorant of the whole thing. For some reason, I had been no role in their interview process or decision of future project engineers (even though I was going to be their boss…???).

After being somewhat confused and having a feeling of disrespect, I approached our COO (a relatively Americanized Chinese with good English skills who used to did my job a year ago) who was spearheading this search: This interaction was spoken in Chinese

Me: Hey [COO], what’s going on with the search? We’re getting swamped over here with all of the increased work load.
COO: It’s going. We interviewed a couple of people last week and really liked a girl. She came in, did the interview thing and we liked her. Before we could sign all the paperwork, we got hung up with her salary requirements…so we didn't hire her.
Me: Oh really? Do you think it will be resolved?
COO: I don't really know…we’ll see.

Pause

Me: I was wondering, for future interviewees, can I have an opportunity to sit down and talk to them for a while. Since the members of this department are going to work extremely close with any future hire, I want to have a feel for the abilities and personality before they are hired.
COO: 不用了, 要不行就让他走. (Translation: No need, if he/she is not good, we’ll just ask them to leave [aka fire him/her])

Our factory boss’s response surprised me incredibly. I originally had the notion that there was a sense of disrespect towards me in not letting me have a say of who I was going to have work under me. Instead, by his statement, all feelings of disrespected disappeared. It was replaced with amazement.

When I went through the job search as a senior in college, I developed (what I think is) a pretty clear perception of the relationship between the employee and the company. I feel that companies look at their hires as investments, or human capital. These individuals, with their skills and potential have the capabilities to help the company with their knowledge, ideas, know-how, ect. with proper training from the company. Since a lot of time, energy and money is spent on training these people so they can succeed in the future, companies try their absolute hardest to make sure the candidate is as strong as possible. This is why there are multiple rounds of interviews and extensive review processes at most places.

I admit that our company isn’t the big corporation with tons of resources for hiring people. I do think, however, that there are a lot of small things that can be done to do a thorough job of whatever we can to make sure anyone new will be successful here. If it is so easy for the company COO, who is relatively westernized, to say…hey, if it doesn't work out, we’ll just let him/her go, then he definitely has a different understanding of what human capital is.

Colleges and its Graduates

A couple of weeks have gone by and still nothing. The previous candidates who were possibilities were not able to resolve their contract negotiations…meaning I’m stuck with an overflow of work in a relatively quiet time in product development.

Seeing a potential for “disaster” if we didn't get someone in here soon, I have recently made a revived push for locating new hires. I have talked to the HR department, their boss, my boss, the COO of the factory, just about everyone I can think of to help in this pursuit of someone new. If we don't get this person soon, we won’t have enough time to train him/her for the next round of high demands and tight deadlines.

After talking to the HR department, I realized that we could change our description of skills/requirements so that more people would apply. Currently, we’re requesting college graduates who have backgrounds in engineering and a high aptitude in English. As an Mechanical Engineering graduate, I can say that technical knowledge and background isn’t as essential to the job as English skills are. I think that if we found anyone with a good English background, they could successfully learn the more technical stuff on the job.

I approached the COO about this and he said he would consider it and see if we could find more people to come in for interviews. We then had an interesting conversation about the state of the Chinese job market. Again, this conversation was spoken in Chinese.

COO: Did you know that we have been trying to find good candidates for project engineering jobs consistently for the past 2 years? It is really difficult to find good prospects.
Me: Wow. Is that true? What about the millions of jobless college graduates I keep reading about in the media?
COO: That population isn’t reliable. Colleges and Universities are everywhere and more and more people are going to them. However, it is hard to judge what these students learned when they were there. While these graduates have questionable academic backgrounds, they are also demanding higher-paying jobs and more respect from possible employers because… they graduated from college and they spent a lot of money there. We’ve interviewed 50 people since December. As you can see, none of them have been hired.
Me: I guess we’ll see what happens with the change in job requirements then. Hopefully we’ll have more people coming in for interviews when we change it.
COO: I don't know if it will be successful. If someone is good in English, they have a higher likelihood to work for one of the big western corporations that are expanding into China.

