A few questions about work on the "mainland"

Discussion Open Forum
1

time for me to look at another job,and maybe location.

i’m quite happy with taiwan,but my search for the next opening might mean that i could be going to china/hongkong/japan/bangkok…

mainland china is interesting to me as my first target upon coming to taiwan hasn’t been reached (ie:learning mandarin),i won’t give up until i’m fluent,so either i remain in taiwan or go to the mainland.

my question is

will i see a difference in the working attitude there?

let me explain:
here in taiwan,it has proved bloody hard to surround myself with a good team.
-awfull timekeeping
-often,terrible lazyness
-unwillingness to learn
-some guys i recruited at 2/3rd of my own salary are forever complaining that it’s not enough,yet they have no experience whatsoever
-and the worst,skill sponges (those guys who work for you for 3 months and are awfully keen to learn all the tricks,but then move on,leaving you to train yet again someone new)
-other stuff i can’t recall right now…

life in taiwan was ok really,but work has been bloody draining,and since we average 12-14 hours/6days a week,it’s important to me to go somewhere i will not ruin my health.

if any of you have experience of both taiwan and the mainland,please share.

as for the other countries i listed,if any of you have points of views too,please let me know.

i never asked before,but are there any other chefs on forumosa?
(that’s chef,not chief…you little cunt :laughing:

2

Everything about the mainland is worse than Taiwan…except the cost of labour (and i mean people who don’t know how to pour water out of a boot with instructions on the heel)

3

You could try checking out shanghaiexpat.com to get a feel for the place and ask some questions.

Tycoon is right. The ‘skill sponge’ phenomenon especially is rife in the mainland. Alot of small business owners just give up and go home because of staff studying with them for a few months and then leaving to open their own competing business.

Basically expats in Taiwan and in China complain about exactly the same stuff, but the intensity of the negative things is much lower in Taiwan.

4

Same experience with building a reliable team. Same complaints, same problems, I feel with you. So far I have only done this for a little less than 2 years and am not drained out yet, but who knows how long I will last.
I doubt that China will be better, maybe more keen to learn, but they leave sooner and you will have to train again and again and again.

5

[quote=“dablindfrog”]time for me to look at another job,and maybe location.

i’m quite happy with taiwan,but my search for the next opening might mean that i could be going to china/hongkong/Japan/bangkok…

mainland china is interesting to me as my first target upon coming to Taiwan hasn’t been reached (ie:learning Mandarin),i won’t give up until i’m fluent,so either i remain in taiwan or go to the mainland.

my question is

will i see a difference in the working attitude there?

let me explain:
here in taiwan,it has proved bloody hard to surround myself with a good team.
-awfull timekeeping
-often,terrible lazyness
-unwillingness to learn
-some guys i recruited at 2/3rd of my own salary are forever complaining that it’s not enough,yet they have no experience whatsoever
-and the worst,skill sponges (those guys who work for you for 3 months and are awfully keen to learn all the tricks,but then move on,leaving you to train yet again someone new)
-other stuff i can’t recall right now…

life in taiwan was ok really,but work has been bloody draining,and since we average 12-14 hours/6days a week,it’s important to me to go somewhere i will not ruin my health.

if any of you have experience of both taiwan and the mainland,please share.

as for the other countries i listed,if any of you have points of views too,please let me know.

i never asked before,but are there any other chefs on forumosa?
(that’s chef,not chief…you little cunt :laughing:[/quote]

That’s real life in Taiwan … welcome … that’s why I closed my place.

You really need to be lucky to find and gather a good team and be able to keep them … for me it’s been impossible as I even wasn’t in a big city. It drains on the working hours and finances and affects your QC, just read the couple of last posts in the JB’s thread than you know. It just eats you alive when you are not the mamahuhu (a so-so) person.

As for China I guess it will be about the same but have no experience just guessing, HK is probably different but can be hard too, they had a little more foreigners staying there over the years and the big places are mostly more professional than in Taiwan. A friend of mine a Belgian chef did run a restaurant for a while 2-3 years or so and he was quite satisfied, but finally he left and went to Malaysia, KL to start in a Merriot hotel as a Chef the cuisine, left after they offered him the Exec. chef position in a Boutique resort hotel in Thailand.

I guess you need to be lucky in Asia to meet the right people to put on your staff.

I know of a Belgian couple that opene a bakery/restaurant somewhere around Shanghai and they are doing pretty well, deliver to hotels etc … another Belgian Chef has a place in Bejing for many years now and is doing well too …

I could try to get hold of there contacts if needed …

I think if you really want to succeed in Taiwan/Asia you can not rely on locals solely, you need another foreigner backing you up all the way, share the burden. Even in a ‘high end’ restaurant or hotel owned and run by locals won’t help much as there definitely differences in viewpoints, things they don’t understand and things you don’t understand and having a language barrier certenly doesn’t help. Having loads of money helps of course.

6

Excuse me for replying to myself …

The thing you need to understand in Taiwan/ Asia is that most employees depend on the boss to tell them what to do, they don’t take initiative … and the ones that do are the ones that will leave the moment they have gathered experience and move on to another place to get a higher paycheck and learn more there to eventually start their own place and probably fail after 3-6 months. Some will get lucky and succeed.

Another thing, for chefs you need to know is that most cooks have absolutely no understanding of use of herbs and spices, flavours in western food … they don’t care to learn. Their goal is to learn as many recipes from memory and will prepare them flawless if taught well, but that’s it … they know what they know and have no need for experimenting and trying to make something unique. They are robots. But the ones that are eager to learn and note down everything you say and do … you’ll lose.

That’s probably part of being boss in Taiwan, you have to coop with it or just forget of of owning/running a business here, any business … but as work is hard in a kitchen it will make it even harder here.

7

thankyou all,not very positive feedback about the mainland but now at least i know where i stand.
i’m glad too to hear of similar experiences to mine,there are times where you question yourself in regards to what’s going on around.
the learning curve was very good though,i’m definately stronger in many aspects now.

damn BP,it’s as if you were in my shoes…
the main obstacle was to push some western work/attitude/idea in a place ran by locals,many of whom have not had any experience abroad,i’m told the place where i am now was running at full capacity and smoothly when all the heads of dept were foreigners…says it all.

i’ll contact you if ever i need to get in touch with some of your aquaintances.

8

I’ve been there and know exactly what you go through although I had my own place … most businesses in the field of hospitality go downhill the moment the foreigners leave …

When they start they want a ‘western’ place but after a while they go back to their old way of dealing with things …

Staff turnover in Taiwan is fenomenal …

BTW, I thought you had a two year contract …