I’m asking for it: What should I do next year?
OK, so I try not to do this too often, but I need some advice from the blogosphere, which is full of people far smarter than me who’ve apparently got things far more figured out. Enough vaguely directed flattery? Alright, here’s my quandary:
I’m staying in China another year (at least), and I have no desire to teach another semester at my current university. This probably isn’t a shock to anyone. I have two options on the table.
I could study Chinese full time. A month or so ago, I tossed around the idea of going intensive on the language over coffee with Alex, and he turned it around and said he was planning on doing so himself. DongCai, where Alex just enrolled, is my top choice right now, or Dalian University of Technology. Both are close to my current neighborhood, and I’m consistently impressed by my friends who study at both colleges.
Cost: 8,000 RMB per semester, plus housing.
This would be intense, maybe working on the side, plowing all energy into getting good and functional, if not fluent, as fast as possible. Haven’t done anything like it in years.
Work. I have a job offer, of sorts, from a tech company in Dalian, doing marketing and research. The job would entail coaxing companies to set up outsourcing centers in China and giving their managers all the information necessary to sell said decision internally. This would be (gulp) a real job. It pays better than teaching, though less on a per-hour basis. The two prime benefits are flexibility and learning. “You basically get to invent your own career,” one of my potential coworkers, who is Swiss, told me after I interviewed.
The downside is that working 40+ hours a week would pretty well sideline language study. I’m sure I’ll keep improving, but I don’t expect to be close to fluent if I go this route. (It would also make freelancing difficult, but since I’ve barely sold anything all year, that hardly seems worth considering at this point.)
In my head, this is all coming down to a question of how committed I am to China. I told myself before I came that I’d stay through the Olympics, come what may. I went through this same pounding-my-head-on-a-wall process a year ago, when I ultimately decided to turn down a Peace Corps invitation to Cape Verde in favor of teaching in China.
A better question, which I keep trying ask myself, is what’s more important/useful/practical to learn now, language or business, and on that one, I’m utterly stumped. I still have every intention of returning to journalism at some point, sooner rather than later, so all this goes into the context of what’s likely to make me a better writer and reporter down the line.
Thoughts anyone? Anyone? Bueller?
June 12th, 2007 at 11:53 am
Both are career investments, but in different directions.
Journalism…
With Chinese language skills, you can directly bridge the language gap, making sourcing and research, a much faster and more fluid process than relying on 3rd parties or a translator.
With experience in Chinese Real Estate you could probably write about Real Estate and bubbles more authoritavely, but marketing office space isn’t going to earn oneself expertise in the subject. In the thin English-language Chinese Journalistic market though, maybe it will be enough.
You’re in an unusual position. Many, if not most, young English teachers in China (those fresh, or almost fresh out of uni) would give their back teeth to fall into a ‘career job’. But if you’ve already got the career you want, journalism, that opportunity is dampened.
If you’re thinking of changing to a Real Estate career, take the Real Estate job. If you’re investing long term in Journalism, study Chinese. Eight thousand US dollars for the year - including housing, tuition and spending money. After that year you’ll be one of only a handful of journalists that can speak and read Chinese fluently.
June 12th, 2007 at 12:53 pm
Go for the language studies. Having the language skills will open up more opportunities in the future.
June 12th, 2007 at 12:56 pm
I don’t know you other than what I’ve read on your blog, and I am by now means excessively qualified to give advice, but I can give you 2 more cents.
From the sound of the post, it sounds to me like you’d rather study Chinese.
I also think you can go on and find a ‘real’ job in a year/few years pretty easily. However, going back and quitting/taking a long hiatus from a real job in order to study Chinese would likely be much more difficult.
If you want to get fluent, I say do it now: before the ‘real’ job. You’ll be doing those the rest of your life.
Word
June 12th, 2007 at 1:02 pm
No idea what advice to give, but I’m jealous of your choices. I wish those were the kinds of decisions I had to bang my head up on the wall against.
June 13th, 2007 at 5:04 am
What made you want to leave Maritime University?
June 13th, 2007 at 8:32 am
If you have a realistic shot at covering BJ2008, you might want to shoot for that. In order to do that well, I’d recommend studying like a mad bastard for 1 year, starting now.
Starting now might mean the difference in skipping or not skipping one/both of the 2 beginner semesters. And that makes the difference of getting in a beginning class with a few semi-serious english speaking westerners — or getting into a slightly more advanced class where the less serious students have dropped out, and there’s little/no english spoken between classmates.
