Working in China

I read that a Taiwanese essentially have open work rights in China. All we need is the new form of Taibaozheng.

So I wonder, compared to Taiwan, China must have much better opportunities right? I find work opportunities to be rather limited in Taiwan, not to mention pay is just as low as they can get away with (basically whether it’s factory work, construction, or retail all pay nearly the same hourly rate, which is around 150-170nt an hour). Plus I feel since China is such a large country, there are places I can choose that isn’t miserably hot and humid most the time…

Has anyone had experience with working in China? Do you think someone like me might find more opportunities there? America doesn’t want me and it seems China’s doors are more or less open to Taiwanese.

My big issue is the fact that internet isn’t completely open and that I’m afraid I’ll end up saying something that could get me locked up in some education camp.

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one thing I thought is working as a foreigner in China may be different from working as a Taiwanese.

There are many articles on Taiwanese working in China.

台人陸漂薪水多1.72倍?前輩揭「3風險」勸別衝動

https://www.blink.com.tw/board/post/13881/

https://group.dailyview.tw/article/detail/1431

There certainly are, but cities with mild weather most of the year can still be quite hot in summer, and if you’re not far north enough to get indoor heating, you may find the cold in winter just as bad. I assume more buildings are heated these days, but the traditional solution is “wear more clothes”. :cold_face:

You can buy plug-in Dimplex or such oil heaters if your house in Heilongjiang has no heat

if you are a skilled professional, you can make more money in China. The market is bigger and there are more opportunities. since it’s also much much bigger than taiwan, there will be more competition for open positions.
for unskilled labor (e.g. construction , retail etc.) this move makes no sense. they have enough of those of their own.

That’s the thing, I’m sure I qualify for a bunch of skilled factory work, but in Taiwan they pay exactly the same as unskilled work (which makes me wonder what’s the point of learning skills here in Taiwan?). Not to mention from the sites I read China actually has stronger labor protection than Taiwan. Taiwan’s labor “protection” are just window dressing, the moment you try to use it the government will do little to nothing and you’ll be out of work forever as bosses will tell other bosses about you having the audacity to report them for labor law violations.

Problem is, how do I show them I have skills? I didn’t exactly go to school for making guitars or woodworking. I learned them on the job.

I would not move to China to be a factory worker. I think it might be even worse than Taiwan.

if you want to stay in the guitar making / wood work field, a starting point might be a job bank, try and see if there are any positions in your field and what are the required requirements. it should give you a feel if this is worth it or not.

if you want to “upgrade” yourself, you need to look for a place where your skills are scarce and in high demand, to be honest, i dont think China fits that criteria.

you might have better luck in a developing country that needs people with your skills and doesnt have local supply of candidates

What sites are you reading??

Job banks are non starter. Vast majority of the jobs are sales related.

in this case, its a sign that crafting and making skills are not in demand at the moment in China.

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I never looked at China’s job bank. I looked in Taiwan and most jobs are sales related, ones on the job banks that is. I refuse to believe that crafting is not in demand considering that damn near EVERYthing is made in China. They have handcrafted violins out of China too (and they are not cheap either).

I heard that most jobs aren’t advertised at job banks. Job banks are basically only for jobs that they would hire almost anyone on a trial basis and eliminate them as they progress. Basically sales jobs. They say you have to know people to find jobs there because if they’re looking for craftsman (for example) they have other means to advertise them other than job banks.

the matter is whether there is a shortage of craftsmen, and if you know a right person.

this kind of thing?

吉他製作大賽
https://kknews.cc/news/95m8ab8.html

American here, married to TW, but I can speak on TW vs China since I was the manager of a Beijing office, spent summers in China, lived in HK and spent a lot of time in Shenzhen and I have taught at universities in China for 8 years because I teach lawyers who are coming to America to get their Masters (I get paid by US law schools to teach intro courses in China). Listen: You don’t want to go there. Period. End of Story. The food is inedible, the atmosphere is polluted, if you teach they will send CCP members to attend your classes or watch you, the internet is down unless you use VPN and they can bring that down too. The Chinese get upset at the slightest possible insult yet the feel free to insult America non-stop. Some individual people are nice, the very top .001% who want to leave, the rest are brainwashed robots. You’re better off in Kazakhstan, literally, I go there as well to teach.

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I met some Chinese guys in immigration who paid a smuggler to get him a visa to Mexico, then he would jump the fence. He got caught unfortunately.

He sounded really brainwashed about China, like everything in China is great, has a good job earning him over 10,000RMB a month, a house, car, etc. yet he chooses to jump over the fence to America. Could never understand why. He said he do it for money because he could work 12 hours a day doing illegal work for Chinese restaurants (fact: lots of the waiters there are illegal Chinese). I ask him why give up a good job to basically be slaves, and he said he gets bragging rights and wants to somehow send his kids to study in America.

America almost never gives visas to Chinese, in fact embassies in some province essentially deny 99.9% of all applications. You can’t go apply at different embassies by the way. They will not accept your application if your houkou is from other province.

almost never gives visas except for the 350,000 chinese students :slight_smile:

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There is the 2019 report for immigrant visas. Looks like the top three Asian countries are Vietnam, at 32,000 China and phillipines at about 27,000 immigrant visas each.

For non immigrant visas I think China is second globally behind Mexico and has over a million visas issued in 2019

That’s because China is a huge country but per capita they gave fewer visas. Just like why is most illegal aliens Mexicans even though they issue more visas to Mexicans? Would they immigrate illegally if they could show up at the border and apply for visas on the spot? Almost no Canadians are illegal immigrants in America because the option for visas are much greater for them than Mexicans.

Also those Chinese who cross over illegally pays huge sums of money to do so. Why would they do that if they could just get visas?

Before you think Canadians don’t need to come over illegally, think again. Canada is hugely dependent on America. 80% of their population lives within 100 miles of the border tells you something.

China has two or three times the number of non immigrant visas as the entire continent of Africa.

The numbers are also comparable to regions like"Europe" and “South America”

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It tells me for one thing that Canada’s north is bloody cold. But I support your point on visas per capita. If my country has 100 citizens and the us gives 99 of them a visa then the actual number is very low compared to other countries but the percentage is high.