That Jump from Teaching to Something Else

Hi
I’ve been living in Taiwan for a couple of years and I love it, but it’s never been my intention to teach English for a career. I didn’t expect to stay so long here, but things just happened, and I find myself very happy here now. The main problem for me is the uncertainty of not having a more stable career. I have a degree, in a business field, and a couple of years experience in a big bank who actually have a presence in Taipei also. I came here as a sort of career break - but then things really changed in the economy at home, so I decided to stay here.
Does anyone know if it’s realistic for me to pursue a job with any of the banks here? I can’t speak Chinese which I regret. But I wonder, if having a degree and a couple of years experience with a major bank could help me get in to a bank here. I would appreciate any advice. Thanks guys.

Well, first, congrats on being smitten with Taiwan! It’s not perfect, but it’s a lot better than some places I’ve been to.

I guess it depends on the exact nature of your experience, but not speaking Chinese is probably going to be a handicap; also, you’re not likely to earn much. I have a friend who works in a big multinational bank in a middle-manager position and she earns about US$2000 a month. That’s a good salary.

Most foreigners here just start their own business if they have a skill other than teaching. I’m planning to do that myself very soon. Apparently it’s not too difficult as long as you have an accountant to handle the convoluted tax and reporting requirements. Taiwan has a serious skill shortage in several areas, especially in engineering, design, architecture, and advertising/PR (basically, anything creative) so foreigners with that kind of experience do very well indeed.

How about spending a year or two learning Chinese? My Chinese is pretty poor - I only spent 8 months at school and I’ve got badly out of practice - but it’s not a difficult language and obviously worth the effort if you’ve decided to stay. Two years full time study is enough to get very fluent.

In the interest of providing the OP with the best advice available, could you possibly share your resource on that statement??

As with many things, there’s a big difference between “They don’t have that here” and “A guy could make a killing providing that here”.
Whether you’re talking about Taco Bell, quality television, or correct English in public sector media, if it doesn’t exist here, odds are astronomically in favour of nobody wanting it or considering it worth spending money on.
One should strenuously avoid falling into the trap of assuming they are the first dude ever to notice that there isn’t/aren’t any (blank) in Taiwan.

Statements like:

Are pretty hard to float, considering:
-global super-firms like Leo Burnett, Ogilvy & Mather, and many other major PR & advertising industry players have a huge and well-established presence here
-you practically can’t spit without hitting a small Ma & Pa design house here, if you look for a second at the obscene amounts of print media produced here every day, it’s hardly reasonable to cite a shortage of design capability
-engineering and architecture?? That must be why there’s never any construction going on… :loco:

Now, if you’d like to talk about quality, that’s another cup of meat entirely, although what you consider “quality” is probably more along the lines of “the way they do it where I come from”. Please note the significant difference between the two.
But it still doesn’t directly translate into a burning opportunity for something different.

And even if one does manage to identify a legitimate niche/market and accomplish all that’s required to provide what’s “needed” in that market, as in the hospitality and other industries, it’s still highly unlikely that one will be willing/able to provide one’s (goods/services) at a competitive price.
You think you can compete with the locals?
Call us when you’re supporting a family of 5 on NT$17000 a month.
That’ll be a start.

Highly doubtful you can get a job at a bank here without speaking fluent Chinese. I imagine all the big banks just send their people from overseas over here when they need something. Also the pay will be a pittance. Every MBA student I’ve known here has searched high and low for a job after graduation, only to return to teaching English. If you plan on staying here, engineering or teaching are the only jobs that you can get by on without fluency in Chinese. Or you can learn to cook and open a restaurant. That seems to be the popular thing to do with the oldies here in Taiwan.

Or open your own company for Import/Export to your home country, it seems that a few forginers do that too.

As someone who does work in a creative field, I can tell you that if you rely on the local marketplace you’ll be taking a big pay cut compared to teaching. And working a lot more hours.

Listen to Yoda.

