Expats in China: Three-Quarters Male and Illiterate

@The Equalizer: your summation of the expat scene is a bit outdated, or at a very minimum, still relevant but far less widespread they you purport. I know mountains and mountains of foreigners that don't live the life you seem to suggest an overwhelming of we expats are living. There is a great flattening of the differences that used to exist between foreign nations and China. China has been open to the outside for decades now; they're leading or exceeding in several categories. Companies are finding they're not having to work as hard by offering all of the things you mentioned in order to send foreigners here; Chinese companies are not having to work as much to provide all those benefits to attract. Yes, such "packages" still exist, but are found far less common than in years past. Also, to suggest that expats are working "crazy hours" and on a plane all the time conducting major business and generally too busy to learn Mandarin is way off base. If what you said was true, you wouldn't see mountains of laowai enjoying happy hour, filling up bars until wee hours of the morn and spending so much time socializing (i.e., activities which they have time to devote to and choose to spend doing that, instead of, oh, say, learning Mandarin). Yes, there are some who do truly live a life committed to the firm that sent/brought them here, but there are oodles and oodles for which that is not the case. There are several older foreigners (non-diplomats) who have even brought their entire family here, whereas in the past one of the spouses may have done a short-term assignment and a lot of back and forth because one of the spouses thought it wasn't conducive to their livelihood.

I want to tell you something , but dont know how to tell you

cdn_china pretty much summed it up. English is not my first language, not even my second language actually. I work somewhat long hours and to this day could not really bothered with learning a really difficult language with a very questionable ROI.

I'm not an exec or a renowned industry expert by a fair margin, but still get a lot of work done that Chinese managers struggle with, and have assistants, translators and interpreters support me where needed. To acquire good enough Chinese to replace them in any of these tasks would require years of full-time study, not something I or anyone else with a career could possibly afford. I fully appreciate the difficulty of good interpretation and translation, and would never task a foreigner with 'ok' Chinese to do that, nor would I hire a recent Chinese grad who doesn't know our company to do that work. So again, terrible ROI for expats.

I sometimes read and contribute on a Chinese language learning forum and there the verdict is clear: it does not pay financially to learn Chinese, full stop.

I still hope to improve my Chinese, as it would certainly benefit my social interaction with the locals and make my life in general a bit easier, but if I knew I'm leaving in a few month I wouldn't bother at all.

Again, there is nothing inherently wrong with taking the time and making the effort to learn Chinese, but one's Return on Investment (ROI) is questionable, especially for professionals and executives. I seriously doubt there is much value for the majority of professional expats. This "China is hot" situation is a remake of the Japan Inc. of the 1980s when Westerners were scrambling to learn Japanese. Time has shown that those folks' ROI has been much, much less than hoped. I'd argue the same will happen with the Chinese language, as there is quite limited value with the Chinese language outside of China.

I suggest that for the vast majority of expat professionals, basic day to day Chinese is more than enough. When requiring language abilities beyond a basic level, one only needs to use the assistance of a competent Chinese translator. As an analogy, it is MUCH easier (and wiser) to have a nice meal at a good restaurant, prepared by a competent chef, than to try and learn how to make such fine cooking yourself. At home, day to day, bacon & eggs, soup and sandwiches suffice.

Again, kudos to those who are attemtping to master the Chinese language. But how many native English speakers have you met who struggle to communicate properly in even basic English? We all know that literacy in the West is a serious problem. And if they can't communicate properly in English, how well do you think they communicate in Chinese? I suspect that most Westerners who try to show off their Chinese language abilities are speaking Chinese gibberish.

The language question I would have for most Americans, aside from English, is how well do they speak Spanish? Or for Canadians, how well do they speak French? And so on. The "Speak Chinese damn it!" attitude is remarkably similar to the "Speak English!" redneck attitude in the West. These types of China Daily articles, and secondary hyperbole by other publications, is nothing more than redneck-edness with Chinese characteristics. As noted by an earlier commenter, I most probably wouldn't want to communicate with individuals of that ilk.

My vote is - basic Chinese that allows one to survive is more than enough.

Mtnerror, I don't see how the foreign population at large and the foreign professional population differs significantly, except for students. What other population segments are there? Retirees?

As for Cdn_China and the other "I don't need to speak Chinese" guy, if you're working at the highest level of whatever your respective industries are, that's great, but otherwise, I really don't see how not speaking Chinese is an advantage. Daily life here is so much easier with some knowledge. Also, I have to wonder -- if you don't speak the language, aren't there better places to do what you do than Beijing?

English is the international language of business and almost all professions. This will not change. Despite China's best efforts at promoting the language, Chinese will never become any form of a standardized international language. The written form of Chinese will never be adopted.

In almost all professions, I fail to see the value of learning Chinese (a very difficult language to master), relative to hiring a professional translator. Functioning day-to-day with very basic Chinese is fine for the vast majority of foreign professionals..

Kudos to those who have the time and made the effort to function in semi-literate Chinese, but I have never seen any example of it being useful in Western business or professions. It is more of a party trick to impress friends / colleagues.

Actually, I would encourage more Westerners to learn proper English before focusing on Chinese.