Adventures of a Vagabond

Living in Beijing sometimes reminds me of staying in hostels. Every week, I somehow end up meeting new people that all start by asking the same questions.

“Hi, what’s your name?”

“What are you doing in China?”

When I mention I work at Microsoft here in Beijing, within five questions I’m inevitably asked, “so Microsoft sent you out here?” Occasionally, someone will just be the straight-shooter and ask, “are you on a package?”

Ah-ha. Ex-pat lingo. Let me talk about the three types of working ex-pats.

Working to Live – Most of my friends fall into this category. Typically these are people that love China or feel called to China and found some job to support their habit. They show up on tourist visas and look for work on the ground, usually teaching English. The work is technically under the table, so every few months a 3-4 day run out of China is needed to get a new tourist visa.

Transferred Professionals – This is the category I fall into. We’re a group that love China or feel called to China and created a win-win for ourselves by finding a job to advance our careers at the same time. We have residency, get paid in local currency, and pay taxes. The pay puts you squarely into the local middle class, though in absolute amounts you’d probably be making more back at home.

On Assignment – Ah yes. Highly coveted. People ‘on assignment’ are sent by their companies because of a specific need here on the ground. For Microsoft this means that the job found you and not the other way around. As you imagine, people in this category are senior and/or being groomed for a future position. Since these folks didn’t necessarily want to be in China, they get compensated appropriately. You get paid in $/£/€. You get a very generous housing allowance. The international schooling for your kids is paid for. You’ve got the retirement benefits of your home country and bulletproof health insurance. You get the driver. Sometimes you also get a hardship allowance and your spouse gets an allowance for his/her social activities. This is what it means to be ‘sent’ out here and be ‘on a package.’ It means bank.

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Answering clearly the ‘why are you here’ question is very important to me. Sadly, most of the time, this question isn’t so much getting to know who you are, but really just ascertaining your motive and/or social status. My replies are swift—no, I wanted to come and transferred out here; no, I’m not on a package.

Especially in Beijing, it’s easy not to live in China. With all the international-grade offerings of malls, housing, and restaurants, it’s easy to lead a life exclusively inside that international community and have the local communities, people, and culture just fade into the background. That’s not why I’m here. China’s grreeeat! I’m here to grow, here to see, and here to connect with China—as hard as that can be sometimes.