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How comfortable is it to live in Shenzen as an expat? I spent half a year in Changsha and Shanghai as an undergrad and absolutely fell in love with the country

How comfortable is it to live in Shenzen as an expat? I spent half a year in Changsha and Shanghai as an undergrad and absolutely fell in love with the country in ways I never did for Japan. I found that feeling odd since I spent years studying Japanese and ultimately wound up teaching English in Hokkaido for a year. I'll probably spend another two or three years stateside with my family, but ultimately I am disdainful of American materialism. I can't come to grips with the price of rent, the long commutes, and the costs associated with living here. Maybe I'm just too frugal. I grew up an only child honestly having more than I needed, and as a consequence I don't want to accumulate anything material that is just superfluous. I'd love to live in a capsule hotel with just my laptop and bike. I suppose I'm getting way off topic... My Mandarin is pretty bad as I only studied it off and on for six months or so. Do you see a late 20-something white software engineer as being capable of making a living in Shenzhen? Or is this a pipe dream? What recommendations could you make?

reedlaw 12y ago
Materialism abounds in China, but the average middle-class lifestyle is frugal by American standards. There are a handful of small, expat-owned software agencies in the major Chinese cities. These are your best bet for getting the type of job you want. Chinese firms in general will underpay and overwork their software engineers. Most of the computer science grads are focused on learning enterprise-y stuff like Java and .Net because that's what big companies want.
Cookingboy 12y ago
I'm not an expat, I grew up in Shanghai and came to the U.S. for highschool and college, so I don't really know much about the life of an expat. But as far as foreigner go, it's really rare seeing them taking engineering roles in China. As far as I can see, China is just every bit as materialistic as U.S., if not more so.
- seanmcdirmid 12y ago
  I know plenty of foreigner engineers, most of my friends actually. It's not that rare at all, at least in zhongguancun.
jacquesm 12y ago
If you want to live a non-materialistic life in the USA it is very well possible. Just move into the Rockies, there are plenty of people there living a life that you would probably feel very comfortable with.
morgante 12y ago
> Do you see a late 20-something white software engineer as being capable of making a living in Shenzhen? As an American, you'd likely be much better off doing contract work for US clients than working for local companies (this is almost universally true for any country you'd be in).
SimpleMinds 12y ago
Hi, I'm living in Shenzhen for almost 10 months now, after moving from Beijing after three years. I can only correlate living in Shenzhen with living in Beijing for an expat. My Chinese is only basic too. Ok here were go with plus sides first: - being smaller city, Shenzhen still have the "wow" factor for foreigners. It's easier to find better paid (compared to Chinese counterparts) job, easier to handle things, easier to survive by being "lost expat" - if you get tired of China (and many of us do), HK is just 1h away and you instantly have different experience. It might sound silly but it's very valuable - cheaper than bigger counterparts - Shenzhen is ~35 years old, build with grow in mind. That means that subway is great, traffic is great. Notion of traffic jam here is very very small compared to other big cities. If you drive, or, very probably, if you use taxi, almost no traffic jams is amazing (there still are, but its way less than what I experienced in other big cities) - Shenzhen is one of the cleanest cities in China in terms of pollution. Some people say wearing a pollution mask in Beijing every day is like living in future, but not for me :) - if you like warm, you will like weather here - taobao - no, really, you can find almost anything there and it's a great asset to consider when thinking about China :) Now, for the bad things: - for IT software, I found it very lacking compared to Beijing. There's not that much talent (yet), not many startups. There's even no coworkers space available. Similar with Hong Kong, where I'm guessing cost of living is prohibitive for having a startup -> IT just goes towards big banks etc. On the other hand, if you treat work as a paycheck thing, check the positive point above, you could find boring, not demanding work in Chinese company just to be "white face". Overtimes are happening, but afaik here expats are more often excluded - unless you are willing to travel to HK, foreigner things are harder to get by. If you like to cook especially. Taobao gets you covered in most cases but some specifics are harder to find - food and available cousines are terrible. I like Chinese food, but what you can find here is disappointing. I do miss Beijing range of tasty restaurants - good english speaking Chinese are much rarer, thus (until you learn good Chinese) learning about their culture, way of life etc from natives (compared to reading some post on internet, cough ;) ) is harder Now, to answer your specific question: yes, I think it's very easy to make a living in Shenzhen for software engineer. I would recommend two things: - making sure that company that you start with gives you a proper visa as now gov is cracking down on illegal or wrong type of visas - if you would like to learn more Chinese, do not surround yourself only with expats. I hope this helped you a little bit, I don't have experience with sharing this kind of information with people
Wogef 12y ago
>How comfortable is it to live in Shenzen as an expat? A lot more comfortable in the past few years. For example the things you see in stories about China- line cutting, spitting and pooping in the street. These are nearly unheard of now (in Shenzhen, rest of China it still happens). Up until three years ago if you wanted service in a restaurant you would bellow fúwùyuán in their general direction, they would stare at you blankly, have a shoving contest with their co-workers to see who had to deal with the foreigner and eventually someone would come over. Now a discreet US style hand gesture usually is all that is needed. As a very loose comparison with Hong Kong I would stay there is less English in Shenzhen, but in terms of modernity and cleanliness it is now equal. I actually find Shenzhen locals to be more polite in recent years, although it is far easier to find foreign goods in Hong Kong. You can get basically anything on Taobao now though it’s not a huge problem. Shenzhen changes fast- so this is all a recent development. >Do you see a late 20-something white software engineer as being capable of making a living in Shenzhen? Or is this a pipe dream? What recommendations could you make? Just living here is easy but there are a lot of expats who live here and are desperately unhappy (see r/China). Most of the people I know that live here and are actually happy do not work for Chinese companies. The differences in corporate culture are significant. I’d suggest working online as a freelancer or for a foreign company. Chinese companies pay programmers very poorly. Best case would be to build a small clientele before you come. >My Mandarin is pretty bad as I only studied it off and on for six months or so. Survival Mandarin only takes a few months and is more then sufficient to get around. How much you decide to learn after that depends on you but fluency is certainly not a requirement. You can come here with zero Mandarin and do just fine- just be creative with a dictionary. Chinese are very patient about these things.
- seanmcdirmid 12y ago
  It is possible to make big bucks at Chinese companies, at least in Beijing. You need management or specialty skills, 100K/month is not unheard of. You might not last more than a few months though, those positions can be brutal, especially if you are the only foreigner.
  - Wogef 12y ago
    There's still positions like that- but yup, brutal.
liotier 12y ago
> ultimately I am disdainful of American materialism Then you might not want to try Chinese materialism...