(note: At least, that was my experience, having joined Dongcai at the intermediate level with mostly serious students, after the not-so-serious ones had dropped out or gone home)
If you decide to live off campus, get a Chinese roommate.
And keep writing good stuff on your blog, so you have something tangible to show for the year. If you’re strapped for cash, tutor koreans. Or maybe teach part-time in the software park once or twice a week.
Just my thoughts. But as Kevin said, yes, those are nice choices. Weigh ‘em carefully. But don’t sit and do nothing while you decide. I tend to do that sometimes.
June 13th, 2007 at 11:11 am
Language, hands down. Learn the language now, you can always learn business later. Not only that, there is no guarantee you will learn business if you take the sales job.
June 13th, 2007 at 12:21 pm
Teach at LNU-MSU… I met u once before…
enjoy ur upcoming choices… sounds exciting…
long live China!!!!
June 14th, 2007 at 4:23 pm
I second Kevin. I’d love those choices. Then I’d take the language study.
Actually, although I don’t know you from a bar of soap, the tone of this post would suggest you’re leaning towards the language study. And if it’s journalism you want to do, then I’d say go for it. As you implied, it leaves you more time for freelance writing, which could get you a bit of extra cash and help you build up contacts, experience, a portfolio of some kind, several feet in the door, in other words. Also, you’ll have plenty of part-time teaching, polishing and proof-reading jobs to fall back on when money becomes an issue.
And as others have said, study is an option that won’t come along so easily in the future.
Just my two fen worth.
Oh, and definitely follow the Pandapassport advice and keep writing good stuff here.
June 14th, 2007 at 6:23 pm
I did the job and language route in Shanghai arriving in March 2005, starting with intermediate Putonghua (learnt from years of evening classes, tutors at work - all outside mainland China, so not terribly fluent).
I usually have one 2 hour lesson on the weekend, and go through phases of diligence/laziness. My colleagues are mostly Chinese. After 2 years, I am pretty fluent in speaking, listening and reading. Most of the improvement came in the first year, which was tough. Even now, when people start speaking in dialects…
You can do both (work, learn Chinese) at once if you are determined and know why you are doing both (having a local gf will help enormously too, though I don’t).
I would have learnt much faster and deeper, especially written Chinese, in full time study. I don’t regret the choice not to, as I wanted to develop my career (in a more business direction) at the same time.
My situation then is different from yours now. I came from a media job in HK and never did the English teaching thing full time.
In short, my advice is figure out your direction as best you can and make your choice accordingly.
June 16th, 2007 at 7:39 pm
Hey,
I’m taking your request for advice as a genuine one — I assume you want the truth — and so I’ll offer you my wu-jiao’s-worth. (Also, I’ve been teaching here in China for 5 years and I sympathize with any laowai starting to feel like China’s got a use-by date…)
Mate, I think it comes down to your age. Fluency in Chinese isn’t likely to happen until about 4/5 years of committed study, right? I’d put the cut-off at 30. Still in your mid to late 20s? Go to Uni to study, swot and swindle…meanwhile pick up whatever part-time jobs you can to pay the bills, journo or teacher. Over 30? Take the ‘real job’, the marketing gig…you’ll soon know whether it can offer you a viable career.
I’ve assumed that you’ve got the requisite commitment to making a go of it in this country. Spinning your wheels is never very nice, but that commitment I think is the traction you’ll need.
Cheers,
Rob
P.S. If, on the other hand, control is an illusion, then forget all the above and go with your gut feeling!
Here’s my site at: http://borisknack.blogsome.com
June 25th, 2007 at 4:12 am
Hello,
I’ve just found your blog through someone else’s blog. I would definitely advise the going to university full time to learn Chinese. I’m one year into a Chinese degree and I am soon on my year abroad in Tianjin. The other thing is that even studying Chinese full time you will still have time to do paid work.
I don’t know whether it’s the course that I’m on in the Tianjin University but I have about 3.5 hours per weekday from 8:30 in the morning till 12. Which isn’t loads and loads but I’m sure it’s more than you currently are studying. And if you did something similar even with homework it would mean that there are still a lot of hours of the week that you can work even taking into account studying/time outside university spent studying and learning characters.
July 5th, 2007 at 9:52 am
I’d say go with learning Chinese. You’re not tied down by anything right now, do it while you have the chance.
Because at some point that chance might not be available to you.
Beyond the point, if you are going the journalism route, knowing Chinese very well is at least several times more useful than understanding business better - and you might learn more about business by studying (lots of reading) than actual doing.