Work in Japan

Shepard do you teach English in China or do you do something else?  Sounds kind of interesting that you've heard stories of people moving from English teaching to another job (I have no idea how someone could jump across fields from teaching to another job without mastering the local language first... and even then how do they make the network conections).

I'm fine where I am in Canada with my current job but I always like to hear stories of how people manage as an expat in another country.

@bannie I don't know to be honest with you but when I was Japan I just didn't like it a lot. I didn't get the feeling I got in Hong Kong, Singapore, Vietnam or even China. I do admit that I felt like Osaka and Nagoya are much better than Tokyo. 

I can't explain why I just don't love Japan it's okay to visit but living there it just might be too much. Maybe it's that people are nice but very closed off except for a few people. Maybe it seems like it's more difficult to make friends I really can't explain it. I will add that my Japanese isn't very good and I haven't studied it in three years and when I was in Japan I would get confused and speak in Chinese a lot of the time. If I move there I might like it more I'm still thinking about doing at the end of 2019 or early 2020. 

 Knavery:

Shepard do you teach English in China or do you do something else?  Sounds kind of interesting that you've heard stories of people moving from English teaching to another job (I have no idea how someone could jump across fields from teaching to another job without mastering the local language first... and even then how do they make the network conections).

I'm fine where I am in Canada with my current job but I always like to hear stories of how people manage as an expat in another country.

Yeah my visa is for teaching English but I make more money from doing business and helping people with business. I also work for a company that helps Chinese people get US Visa's. I think in China you are pretty much stuck teaching English because I get the feeling if you are too successful in certain things it's not a good thing. 

My Chinese is okay but definitely not great but I can talk about about a lot of things and most people can understand what I'm saying. There are some Chinese people that have really bad Chinese maybe worse than my Chinese. I think if you want to switch to a non English teaching job then Hong Kong, Singapore, Vietnam, South Korea, and even Japan are better long term choices.

I suppose it also depends on the job too the economic situation in China is better in some ways than what you find in other parts of Asia. There's a lot of money and people want to buy food / products that they know are high quality. So if you can work with foreign companies to import in China you can do things with decent but not great Chinese. People in China especially Guangdong do have better English than other parts of Asia too (excluding ex British colonies).

It's pretty easy to make network connections in Guangzhou. I've met people in bars, clubs, even the hospital. One of my biggest contracts I got was from a guy I met standing in line at the hospital. In China networking is so easy there are so many business conferences for pretty much any product you can think of. Some people need you more than you need them.   

@shephard

danks for de response