Actually, I would encourage more Westerners to learn proper English before focusing on Chinese.
lols. This.
Expats in China: Three-Quarters Male and Illiterate
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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@The Equalizer: your summation of the expat scene is a bit outdated, or at a very minimum, still relevant but far less widespread they you purport.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.
Re: Expats in China: Three-Quarters Male and Illiterate
"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?
Re: Expats in China: Three-Quarters Male and Illiterate
Re: Expats in China: Three-Quarters Male and Illiterate
"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.
Re: Expats in China: Three-Quarters Male and Illiterate
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.
Re: Expats in China: Three-Quarters Male and Illiterate
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".
Again, there is nothing inherently wrong with taking the time and making the effort to learn Chinese, but one's Return on Investment (ROI) is questionable, especially for professionals and executives. I seriously doubt there is much value for the majority of professional expats. This "China is hot" situation is a remake of the Japan Inc. of the 1980s when Westerners were scrambling to learn Japanese. Time has shown that those folks' ROI has been much, much less than hoped. I'd argue the same will happen with the Chinese language, as there is quite limited value with the Chinese language outside of China.
I suggest that for the vast majority of expat professionals, basic day to day Chinese is more than enough. When requiring language abilities beyond a basic level, one only needs to use the assistance of a competent Chinese translator. As an analogy, it is MUCH easier (and wiser) to have a nice meal at a good restaurant, prepared by a competent chef, than to try and learn how to make such fine cooking yourself. At home, day to day, bacon & eggs, soup and sandwiches suffice.
Again, kudos to those who are attemtping to master the Chinese language. But how many native English speakers have you met who struggle to communicate properly in even basic English? We all know that literacy in the West is a serious problem. And if they can't communicate properly in English, how well do you think they communicate in Chinese? I suspect that most Westerners who try to show off their Chinese language abilities are speaking Chinese gibberish.
The language question I would have for most Americans, aside from English, is how well do they speak Spanish? Or for Canadians, how well do they speak French? And so on. The "Speak Chinese damn it!" attitude is remarkably similar to the "Speak English!" redneck attitude in the West. These types of China Daily articles, and secondary hyperbole by other publications, is nothing more than redneck-edness with Chinese characteristics. As noted by an earlier commenter, I most probably wouldn't want to communicate with individuals of that ilk.
My vote is - basic Chinese that allows one to survive is more than enough.
Re: Expats in China: Three-Quarters Male and Illiterate
My point being if someone decides to write a story on a survey about foreign professionals but writes about it as if the survey was about the foreign population in general, it's not the same thing. I was basically echoing what the 3rd commenter stated.
I'm curious what you think the difference would be in the results if it were to incude the foreign population in general.
Here's how I see it:
Male-Female:
Many working men come with a non-working wife, which would likely up the % of female expats.
Not sure on the breakdown of male-female in the student body ... in my previous experiences in studying Chinese (albeit in Taiwan), it was probably 55% male, 45% female.
On the other hand, the part-timers, itinerants, etc you refer to I believe would be even more heavily skewed towards the male
So in the end, I'd still see the propoprtion being something like 2/3rds male.
Chinese Language Ability
A trailing spouse is probably even less likely to be fluent in Chinese
Same with the part-timers and itinerants (though hard to say)
Though the student population would be more likely to study Chinese
So in the end, these two factors would basically offset one another, so I'd see the % of people speaking Chinese to be about the same
Re: Expats in China: Three-Quarters Male and Illiterate
Mtnerror, I don't see how the foreign population at large and the foreign professional population differs significantly, except for students. What other population segments are there? Retirees?
As for Cdn_China and the other "I don't need to speak Chinese" guy, if you're working at the highest level of whatever your respective industries are, that's great, but otherwise, I really don't see how not speaking Chinese is an advantage. Daily life here is so much easier with some knowledge. Also, I have to wonder -- if you don't speak the language, aren't there better places to do what you do than Beijing?
English is the international language of business and almost all professions. This will not change. Despite China's best efforts at promoting the language, Chinese will never become any form of a standardized international language. The written form of Chinese will never be adopted.
In almost all professions, I fail to see the value of learning Chinese (a very difficult language to master), relative to hiring a professional translator. Functioning day-to-day with very basic Chinese is fine for the vast majority of foreign professionals..
Kudos to those who have the time and made the effort to function in semi-literate Chinese, but I have never seen any example of it being useful in Western business or professions. It is more of a party trick to impress friends / colleagues.
Actually, I would encourage more Westerners to learn proper English before focusing on Chinese.
Re: Expats in China: Three-Quarters Male and Illiterate
Imagine hearing this from a Chinese executive, say, in the USA and see if it sounds any different (hell, this might not be too far off, given the respective directions of the two economies):
"I have a white collar job and that's exactly why I can't speak English. I'm not a student, nor a freelance photographer or language teacher and simply don't have the time (and motivation) to put in the hours to properly learn English. And another factor is that most people worthwhile meeting seem to speak Chinese anyway, so I guess I lack a true reason to learn the language."
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 thehigh standard of English that many Chinese speak, particularly in the major metro areas, which allows expats to get by without Chines skills.
Shocking? Not at all, I'm in that demographics too. I have a white collar job and that's exactly why I can't speak Chinese. I'm not a student, nor a freelance photographer or language teachr and simply don't have the time (and motivation) to put in the hours to properly learn Chinese.
And another factor is that most people worthwhile meeting seem to speak English anyway, so I guess I lack a true reason to learn the language. For professional purposes Chinese is not required (though it would be beneficial for smalltalk) and we'd never hire a foreigner just because he speaks Chinese, what's the point, plenty of cheapish labour here still.
Re: Expats in China: Three-Quarters Male and Illiterate
A person working odd jobs, maybe 20 hours of work per week and maybe of that 10-15 of ACTUAL work, and going on visa runs every 3 months is not a professional. Nor is a one doing just enough to pay rent and have money for drinks, no matter they're sitting in their home country or giving it a go abroad.
And your point being, if they included this category of people in the survey, the results would be different in what way?
More Chinese speakers? More women?
A person working odd jobs, maybe 20 hours of work per week and maybe of that 10-15 of ACTUAL work, and going on visa runs every 3 months is not a professional. Nor is a one doing just enough to pay rent and have money for drinks, no matter they're sitting in their home country or giving it a go abroad.
Re: Expats in China: Three-Quarters Male and Illiterate
Title here is a bit misleading; the study only covers only foreign professionals. That's hardly "a comprehensive study of the foreign population in China."
By "professionals" they mean "the employed" so yes by definition it excludes students
I'm sure if you factor in students, there are a lot more that can speak Chinese (presuming many of them are studying Chinese or are studying at local universities)
We'll keep you updated as we get the full report (which is not yet released)