Higher education in China has become a big business. New schools are popping up all over the country…many of them without any good faculty or educational standards. Some of these schools have formed alliances with more brand name schools. The new school requests to be a separate campus of the well known school. This means that the new school will have a good name (ie. Beijing University in Shenzhen) and their students (at some schools and not at others) get the same diploma as students at the regular campus.

Affluent students who don't score high enough on the national college entrance exam to get into the school on merit can then go to a good university. They are considered “private” students and pay higher tuition. Through all of this, it is still unclear if there is an academic standard of the separate schools or a governing body who monitors and accredits it. Of course, not all of these schools are bad, but the current practices are chaotic without conformity in standards.

I don't know who knows about this in the western media. I do know that there are countless and reoccurring stories about college students not finding jobs. This is probably one of the causes.

With this understanding in the questionable quality of the Chinese graduate, I think it’s even more important to push them through a detailed and involved interview process. I don't know if the other managers see it that way.

That being said… what matters is that I still don't have another project engineer working under me. Therefore, it is becoming more and more apparent that I will be overloaded at work for the foreseeable future.

Chinese Radio: Loveline

Every time I go back to the US for a business trip, I’m lucky enough to go home and bring some stuff back to me to Shenzhen. Familiar DVDs, old family pictures and past books have made my Shenzhen apartment feel more like home.

One of the things I’ve recently brought over from the US that I thought I needed is my Alarm Clock/ Radio. I’ve had this thing since I was in middle school and I’ve used it on my bed stand ever since. I’ve definitely felt a void not having it here in Shenzhen with me. Currently I only have my cell phone to tell time and to wake me up in the morning. My clock would do a better job of those 2 functions while simultaneously giving me access to the radio airwaves. Yes.

So after I lugged this thing across the ocean, bought an extra power cord and power adaptor for it, I discover it didn't work. The clock would be progressively slow. For every hour of time that went by, the clock only showed 55 minutes went by. I tried a couple of other clocks and the same thing happened. For some reason, the US alarm clock just can tell time in China (I think it’s a current problem…anyone want to help me fix it?). I could only use the radio.

I’ve been to listening to the radio a couple of nights a week before bed. On top of that, i've had other opportunities to tune in while taking taxis (Shenzhen taxi drivers love talk radio) and on the bus, commuting to and from work. Although still limited in my exposure to radio in China, I have found many interesting things on the air waves.

This interest has made me decide to add a new category to my blog, “Chinese Radio”, in which everything will stem from radio content that I hear.

A few nights ago, I was restless and unable to sleep around midnight. Bored and annoyed with myself, I decide to turn on the radio and hopefully doze off with it acting as the background ambient noise. The radio didn't help. Instead, I grew incredibly interested in a show I just happened to stumble upon.

Imagine a women-specific version of Loveline, Chinese style (without the mentioning of drug use and without Adam Carolla’s antics

At the beginning I didn't know what was going on. I couldn't exactly understand all of the technical language that was spoken. But as it wore on, I got into the grove of it and could understand about 90% of what was being said. I just used context to guess at the last 10%. All in all, the hosts seemed to be enjoying themselves and the subject was entertaining. Here are the details:

• There were 3 different female voices on the air. I’m assuming one was the host and the other two were experts/doctors.
• The doctors answered questions on a wide range of topics, including sexual health, physical health, and mental health.
• The doctors spoke in professional language, and from what I could understand, had a decent grasp of female health issues.
• Questions were asked in many different forms, including direct calls, letters as well as text messages. There seemed to be a lot of text message questions.
• The hosts all spoke in very good mandarin.

One of the more interesting calls that came on was from a 26 year old. In a nervous, slow and heavy-accented speech, she asked a question regarding having unprotected sex and the likelihood of pregnancy by using the “pull out” before climaxing method.

The experts calmly explained (correctly) that the “pull out” method was not a good way to prevent pregnancy because there would guys sometime ejaculate semen before actually climaxing (or pre-cum). Instead of doing this, she should either use some type of birth control, including male/female condoms and contraceptive pills. They were very comforting and accepting in their explanation and attitude to the caller.

When the inexperienced girl questioned how she could get the medication, the experts gave her a hospital location in proximity to where she was explained the procedure.

Success! The potential for one less Chinese baby!