[quote=“purewater”]Hi
I’ve been living in Taiwan for a couple of years and I love it, but it’s never been my intention to teach English for a career. I didn’t expect to stay so long here, but things just happened, and I find myself very happy here now. The main problem for me is the uncertainty of not having a more stable career. I have a degree, in a business field, and a couple of years experience in a big bank who actually have a presence in Taipei also. I came here as a sort of career break - but then things really changed in the economy at home, so I decided to stay here.
Does anyone know if it’s realistic for me to pursue a job with any of the banks here? I can’t speak Chinese which I regret. But I wonder, if having a degree and a couple of years experience with a major bank could help me get in to a bank here. I would appreciate any advice. Thanks guys.[/quote]

I’m in the same boat. I work for a multinational insurance company (but not Taiwan) and when I took a one year career break, I hit up all the insurance companies in Taipei, and none seemed interested. I have the experience and skills, but probably feel I would want too much money, and so don’t even give it a second thought.

On the other hand, I just posted my resume on 104, so I will continue to review my options.

I can speak Mandarin to a basic level but perhaps not enough for what they want.

[quote=“dan2006”][quote=“purewater”]Hi
I’ve been living in Taiwan for a couple of years and I love it, but it’s never been my intention to teach English for a career. I didn’t expect to stay so long here, but things just happened, and I find myself very happy here now. The main problem for me is the uncertainty of not having a more stable career. I have a degree, in a business field, and a couple of years experience in a big bank who actually have a presence in Taipei also. I came here as a sort of career break - but then things really changed in the economy at home, so I decided to stay here.
Does anyone know if it’s realistic for me to pursue a job with any of the banks here? I can’t speak Chinese which I regret. But I wonder, if having a degree and a couple of years experience with a major bank could help me get in to a bank here. I would appreciate any advice. Thanks guys.[/quote]

I’m in the same boat. I work for a multinational insurance company (but not Taiwan) and when I took a one year career break, I hit up all the insurance companies in Taipei, and none seemed interested. I have the experience and skills, but probably feel I would want too much money, and so don’t even give it a second thought.

On the other hand, I just posted my resume on 104, so I will continue to review my options.

I can speak Mandarin to a basic level but perhaps not enough for what they want.[/quote]

I think the point you need to appreciate here is that, in most cases, and I’m not meaning to slag you off here, seriously, you are not perceived as having any significant value-add.
In fact, being a foreigner is a serious liability, since most people in the office will be nervous about or unwilling to deal with you (irrespective of language skill, for the most part), and managing you presents an added layer of difficulty.
So, even if you were willing to come on board for local $, you still represent a significantly higher headache potential for management than a local.
Which is why, at the end of the day, whether one has an engineering degree, an MBA, or a freaking PhD, the only real need you’ll be seen to potentially meet is going to be language-based.
Accordingly, most western engineers here, if they can get a gig, end up being little more than technical writers/editors.
At considerably lower pay than they would make teaching.

Just my personal experience over the last 10 years. And the government’s tentative and occasional attempts to attract foreign talent in those areas.

Oh, absolutely. One of the reasons they have those skill shortages is that most companies here see no need for them. I wouldn’t say “therefore” nobody bothers to become good at them, but there’s definitely a circular cause/effect thing going on there. However: there are a few companies here that compete internationally and they hire top-notch foreign talent to help them do it. The qualifier is “top-notch”. Obviously, you’re not going to get a fancy job just by virtue of being a foreigner (although when I was in China a few months back, I read an article in the local newspaper that described exactly that phenomenon … as usual, more interesting opportunities in China!)

[quote=“the chief”]Whether you’re talking about Taco Bell, quality television, or correct English in public sector media, if it doesn’t exist here, odds are astronomically in favour of nobody wanting it or considering it worth spending money on.
One should strenuously avoid falling into the trap of assuming they are the first dude ever to notice that there isn’t/aren’t any (blank) in Taiwan.[/quote]
Well, of course you have to know the difference between stuff that people simply wouldn’t want (like Taco Bell :wink: ) and stuff they can’t get but might easily be persuaded to buy (like organic food).

