Learning Mandarin or look for a job?

When I arrived in china I was a "heavyweight" engineer with multiple degrees, thirty years of experience, multiple patents, and experience within china. Yet it took me about nine years until I was able to get back into my field. In the meantime, I did what ever I could to put food on the table and exist.

I worked as an English teacher, I ran Marketing departments, I set up businesses and failed. You do what you need to do.

Your life is yours. You can pursue an IT career, or you can find something else. You need to look deep into yourself and find out the answers. You will find out that working as a teacher in china will pay better than an IT specialist. If you want the money. If you want the experience as working IT in china, it will be a harder road to follow. You will need to "up your game".

[1] You will need to improve your Chinese skill.

[2] You will need to fully understand Chinese APPs and software.

[3] You will then need to market yourself to clients; and that means that you will need to map out a plan on how to find and then obtain clients.

Of the three tasks above, how far are you in accomplishing them? That will give you a situation analysis of where you are now, and what you will need to do to move forward. If each one can be rated 0 to 100, a perfect rating score would be 300.

You can judge where you are by this simple scale...

275 - 300  You will probably get a job or two in the next few weeks.
200 - 275  You need more work but you will possible be able to get work within the year.
100 - 200  You have a lot of work ahead of you, but it's not impossible. You need to work your plan.

<100 You haven't even started yet. Map out a plan. Set goals and guidelines and work your plan.

To survive in china, you need to work like you have never worked before. You will have to be aggressive, learn, make friends and contacts and constantly network with local Chinese. It seems insurmountable, but it isn't, it's just that china demands excellence. You are now on a playing field with very highly skilled local Chinese who are very aggressive and will best you unless you can offer something better.

Best Regards.