This Month, GOOD Magazine has put together a China issue where they have profiled a number of expatriates living in China in their article Strangers in a Strange Land.

Having done our own series on Halfpats before, there are a lot of things that come through in this article about the future of expatriate professionals in China. They are young, language capable, culturally open, and are willing to get paid less than the US poverty line for their chance.

Their role in China’s pool of human resources is growing, and their stories are interesting.

Best quotes:

Mojo - A Chinese girl was walking past me and muttered a strangely straightforward phrase in Chinese: “Wow, there are a lot of black people in this country now.” So I turned around and yelled back to her “Yeah, there are a lot of black people in this country now … and they speak Chinese, too.”

Sherry - “I’m too smart to be paid by the hour.” So I moved to China to earn less than someone living below the poverty level in the U.S.

Mike - You can’t study animals at the zoo; you gotta come to the jungle.

Dan - My wife and I have a standard response when people ask us how long we plan on staying here: indefinitely, but not permanently.

John - We can learn a lot from the level at which they revere an education. I would never wish the Chinese student life upon anyone (way too much pressure and stress) but I respect the ones who make it through.

Lisa - I have almost zero interaction with expats. They live in their high-walled wealthy suburban ghettos, I live in China; the two rarely interact.

Jon - Whenever people hype China, remember that China is still two-thirds farmers. That means there are roughly 800 million farmers here. That is the real China. Even I don’t go to those places.

for more on Halfpats, feel free to peruse the profiles or the white paper Halfpats: The New Expatriates I wrote about 18 months ago. Halfpats are the future of expatriate professionals in China, so I encourage anyone who is a hiring manager to learn about us.

Originally hailing from Turkey, Devrim came to Shangahi via Phoenix and New York and has been in town for the last 2 years with a global logistics company (current assignment opening branch in Urumqi). Right now, the plan is for another 2 years, but his relationship with China has been “Love - Hate”, so sounds like anything is possible,

An active member of the AIESEC , Devrim is well traveled (over 50 countries under his belt), and was dropped into China with a corporate parachute

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Brian has spent the last seven years in China, and is currently the Managing Partner of the Executive Search Group Orion China

Originally coming to China for business opportunities, he sees no end in sight to his stay in China… Defaintely a good sign for his business. He already has a significant amount of experience (10+ Years), and decided to take the leap without a parachute.

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With 1.3 billion people in China, it is hard to imagine that there could ever be a shortage of labor in China. just think about that… 1.3 billion people.

How can you run out of people?

Well, for some industries, finding people is becoming a huge problem, and more and more I am being exposed to this. To be honest, if you had asked me 6 months ago if there would be ever be a shortage of labor in China.. I would have laughed. Middle managers sure… but labor?

However, over the last year there have been signs of this, and it was in a place I never thought I would find it, and it wasn’t until this weekend that I recognized that the canary in the mine was on a respirator…

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Originally hailing from Sydney Australian, Kimberly has spent the last five year in Hangzhou (studying) and Shanghai (working), and recently took a new job with an event management firm (Account Manager).

Another member of the ORIENTED crew, she originally came to China as part of a language & culture university program, she came back looking for work and adventure (She jumped without a parachute)

Getting involved with organizations like ORIENTED early, Kimberly’s first jobs in Shanghai were in interior design, trade, and events management. Continue reading »

For Oki, life in Amsterdam just wasn’t exciting enough, and the lure of studying Kung Fu was the initial draw to China.

Instead of taking the expat route and finding a company that would send him over, he originally was set to take the plunge to further his study of Kung Fu… but as luck would have it, nailed down an assignment with a Dutch architect firm in Shanghai

Now., after 2+ years in China he is now working on his first start up - AMOD Continue reading »

Originally from China, Lauren Kwan recently left China after 2 years in Shanghai.

A graduate of Harvard (Major in East Asian Studies), living and working in China was “just something I knew I wanted to do in my lifetime, so I made it happen”

Instead of taking the expat route and finding a company that would send her over, she took the plunge and moved to Shanghai on her own.

Getting involved with organizations like ORIENTED early, Lauren worked for a large PR/ Media firm before returning to the States to focus on her new project.

She is now working on a startup company and is traversing the Pacific once a quarter to work with the Shanghai based co founder and team.

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