[quote=“the chief”]Statements like:

Are pretty hard to float, considering:
-global super-firms like Leo Burnett, Ogilvy & Mather, and many other major PR & advertising industry players have a huge and well-established presence here
-you practically can’t spit without hitting a small Ma & Pa design house here, if you look for a second at the obscene amounts of print media produced here every day, it’s hardly reasonable to cite a shortage of design capability
-engineering and architecture?? That must be why there’s never any construction going on… :loco: [/quote]

  • I’m not saying there is zero local talent; just a shortage of it. Therefore a talented foreigner has an opportunity in those particular fields and can command a high salary. I’m also willing to bet that those multinationals hire a good few foreigners, although I admit I haven’t been there to check.

  • There’s a world of difference between designing a flyer for the local 拉麵 shop and designing a brochure for Cartier. I’ve worked with the most “ordinary” industrial and graphic designers in the UK whose creative output regularly blew me away. I have yet to see that kind of talent in Taiwan. But I was thinking more of engineering design: I’ve worked with many engineers here and interviewed several for jobs. In the latter case, I was absolutely astounded at their lack of knowledge and interest in their subject. Sure, you get mouth-breathers everywhere, but I was truly shocked at the low calibre on the Taiwan job market; and I’m talking about men in their late 20s, not raw college graduates.

  • Any idiot can pull up a spreadsheet and calculate the required amount of concrete-pouring for a standard slab-construction highrise. Any idiot is usually the one in charge, judging by the large cracks appearing in the walls of my brand-new apartment. And the architects are usually foreign. I remember seeing in a (Taiwanese) magazine some foreign architect quoted as saying that he didn’t know which buildings in Taipei were his anymore: he’d done that many of them, and they were all exactly the same.

I beg to differ. While there are judgement calls in engineering, there are definite right and wrong ways to do things. Bad engineering is not engineering: it’s bodgery. See the thread about the guy with electrical problems and the remark about wires being held together with PVC tape. We use proper cable terminations and connectors in ‘the west’ because it’s safe, cheap and effective. Using PVC tape is not “the way they do things here”: it’s just f-ing stupid, especially with the low-voltage, high-current systems used domestically in Taiwan.

I have another example right here on my desk right now, although it’s a rather esoteric one. I have a data sheet for an LCD panel made by CPT (big, venerable manufacturer). The cable carries twenty-five high speed signals. There is only ONE digital ground return for those pins, and it’s not even close to the signal pins. There is therefore a whole bunch of big current loops carrying pseudo-random pulses, which radiates noise better than Lady Gaga. It also creates signal integrity issues. The usual method is to place a ground return near every one or two signal lines (every four at the most). This is basic stuff. It’s not “the way we do things”. It’s physics. If there are any other electronics guys here, they’ll know what I’m talking about; but the point is CPT should not be getting stuff like that wrong.

And another, while I’m in the mood for a rant. Ever noticed how most MRT stations have no provision for flow-through traffic or short-term parking? People drop off and pick up all the time - of course they do, it’s an MRT - but because there’s nowhere for them to stop, they block the road and the bus lanes. At my particular MRT there’s a completely non-functional 10-metre sidewalk in front of the station which could have been easily partitioned into a road and a sidewalk. But they didn’t, because the designer was no good at his job - or possibly because the manager was no good at his job and told the designer it would be ‘too expensive’: better to let the general public deal with a large negative externality rather than pay a much smaller amount up-front.

