Welcome to Level Up Laowai

Hello to friends and family from all over the world!

Level Up Laowai is a blog intended to provide guidance, based on my own experience, on a number of topics that affect foreigners in China, including;

• Learning Chinese
• Making friends in China
• Acquiring meaningful work 
• Advice on finding ESL jobs, gigs with multi-nationals, and/or advice on creating your own start-up
• Figuring out where to live in China
• Navigating the immigration process to and from China -- Both for US Citizen and Chinese nationals
• And many other topics...

While living in China can be an enriching, exciting professional and personal experience, it typically is not easy. Foreigners in China still comprise an extremely small percentage of the overall population (less than 1%). This means that when you are in China, you may be the first foreigner many people will ever meet. The flip side of this equation is that expats in China typically carry their own preconceived notions, often propagated by media sources, of what Chinese people are like. Add in the challenges of learning the Chinese language (which some say takes 10+ years) and bridging the vast cultural gap between Confucian and Western traditions, and you've got some serious challenges on your hands when you move to China. 

With this blog, I hope to give you some practical tips on how to make meaningful connections with Chinese people, Chinese culture, and the Chinese language. These come from my own set of experiences, so they are not the definitive answers to all of the issues you may encounter. I hope to hear from you on what works, what doesn't, and any other challenges you encounter.  

A bit about myself: 

I lived in China for about four years in total. Two of those years were in Sichuan province, with the Peace Corps, and the other two were in an MBA program at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. During those years, I spent countless hours learning Mandarin Chinese, trying to find a job in Asia, and generally trying to find my "place" in China as a laowai. I also was lucky enough to meet and eventually marry my wife, a woman from Chongqing whom I now live with in the United States. 

One of my passion's in life is connecting people of diverse cultures. Another is connecting people to knowledge. That's why I'm excited to share my experience in China with you. Please let me know if there are any topics you'd like me to address, as well!