Expats in China: Three-Quarters Male and Illiterate

Michael Wester | Nov 3, 2014 11:50 am | 21 comments | 21861 reads

If you've been thinking lately that Beijing's expat scene is a complete sausage fest dominated by foreigners who can barely speak Chinese, you're right: A comprehensive study of the foreign population in China released last week shows that 74 percent of the expatriate population are dudes and three out of four "understood only simple words in Chinese."

In a poll designed to figure out how to attract and retain foreign talent, the State Administration of Foreign Experts Affairs discovered that 73.8 percent were male, and only a shockingly low 8 percent report that they could speak at least simple Chinese.

Egads you neanderthals!

Despite the lack of foreign women, and the men's generally poor language skills, it seems most expats like it here anyhow: 70 percent report being happy with their lives in China, and only 3.3 percent want to leave as soon as their contracts are up. Another 17 percent said they were dissatisfied but wished to continue working in China.

The study, portions of which were released last Friday, reported that a reduction in bureaucratic work visa processes and better compensation are the two top items on the  foreigners' agenda for making China a more appealing place to work. The full report will be released on Wednesday (stay tuned to thebeijinger blog for more details later).

As a general sub-culture in China, expats could fare better in the language department: Considering foreign employees primarily work white-collar jobs, it seems almost shocking that nearly three-quarters can't talk easily with local counterparts in their native tongue. Then again, maybe this can be chalked up to the high standard of English that many Chinese speak, particularly in the major metro areas, which allows expats to get by without Chinese skills.

Meanwhile, Mark Zuckerberg manages to learn the language in his spare time while running a billion-dollar company, and he doesn't even live here.

The poll indicated that the foreign population in China comes from North America (34 percent), Europe (28 percent), Asia (21 percent) and everywhere else (17 percent).

Photo: The Beijinger (archive)

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mtnerror's picture mtnerror Submitted by Guest on Fri, 11/14/2014 - 12:59

@The Equalizer: your summation of the expat scene is a bit outdated, or at a very minimum, still relevant but far less widespread they you purport. I know mountains and mountains of foreigners that don't live the life you seem to suggest an overwhelming of we expats are living. There is a great flattening of the differences that used to exist between foreign nations and China. China has been open to the outside for decades now; they're leading or exceeding in several categories. Companies are finding they're not having to work as hard by offering all of the things you mentioned in order to send foreigners here; Chinese companies are not having to work as much to provide all those benefits to attract. Yes, such "packages" still exist, but are found far less common than in years past. Also, to suggest that expats are working "crazy hours" and on a plane all the time conducting major business and generally too busy to learn Mandarin is way off base. If what you said was true, you wouldn't see mountains of laowai enjoying happy hour, filling up bars until wee hours of the morn and spending so much time socializing (i.e., activities which they have time to devote to and choose to spend doing that, instead of, oh, say, learning Mandarin). Yes, there are some who do truly live a life committed to the firm that sent/brought them here, but there are oodles and oodles for which that is not the case. There are several older foreigners (non-diplomats) who have even brought their entire family here, whereas in the past one of the spouses may have done a short-term assignment and a lot of back and forth because one of the spouses thought it wasn't conducive to their livelihood.

admin's picture admin Submitted by Guest on Thu, 11/13/2014 - 18:42

The Equalizer wrote:

"Then again, maybe this can be chalked up to the high standard of English that many Chinese speak, particularly in the major metro areas, which allows expats to get by without Chinese skills." This is almost laughable. it has nothing to do with the high standard of English and my humble opinion is it is actually lacking in the English professional skill level compared to most other major capitol cities.

but don't you see that the reason you can survive without tons of chinese is precisely because there are so many Chinese that understand English?

Books by current and former Beijinger staffers

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The Equalizer's picture The Equalizer Submitted by Guest on Tue, 11/11/2014 - 13:39

"Then again, maybe this can be chalked up to the high standard of English that many Chinese speak, particularly in the major metro areas, which allows expats to get by without Chinese skills." This is almost laughable. it has nothing to do with the high standard of English and my humble opinion is it is actually lacking in the English professional skill level compared to most other major capitol cities.

Expats are busy doing their work with little time to study, not to mention no real set routine and have crazy hours. They can survive here because someone is arranging their travel, their hotels, always someone is at the airport to pick them up and drive them to the destination, translators for meetings, etc. It really does not help in any shape, form, or fashion to speak Chinese here as far as doing your work. Personal drivers who cart them around on the weekend and maids to take care of the daily matters, cooks for the meals, etc.

I personally can speak Chinese at a good enough level to understand (about 5000 words) and at least get my message across (not fluent for sure) and it does not help me do my work at all. My chinese language skill is a far cry from knowing the 25,000 wrods but it is enough to know even fluency would not help me do my work I am hitred to do in China. Of course, its nice to have a chat over coffee and has some advantages in the social circles but thats about it. When I leave here about the only good it will do is allow for an entertainng evening in Chinatown in the USA or something like that. It has kept my brain active or at least I would like to believe it and saved me money by staying at home and studying it sometimes but thats about it.

Expats are not sent here to learn the language but to get specific results for their firms. if the firm is clever, the firm provides all the tools for them to acocmplish this and one of those tools is a translator, which are a dime a dozen and not expensive at all.

All information stated by this poster is for informational purposes only. The content should not substitute you seeking psychiatric advice should you have a problem with it.

plorf's picture plorf Submitted by Guest on Mon, 11/10/2014 - 00:50

cdn_china pretty much summed it up. English is not my first language, not even my second language actually. I work somewhat long hours and to this day could not really bothered with learning a really difficult language with a very questionable ROI.

I'm not an exec or a renowned industry expert by a fair margin, but still get a lot of work done that Chinese managers struggle with, and have assistants, translators and interpreters support me where needed. To acquire good enough Chinese to replace them in any of these tasks would require years of full-time study, not something I or anyone else with a career could possibly afford. I fully appreciate the difficulty of good interpretation and translation, and would never task a foreigner with 'ok' Chinese to do that, nor would I hire a recent Chinese grad who doesn't know our company to do that work. So again, terrible ROI for expats.

I sometimes read and contribute on a Chinese language learning forum and there the verdict is clear: it does not pay financially to learn Chinese, full stop.

I still hope to improve my Chinese, as it would certainly benefit my social interaction with the locals and make my life in general a bit easier, but if I knew I'm leaving in a few month I wouldn't bother at all.

admin's picture admin Submitted by Guest on Thu, 11/06/2014 - 10:08

cdn_china wrote:
My vote is - basic Chinese that allows one to survive is more than enough.

CDN I for the most part agree with your points above. I guess the real shocker for me is that the survey seems to indicate that three-quarters don't even have that basc survival Chinese ... the 73% said they were limited to only 有限的简单单词 or "limited use of only simple words".

 

Books by current and former Beijinger staffers

http://astore.amazon.com/truerunmedia-20