Listening to this program got me thinking:

• I’m actually not surprised that a show like this is on the air. While Chinese people, I would say, are sexually repressed, they feel decently comfortable about it when it’s done in professional and medical terms.
• The text message questions are a good way to receive questions. Text messages are not only cheaper than traditional phone calls, but they negate the nervousness and awkwardness of the first-time caller. Chinese people might be ok with talking about health and sex, but they’re definitely always nervous.
• This show is a really good idea for Shenzhen.
• Population: As everyone already knows, Shenzhen is filled with tons of migrant workers, in which a majority of them are female. (My factory’s assembly line of more than 2000 is 95% female.)
• Education: Most of the migrant workers are from the countryside and have relatively little education. Most have never been to high school. People often get word-of-mouth advice from just as ignorant friends.
• Hospitals: Public health services are not keeping up with Shenzhen’s growing population. Also, health care costs are rising throughout the country.
• Income: Migrant workers are paid relatively little and are saving up for their family. If something is wrong with their health, they often ignore it or try the least expensive treatment possible.
• Combine all of these together and this show should be a great success.
• The Chinese listener didn't seem that knowledgeable about the most basic bodily stuff…not just sex. Just about everything that was being asked seemed to be from high school biology/anatomy class.
• One of the questions was about mental health and depression. I wasn't able to get a good read on it due to the technical language… but I do wonder what kind of training and experience the doctors on the show have on that.
• I wonder if they have this in other cities. It has to be in the 1^st tier cities. What about the 2^nd and 3^rd tier? It’s definitely a good resource.

Let’s only hope that these girls from the countryside have radios in their factory dorms to take advantage of programs like this. Maybe they should go buy a clock radio and see if it tells correct time.

Exotic. Erotic.

I’m lucky.

This is my 3rd week-long business trip in the 5 months working at company. Not only do I get to travel from China to the US, I also get to see my family, some friends, hang out and also, eat some good chicken parm. Professionally, the best part of the gig is actually going to these meetings. For the week, I am essentially in a board room with the owner, president, VP of Sales and Marketing, and other Directors. With the total of 9 people in the room (me being one of them), the 8 others have a combined 168 years of experience in the toy industry. That’s no joke.

In the span of 2 week-long strategy sessions went over different things from the goals of the company to the new products that will be going through R&D, from M&A possibilities for the companies to sales and marketing goals and objectives for the following year. How cool is it to be in that room, especially with my young age. Awesome.

In the week of meetings interesting things happen. There are cool perks of the job, nice business dinners, disagreements between colleagues, cool ideas for the future and times when I just wanted to shoot myself in the head. All in all, it was a exciting, tiring and useful experience.

One of the most interesting parts of it relates to the theme of my previous post, an American’s view of China.

All of my colleagues in the US office have a lot of interaction with China. Hong Kong is a hotbed for International toy companies. It is one of its biggest industries. My colleagues have all traveled back and forth, to and from HK and China. However, even though their travels give them glimpses into the Chinese way of life, it is very hard for them to see things outside of labor and the factory.

I was often asked how I enjoyed living in China. (Again, I was born in China and have lived in the US since I was 6, only visiting China occasionally during the summers.) When I tried to explain how it felt almost the same (subject of a previous as well as future post) as living in NYC, my colleagues were very surprised.

For all they knew, China was just the few experiences that they had themselves; stories that are told over and over:

• Going for cheap messages given by young girls from the countryside
• Buying bootleg DVDs/ fake Polo’s/ fake (insert brand name)
• Enjoying their commutes where no cars are following traffic lawsSeeing many poor and disabled begging on the street
• General mayhem

My mom would call it the west’s erotic, exotic and narrow vision of China (sorry if I got that wrong, Mom). I would argue that it is just being overwhelmed in a strange place.

All of my colleagues are good, smart and interesting people. As much as they have experienced China, in reality, they are only scratching the surface. I recently read a story about the members of congress who wanted to pass a huge tariff on Chinese goods going into the US. After they finally visited China, they were overwhelmed. It was sensory overload. They had no idea what was going on in China, whether it is the growing middle class or the unrest in the countryside, whether it is the mixing of Confucian culture and capitalism or the modernization of thinking. They only saw the surface (stuff that is shown on CNN and ABC News). Now after seeing a little bit more, they returned home and quickly tabled their bill.

