Ask HN: Those who moved careers from the West to China, what's your experience?
NOTE: I wanted to say I spoke pretty good Mandarin before going to China the first time. I knew what I was getting into and really wanted to be there. If you appreciate Chinese culture and have studied a bit ignore everyone&#x27;s warnings - you&#x27;ll be fine.<p>I&#x27;m late and most of what I have to say has already been said, but I&#x27;m a bit of a different story, given as I&#x27;m Western but <i>started</i> my career in China. I&#x27;ve worked at a top 50 startup in Shanghai (Video++) and most recently at Alibaba. Given that I&#x27;m 22, and have spent the majority of my internship&#x2F;working career in China I&#x27;ll give my take:<p>- Living in China has been better than anywhere I&#x27;ve lived in the US (CT, NYC, ATL, SF). There&#x27;s abundant food that&#x27;s both very good, and very cheap (both relative and absolute).<p>- Not only is the food cheap, but healthy. Very little food is processed (most is prepared fresh) and everywhere I&#x27;ve worked we&#x27;ve had wonderful meal services that prepped healthy portions. I lost a ton of weight working there without even working out or changing my diet!<p>- Cell service is really, really good and affordable. However, internet service is quite bad and no amount of money can remedy this. At Alibaba, we had fibre laid in Hangzhou so this is the only time I&#x27;ve ever experience moderately fast connection speeds.<p>- GFW etc isn&#x27;t as bad as people make it out to be. Any reasonable company already has a proxy or VPN for you to use at work, and there are a number of good VPNs for personal use. I never felt I missed out on the Western web, only that it was a bit slower to connect (see above).<p>- Technology is abundant and fast-paced. You can rent umbrellas, bikes, phone batteries, etc. If you can think of it someone probably is working on the problem and you&#x27;ll experience things you&#x27;ve never seen before in the US.<p>- Pollution and noise are a problem but not terrible. You certainly adjust and you do have to make some concessions i.e. I never cycled while living in Shanghai, and sometimes wore a face mask on particularly bad days.<p>- Transit is much better. In Shanghai and Shenzhen, the subways are practically brand new. Not only is there cellular&#x2F;WIFi connectivity but they&#x27;re always on time and people queue very neatly for them. High-speed rail is ubiquitous and cheap. Didi is objectively worse than Uber though.<p>- The work environment is quite different:<p>1.  Management (where I&#x27;ve worked) has been practically non-existent as compared to the US. This might be because I do research, but I&#x27;ve never had a micromanager, or standups, etc.<p>2. Daily naps are a thing. Expect to find people taking an hour nap after eating lunch.<p>3. 996 is real. Most people at tech companies will work 9am-9pm 6 days&#x2F;week.<p>4. It is expected you basically live in the office. You&#x27;ll eat all 3 meals there, and spend a lot of time with your colleagues. Family time, and going home for dinner isn&#x27;t a thing like it is in the West.<p>I&#x27;m sure I&#x27;ve left a lot out, but the above has been my experience in China. I&#x27;m planning on taking a full-time offer that&#x27;ll put me back in China, and clearly, am biased as I think the quality of life is better there compared to the West.<p>Feel free to ask me any questions.