[quote=“the chief”]But it still doesn’t directly translate into a burning opportunity for something different.
And even if one does manage to identify a legitimate niche/market and accomplish all that’s required to provide what’s “needed” in that market, as in the hospitality and other industries, it’s still highly unlikely that one will be willing/able to provide one’s (goods/services) at a competitive price.
You think you can compete with the locals?
Call us when you’re supporting a family of 5 on NT$17000 a month.
That’ll be a start.[/quote]
‘Competitive’ means you deliver more value to your employer than you draw out in salary. Some companies (admittedly only a few) have good managers who recognise this. Most have poor managers who think that paying their people as little as possible and getting virtually nothing out is good business sense. That’s why they remain ten-employee non-entities. Example from my field: Johnson sports equipment. I visited their factory 10 years ago. They were a disgrace. Shortly after that, they hired some talented managers - and a bunch of foreigners - and they are now no.4 in the world fitness industry. How much do you think they paid in salaries to achieve that? I bet it wasn’t NT$17000 a month. My experience here is that people are paid NT$17000 because they can’t deliver more value than that. I’ve also met (local) engineers who are extremely talented and command much higher salaries - because they’re in short supply.

Thank you. You may have just given me a solution to a problem I’m having at work (I have a mechanical background and know nothing about electronics).

The rest of your post consists of a lot of sense and touches on just the kind of things that piss me off. Well said!

This is a great thread; it shook some things loose for me.

finley’s posts made a lot of sense and were very informative. However they don’t apply well to me since I have no technological or graphic knowledge, skill, or ability. In fact, I’m a spatial dumba**. Complete turnip in that regard. :frowning: Still, finley’s posts covered something I had no idea about, and opened my eyes a little (to the extent that they can be opened).

I think maybe the chief’s stuff applies to me better, though, because whatever little knowledge I have involves words (and even that knowledge has gone somewhat to rust over the years), so that kind of puts me at the low end of the totem pole here.

But I haven’t given up just yet on finding another kind of gig. I think somebody on the thread (sorry for forgetting who it was [color=#4000FF][Edit: it was the OP! Sorry, purewater!][/color]) mentioned getting OK with working in the English field but being concerned about financial stability and security. That’s about where I’m at right now.

I wouldn’t mind at all if this thread continued awhile, because I’m learning stuff from it.

There are many talented designers in Taiwan, they simply design for the culture around them. They are not inherently more or less talented than UK designers. Walk into one of those local chain bookstores, look at all the little toys and gadgets and DIY gifts…most if not all were designed by local Taiwanese.
The government DOES hire foreigners who can help out in various sectors, in fact I was one of those. I didn’t last long because it would have a long lonely furrow to plough being the only foreigner in the department. Plus I’m not used to working with no clear job description. They like to hire people who have been in Taiwan a while and know the environment here and there are plenty of foreigners working for various ministries and government associated bodies/companies. They even pay fairly well, at least by local standards.

Oh, I know … and I think they’re great. Of course they’re just as good as anyone else. Frankly we could do with more of that in England. We don’t have enough ‘cute’. I’m sure it would calm the chavs down if they could buy hoodies with impossibly cute pink cats on the back. I was just saying there are not so many, and there is a lot of wasted potential; and I’m generalising of course.

I do think there’s an underlying reason. I have a couple of acquaintances (in their 30s and 40s) who are talented artists. They became so by practising secretly in their spare time (what little they had), but mummy and daddy pushed them into being computer programmers (or whatever “well-paying” job was in vogue at the time), which meant they spent their formative years in buxibans half-asleep learning about stuff they didn’t care about in order to pass exams. In most other countries, good parents make some effort to find out what their offspring are good at and encourage them to run with it. Some of those kids become superstars in their field. Yes, there are always exceptions: I met one of Honda’s designers a while ago (Taiwanese guy - he’s actually left now to run his own design consultancy here), incredibly talented, although he was educated abroad and spent many years in Japan. They’re definitely out there. Just few and far between, that’s all.

This couldn’t be more wrong. I think the lack of foresight and good design is a function of the government and business culture, opposed to a lack of talent.

And good luck getting yourself professionally fluent in Chinese in two years :unamused: It normally takes people (with talent) around 10.

This was a great thread. I really enjoyed it.