Oh, I see
I've been mistaken for a long time.

I'd love to live in HK, we tried to find a job there, but things are not very good at the moment, Chinesse people are happy with salaries much lower than ours, and we can't speak Chinesse. Nobody replied to our emails. :(
(Aberracion Life's getting very complicated, but a lot of fun., Wed 20 Oct 2010, 10:22, 2 replies, latest was 15 years ago)

Apartments are very expensive. Live on HK rather than Kowloon. I lived in Happy Valley which I really liked, however the mid levels and Stanley are nice too. Avoid living in Wanchai.
(lkjshaglkasjdhglkhjz lkcvl; g;aodh;owih, Wed 20 Oct 2010, 10:25, Reply)

Yep
I still need to find a job there before I start thinking where to live.
(Aberracion Life's getting very complicated, but a lot of fun., Wed 20 Oct 2010, 10:32, Reply)

You don't need to speak Chinese though so don't let that put you off.
I am sure there are specialist recruitment companies in the UK that handle jobs in Asia.
(lkjshaglkasjdhglkhjz lkcvl; g;aodh;owih, Wed 20 Oct 2010, 10:34, Reply)

Yes, we contacted a few
We've been told that with the crisis as it is there's no way they'll be paying European salaries to work there; and even if we go for a good cut, they'd probably won't pay for flat and expenses either. We've been recommended to keep our jobs here and wait a year or so and then try again. In the meantime we're learning Mandarin (I know they do Cantonese, but we don't mind working anywhere in China, so Mandarin seems better)
(Aberracion Life's getting very complicated, but a lot of fun., Wed 20 Oct 2010, 10:37, Reply)

Oh dear. What about Japan? A lot of people go over to Japan so the language must be less of a barrier

( Kitty v1.0 desperately naive, Wed 20 Oct 2010, 10:26, Reply)

Japanesse work too hard
I'm not up to 12h/day, 6day/week working time.

Mark was working there for a while too, and it was very "funny". They are very misoginist (?) and don't accept women can work like man. He was there with a female collegue; Mark was doing one bit of the job and she was doing the other. When she'd send documents for the client to review, they'd come back with the comments to Mark, and tried for him to explain what it meant, ignoring the woman completely. Same for team buildings and going out.
(Aberracion Life's getting very complicated, but a lot of fun., Wed 20 Oct 2010, 10:35, Reply)

The Japanese are fuckers to do business with - almost as bad as negotiating with the French.

(lkjshaglkasjdhglkhjz lkcvl; g;aodh;owih, Wed 20 Oct 2010, 10:39, Reply)

that sounds pretty sucky!
I'd always wanted to visit Japan, but that was mainly because I heard that they have gin and tonic vending machines.
( Kitty v1.0 desperately naive, Wed 20 Oct 2010, 10:40, Reply)

I guess it depends what you go there to do
I know a few people who've gone there teaching English and some who've gone there on fellowships to do research and none of them really had difficulties with language. Although as Aberaccion said, in business they are extremely sensitive to hierarchy and the highest position Japanese women usually attain is either an air hostess or an office lady (administrator).
(Zoz prayed for twink on, Wed 20 Oct 2010, 10:49, Reply)