With all of their resources, if people in the US government are that clueless on China, it is easy to imagine how my colleagues (who go to China for a week to work at a factory) could get their views.

China is exciting, mesmerizing, and a splendid place. It can also be frustrating, hurtful and haunting. That’s what makes China, China. That is why I am here… to experience it first hand.

It makes me understand why I’m writing this blog…to not only help my colleagues with their titanium driver purchases, but to hopefully help make China just a little bit easier to understand.

The Chinese Worker: Part 1

The Chinese Worker, Part I:

Guangdong province is the factory of the world. This is a easily proven statement. Something like 60% of the world’s underwear, 80% of the glass frames, 30% of the computer chips, electronics, ect. ect. ect. are made in this single southern province. I don't know how many toys are manufactured and made here, but I do work at a toy factory that employs more than 2000 workers. That may seem like a lot of workers but in actuality, my factory is quite average. There are much bigger ones that employ 20,000 to 50,000 and even 100,000 workers!!! That’s crazy. Combine that with the amount of factories in this vicinity (CONAIR and Privatex are right down the street from me) and you can have an idea of what’s going on here. The shear scale and scope of this operation is just tremendous.

My mom was here a couple of weeks ago to visit me. When she was here, I invited her over to the factory to check out what I’ve been doing. When I was touring the factory floor with her, showing her the different assembly lines and machine shops, she mentioned that someone should look into this more specifically… especially into the lives of the workers who make all of this possible. I agree. These migrant workers, who are from all parts of China, are the untold story of the factory of the world.

In my 3 months at the factory, I’ve had various social interactions with my coworkers. Of the 300 office “management” colleagues, I’ve hung out with about 50 of them so far. In two different occasions, I invited them out for drinks (to get them wasted at a bar) and dinner (to get them wasted, while eating food). From these interactions, I’ve observed a few things:

1. Most of the workers who are employed in the companies and factories are from the countryside. Very few of them are from the cities.

This is an interesting revelation. There are many studies out there that state how most of the Chinese population is still in the countryside rather than cities (about a 35% to 65% ratio). I had never realized this fact before.

There is a definite hierarchy in the China between city people and rural people. The hierarchy is rather stupid considering it’s based upon the rural person’s lack of experience in the city. Ultimately, “country bumpkins” are discriminated against and looked upon by the city folk as ignorant and dumb.

2. These workers take life as it comes and don't really expect anything. They rarely have future goals and aspirations.

In my conversations with my fellow colleagues, I have always asked “as a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up” to have a semi-comparison between Chinese and Western children (that I grew up with). The answers were very similar across the cultural divide. Doctors, sports stars, astronauts, teachers… everything was the same. However, when I asked them: “what do you want to be now, what do you want to do in the future,” the answers change dramatically. In the US, I believe people have a basic idea of what they’re doing. Maybe they like medical school and law school and business, but cant decide between them, but they definitely have future goals and aspirations that they have a desire to achieve. In China, this question has only been answered in 2 different ways among the people I work with:

“I don't know, I’ve never thought about it before.”

or

“I want to be my own boss.”

It is quite amazing that no one seems to have any desires, any plan, any agency to work and achieve for the future. Instead, they are only working for working’s sake. They make their money, hang out in 4 person dorm rooms and are perfectly content with life. The people who have thought about it don't know what they want to do, but do know that they like money and hope to make lots of it. Isn’t that amazing?

3. The workers are good people and whole-heartedly appreciate anything other people give them.

All of the people I’ve interacted with, who are “lower” on the social scale and from the “countryside” have been all incredibly generous and have treated me wonderfully. They live in non-air conditioned dorm rooms with no hot water and 3 other people. The lighting is shabby and the floors are dirty. Nothing is ever given to them and only in a few instances are their interests “taken care of”.

Whenever I have visited a friend or had food with one of them, it seemed like none of that mattered. They opened up their rooms and generally offered to pay for the meals. It can be said that although they do not have that much money or the best apartment, they offer things that money can’t buy: their help, their time, their strength, their knowledge, and sometimes, even their money in a genuine caring manner that is incredibly endearing and good.