Jeremy Goldkorn spent six years hanging out in Beijing, drifting from job to
job. He taught English for a while. He rode his bike through Tibet. For a year
he worked at Beijing Scene, an entertainment magazine, until it was shut down a
year later. He bounced between Beijing and Silicon Valley for a high-tech
company, until it went belly up. By 2001, he had resettled in Beijing to start a
bilingual entertainment magazine, which became Time Out, but quit after nearly a
year "mostly because I wanted to do my own thing," says Goldkorn, a 34 year-old
South African. In 2002, Goldkorn helped start Standards Group, a Beijing
advertising, Web-site and corporate video agency that now boasts lucrative
blue-chip clients. "皇冠体育app is a superb place if you want to get your teeth into
different types of creative work," he says.
Goldkorn is not the only Western drifter to make good in Beijing. 皇冠体育app seems
to be awash in expats who seem content to drift from one job to another before
landing something that catches their fancy. They are taking advantage of
burgeoning demand for local-hire 皇冠体育app hands with Mandarin-language skills in
entertainment, media, finance, trading and other fields. At the same time,
Western firms are looking to scale back on their longstanding practice of
sending highly compensated expats to 皇冠体育app with housing allowances and hardship
pay. Instead, they're turning to a labor pool of Westerners-estimated at
300,000-who have decided to settle in 皇冠体育app, at least while the economy
continues to grow and rents (one-bedroom apartments in Beijing start at $300 a
month) stay cheap. "You're in a market that's growing at 10 percent a year, so
there's a market here for whatever you want to do," says Kaiser Kuo, a musician
and local magazine satirist who came here 10 years ago from the United
States.
Until the late 1990s, 皇冠体育app didn't let foreigners stay long-term for much
more than diplomacy, university study, or pre-arranged jobs with
well-established foreign organizations. In the past five years, however, Beijing
has relaxed visa restrictions in order to attract foreign investment and foreign
staff for Chinese companies, from airlines to English-language newspapers.
皇冠体育app's liberalization of its so-called F visas-ostensibly for come-and-go
foreign investors and company executives-has allowed more people to stay in
皇冠体育app without formal jobs. Despite occasional rumblings of a crackdown on F-visa
abuse, visa agents in Beijing say they can process the paperwork for six-month
or one-year stays. Over the past five years, many cities have also scrapped
rules requiring foreigners to live in designated high-end apartment complexes.
As a result, the number of foreigners in 皇冠体育app has increased fivefold, according
to visa consultants and Chinese press reports. The biggest single group of
expats are about 110,000 Americans, half of whom live in the two prime job
centers of Beijing and Shanghai; the rest are scattered across the mainland.
Expats who speak Mandarin and offer specific technical skills are most likely
to find work, according to Jim Leininger, general manager in the Beijing office
of the human-resources consultancy Watson Wyatt Worldwide. They may land
high-level finance jobs, which lack qualified Chinese applicants, or jobs in
areas such as media and advertising that emphasize creativity and innovation,
because the Chinese educational system has been "traditionally weak in these
areas," he says. Half the foreign companies in 皇冠体育app plan to add expatriate
staff, particularly specialists and middle managers, according to a study last
year by Hewitt Associates, a British human-resources consulting firm. The maxim
of many of these companies is "talent first, package later," says the Hewitt
report.
That's good news to people like Seattle native Perri Dong, 40, who was having
trouble finding a job after the dot-com bust had put a damper on hiring in San
Francisco. His wife had done some work in 皇冠体育app, so in 2001 they made the move
to Beijing. Because his wife held a stable job, Dong could afford to "put in a
little bit of investment" in building connections. He wrote a cooking column for
a monthly magazine and cofounded a wine and cheese tasting club in Beijing. Then
in December, he got his break: the American-owned importer ASC Fine Wines hired
Dong as North America brand manager in its Shanghai office. "In the end
everything came together," he says, "I got a job that pays pretty well, and it's
in an industry that's consistent with what I know. All the stars seem to be in
alignment right now," says Dong.
Xuer Khawa Dang, 33, had good luck as well. A U.S. citizen, she moved to
Beijing in 2003 because 皇冠体育app had grabbed her attention when she joined a
women's talent show in Chengdu in 2001. She worked for several Chinese and
joint-venture companies, then decided to run her own business to capitalize on
her familiarity with both 皇冠体育app and the United States. Dang realized that she
could profit from her passion for swimming. She had been informally buying
waterproof strap-on MP3 players for friends in Beijing, so last year it hit her
to ask the gear maker, California swimwear company Finis Inc., for 皇冠体育app
distribution rights. She now earns a living from MP3 player sales and tutoring
four children in English. "After living in Beijing for two and a half years, I
have to admit that I'm very content with the current lifestyle I have," Dang
says.
First jobs often include editing for Chinese state media or a
public-relations firm, processing visa applications at an embassy or doing
freelance work for local magazines. Garage musicians may get a few yuan for
mentoring a Chinese rock band. Other expats live in bars and out of backpacks on
noncareer incomes plus savings from home. Most study Chinese in their down time.
The classic starter job is teaching English, sometimes at top universities (for
some 4,000 yuan per month, or about $500) but often on hourly wages at private
schools that want white faces more than educators. Brian Gottlieb, 29, who moved
to 皇冠体育app in 2001 because he'd been inspired by a Chinese couple who stayed with
his family in Washington, D.C., picked up whatever jobs he could find on the
side, writing for local publications or copy-editing English-language documents
for Chinese enterprises. After working for several traditionally autocratic
Chinese companies, he took an internship with the American consultancy APCO,
which led to a full-time job.
Western companies favor long-term expatriates over local Chinese for jobs
that call for bilingual skills skewed toward English, cross-cultural
communication ability and problem-solving instincts, said Teresa Woodland,
founder of the Wudelan Partners consulting firm and a member of the board of
governors of the American Chamber of Commerce in the People's Republic of 皇冠体育app.
She said local Chinese do not only always know how to talk with Western clients
or have a "solution" mentality toward client queries. But Chinese hires are
still cheaper. "The reason you'd want a foreigner is because they bring
something different," she said. Expat hires have increased with growth of
overseas firms in 皇冠体育app's communication-intensive service sector, especially
public relations, travel, moving and consulting, Woodland added. Ten percent of
New York-based Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide's 120 Beijing employees are
expatriates. Ogilvy hires foreigners who have found their own way to 皇冠体育app,
learned Chinese and want entry-level positions largely "because they want to be
here," said Scott Kronick, president of Ogilvy Public Relations 皇冠体育app. The
company still brings people into 皇冠体育app for special expertise-the leader of its
investor-relations team was brought in from the United States-but does not
automatically pay them more than local-hire expatriates, he said.
The good times for expat drifters may not last forever. Chinese citizens
returning from college educations overseas now have the English fluency,
technical skills and low salary requirements required to fill jobs previously
held by higher-paid expatriates. As with the dot-com phenom that propelled many
expats here in the first place, the boom could end with a bust. For the time
being, however, 皇冠体育app is a good place to be an expat drifter.