reedlaw 12y ago

Materialism abounds in China, but the average middle-class lifestyle is frugal by American standards. There are a handful of small, expat-owned software agencies in the major Chinese cities. These are your best bet for getting the type of job you want. Chinese firms in general will underpay and overwork their software engineers. Most of the computer science grads are focused on learning enterprise-y stuff like Java and .Net because that's what big companies want.

Cookingboy 12y ago

I'm not an expat, I grew up in Shanghai and came to the U.S. for highschool and college, so I don't really know much about the life of an expat. But as far as foreigner go, it's really rare seeing them taking engineering roles in China. As far as I can see, China is just every bit as materialistic as U.S., if not more so.

seanmcdirmid 12y ago
I know plenty of foreigner engineers, most of my friends actually. It's not that rare at all, at least in zhongguancun.

jacquesm 12y ago

If you want to live a non-materialistic life in the USA it is very well possible. Just move into the Rockies, there are plenty of people there living a life that you would probably feel very comfortable with.

morgante 12y ago

> Do you see a late 20-something white software engineer as being capable of making a living in Shenzhen? As an American, you'd likely be much better off doing contract work for US clients than working for local companies (this is almost universally true for any country you'd be in).

SimpleMinds 12y ago

Hi, I'm living in Shenzhen for almost 10 months now, after moving from Beijing after three years. I can only correlate living in Shenzhen with living in Beijing for an expat. My Chinese is only basic too. Ok here were go with plus sides first: - being smaller city, Shenzhen still have the "wow" factor for foreigners. It's easier to find better paid (compared to Chinese counterparts) job, easier to handle things, easier to survive by being "lost expat" - if you get tired of China (and many of us do), HK is just 1h away and you instantly have different experience. It might sound silly but it's very valuable - cheaper than bigger counterparts - Shenzhen is ~35 years old, build with grow in mind. That means that subway is great, traffic is great. Notion of traffic jam here is very very small compared to other big cities. If you drive, or, very probably, if you use taxi, almost no traffic jams is amazing (there still are, but its way less than what I experienced in other big cities) - Shenzhen is one of the cleanest cities in China in terms of pollution. Some people say wearing a pollution mask in Beijing every day is like living in future, but not for me :) - if you like warm, you will like weather here - taobao - no, really, you can find almost anything there and it's a great asset to consider when thinking about China :) Now, for the bad things: - for IT software, I found it very lacking compared to Beijing. There's not that much talent (yet), not many startups. There's even no coworkers space available. Similar with Hong Kong, where I'm guessing cost of living is prohibitive for having a startup -> IT just goes towards big banks etc. On the other hand, if you treat work as a paycheck thing, check the positive point above, you could find boring, not demanding work in Chinese company just to be "white face". Overtimes are happening, but afaik here expats are more often excluded - unless you are willing to travel to HK, foreigner things are harder to get by. If you like to cook especially. Taobao gets you covered in most cases but some specifics are harder to find - food and available cousines are terrible. I like Chinese food, but what you can find here is disappointing. I do miss Beijing range of tasty restaurants - good english speaking Chinese are much rarer, thus (until you learn good Chinese) learning about their culture, way of life etc from natives (compared to reading some post on internet, cough ;) ) is harder Now, to answer your specific question: yes, I think it's very easy to make a living in Shenzhen for software engineer. I would recommend two things: - making sure that company that you start with gives you a proper visa as now gov is cracking down on illegal or wrong type of visas - if you would like to learn more Chinese, do not surround yourself only with expats. I hope this helped you a little bit, I don't have experience with sharing this kind of information with people

Wogef 12y ago

>How comfortable is it to live in Shenzen as an expat? A lot more comfortable in the past few years. For example the things you see in stories about China- line cutting, spitting and pooping in the street. These are nearly unheard of now (in Shenzhen, rest of China it still happens). Up until three years ago if you wanted service in a restaurant you would bellow fúwùyuán in their general direction, they would stare at you blankly, have a shoving contest with their co-workers to see who had to deal with the foreigner and eventually someone would come over. Now a discreet US style hand gesture usually is all that is needed. As a very loose comparison with Hong Kong I would stay there is less English in Shenzhen, but in terms of modernity and cleanliness it is now equal. I actually find Shenzhen locals to be more polite in recent years, although it is far easier to find foreign goods in Hong Kong. You can get basically anything on Taobao now though it’s not a huge problem. Shenzhen changes fast- so this is all a recent development. >Do you see a late 20-something white software engineer as being capable of making a living in Shenzhen? Or is this a pipe dream? What recommendations could you make? Just living here is easy but there are a lot of expats who live here and are desperately unhappy (see r/China). Most of the people I know that live here and are actually happy do not work for Chinese companies. The differences in corporate culture are significant. I’d suggest working online as a freelancer or for a foreign company. Chinese companies pay programmers very poorly. Best case would be to build a small clientele before you come. >My Mandarin is pretty bad as I only studied it off and on for six months or so. Survival Mandarin only takes a few months and is more then sufficient to get around. How much you decide to learn after that depends on you but fluency is certainly not a requirement. You can come here with zero Mandarin and do just fine- just be creative with a dictionary. Chinese are very patient about these things.

seanmcdirmid 12y ago
It is possible to make big bucks at Chinese companies, at least in Beijing. You need management or specialty skills, 100K/month is not unheard of. You might not last more than a few months though, those positions can be brutal, especially if you are the only foreigner.
- Wogef 12y ago
  There's still positions like that- but yup, brutal.

liotier 12y ago

> ultimately I am disdainful of American materialism Then you might not want to try Chinese materialism...