Best job opportunities in China for expatriates?

[Long Zhiren]

ok. not necessarily an expatriate...

Anybody have some ideas of how my wife and I could get jobs in China for three to six months or so?

We're both US citizens and presently bored out of our skulls with our US jobs. We're looking for a change of "scenery," with something to do just long enough to get home sick and then return.

In case it matters, I am ethnically Chinese (mechanical engineer by trade); and my wife is ethnically German (IT professional). My Mandarin language skills are sufficient to get into lots of trouble. My wife's Mandarin language skills are not quite there yet.

For expatriates in China, what were your favorite means of finding temporal opportunities?

"Teaching English (or something else)" seems to be the most popular approach, but what else?

Thanks.

[mlomker]

Do you need the money? You could just travel or study Mandarin for a while. Signing up for 10 hrs/week at a private language school will get you an F-visa and six months to bum around.

Any work you get for such a short term (and without TEFL experience) is bound to be illegal/hourly work. I can't imagine what kind of IT or engineering work that you'd find on a short-term basis without language fluency...they have plenty of unemployed Chinese for that kind of work.

[Long Zhiren]

mlomker,

Thanks for the good input. Fortunately, we really don't need the money, but we also don't have money to burn. I'm too lazy to study anymore...but what private language schools can you recommend? My Chinese language abilities are quite good but my problem (for teaching) is that I'm ethnically Chinese (don't have the prototypical white person look). And from Bob501's thread, my chances of joining the PLA aren't too good.

http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/7137-im-irish-and-i-want-to-join-the-chinese-army-need-info-plz-help

My wife shouldn't have a problem getting a teaching opportunity, unless Mandarin language proficiency is required? She's the one who's rolling her eyes now that it would more likely be her that is working and not me. Perhaps I can find some volunteer opportunities?

Taiwan will probably be a better possibility for us to both get temporary positions. So for our unashamedly and purely selfish motivations , we're not interested in any nonpeaceful reunifications just yet.

Hong Kong would be possible too but that place would drive us both nuts in less than a week.

[mystico_tala]

You could check these sites and see if you find anything. Teaching is probably the easiest thing to do if you don't have a work visa though

http://beijing.asiaxpat.com/

http://www.thatsbj.com/index.php?

[self-taught-mba]

Look at the links section-living and working. I posted some more there and I think there are others

[Long Zhiren]

Look at the links section-living and working. I posted some more there and I think there are others

Would you be willing to provide more direction to these other links? Thanks.

In the meanwhile, I also discovered that China (and many other nations) is hiring foreign pilots.

"With Jobs Scarce, U.S. Pilots Sign On At Foreign Airlines" Wall Street Journal 5 May 2006.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114679336527844550.html?mod=yahoo_itp&ru=yahoo

[self-taught-mba]

Would you be willing to provide more direction to these other links? Thanks.

what do you mean?

[Long Zhiren]

what do you mean?

I haven't seen much. (some teaching/IT issues and remarks about companies getting burned by the high cost of employing foreigners who don't stick around for very long) Do you have something specific that you're thinking?

How about volunteer opportunities?

[self-taught-mba]

Maybe you are looking at a different part of the links section. I meant this part:

http://www.chinese-forums.com/links/showlink.php?do=showdetails&l=79&catid=11

these resources have many job listings.

[Long Zhiren]

very nice. Thank you.