How I Quit Teaching English in China to Become a Translator

On a cold, wintry day in March of 2017, I decided that I was done teaching English in China.

I hung my head at the thought of what I was giving up: relatively few working hours for decent pay, plenty of holidays, a free studio apartment, and a paltry workload compared to other jobs in China. I was content with my job, and that’s probably the main reason I decided to leave. I was just that: content. And feeling content, especially at this point in my life, was dangerous. I have nothing against teaching as a profession, and nothing against all those certified, patient teachers out there who possess the know-how to drill some information into a child’s brain (morbid?). But I, as with many other English teachers in China, could not see a future in this job as it sets one up to be too comfortable, doesn’t offer enough support, and provides little room for career growth. In addition, if you’re someone who can easily adapt to the unpredictability of teaching children and living in China with few complaints, you can end up getting too used to it and end up wanting to stay an extra year or four, possibly to the detriment of other career plans.

What was I giving up?

Here is what I think were the most important things I was giving up when I decided that teaching was no longer my cup of tea:

Holidays galore: one week-long holiday per semester (there are two semesters per school year), time off during exams which happen mid- and end of each semester, a five to six week-long paid holiday during the winter break (sometime from mid-January to mid-February), and random one day holidays scattered throughout the year;

Free housing: other than paying bills (which only cost around $50-60 USD per month depending on how ridiculously high your building’s management fees are), the company (and most teaching companies in China) will provide a reasonable housing allowance to rent an apartment. Mine was 4000 RMB (about $650 USD per month, I negotiated this as I had been working with the company for over a year and took a small pay cut). My housing allowance was enough to completely cover my rent. All I had to do was pay the bills once a month;

20ish-hour work weeks: it depends on your school, but I was lucky enough to be working at a school that required me to be there only when I had to teach class, and where office hours were optional. Since I taught 12 forty-minute classes per week, and I had classes on only four days (Tuesday to Friday), I only had to physically be at my school about 20-something hours per week, plus I got Mondays off. Pretty nifty, eh?

A (sort of) light* workload: I put an asterisk there for a reason. Yes, I only had to prepare one forty-minute lesson per week that I would use for all 12 of my classes. Yes, sometimes lesson planning would be fairly easy. However, there are other times it would be stressful as hell, and I would stay up all night trying to create and/or improve upon my lesson for the week, hence the asterisk above. Trying to come up with engaging lessons that middle school students would find both interesting and somewhat educational could more than often take its toll on my mind, body, and spirit. Should I add a game? Have I included enough jokes and video clips? Do they know who freakin’ Beyonce is (they’d better!)? So yes, sometimes my workload would feel light, but teaching, and more importantly teaching well, is by no means a stress-free undertaking. Hats off to all the Mr. and Ms. Teachers out there who worked hard so we wouldn’t be stupid and need to go teach English in China for a living…

How did I find my translation job?

The job hunt was by no means easy. I applied to around 20-30 wildly different jobs all over the city of Shenzhen and posted my resume on a jobs website, but by the time June rolled around I still had not received any offers. I was not at all surprised. My resume isn’t stellar, and many jobs require candidates to have at least one to two years of experience working in their field to even be considered for the position. Other than a job at a grocery store, all I had done after graduating from university was teach English in China and write blog posts on the side. Not really much in the way of “hard skills.”

Most companies do not want to give fresh-faced neophytes like me a chance; they prefer someone with lots of proven experience in a particular field who doesn’t need to be given too much training, someone they can just pluck from a crowd and plop neatly into a cubicle, ready to go. I did, however, emphasize my Chinese skills, which I continually strived to improve over three long years, and mentioned (in bold letters) how I recently got HSK 5 certified (a Chinese proficiency test similar to TOEFL or IELTS). But before I knew it, it was nearing the end of June and I was still coming up empty. With the school year over, I packed my bags and got ready to head to Thailand for a short vacation. With one month until my visa expired, I thought I may as well enjoy my final days here somehow, before hanging up my chalk and getting the hell out of China.

So, how did I finally get the translation job?

A couple days before departing for Phuket, I received a message on WeChat from a good friend of mine. Aware of my impeccable (humblebrag) Chinese skills, he thought I would be the perfect candidate for a translation job at a company based right in the heart of Shenzhen’s business district. Apparently, he knew the HR guy and had seen this job posting on his social media page. I was desperate, I was keen. I was suddenly thankful that I had met this friend nearly four years ago in literally the second month I was in China, and that we have kept in touch since. Had he not notified me about this position, I never would have found it, as they weren’t advertising on many job sites (at least not the ones I looked on).

I had actually always been interested in translation, so I gave it a shot. I sent my resume and waited for a response. I didn’t have to wait too long for an email saying they were considering me for the position and wanted to test my translation skills. They sent me some Chinese text samples and asked me to translate them. By the time I received the email I was already on my way to Thailand, so I had to interrupt my vacation time in Phuket to complete the test and email it back to them!

I received a response a couple weeks later that said I passed, and they invited me for an interview. The interview was relatively relaxed and easy, and again I tried to emphasize my language and writing skills. A few days later, I received another email from them. I was in! Finally, after months of tirelessly adjusting and readjusting my resume, fretting over my future, and tearing the hair off my scalp, the job hunt was over and I was able to continue my China adventure for at least another year or so, all thanks to years of study, some motivation, and a little luck. It also taught me that for a significant number of job positions, knowing someone already in the company you are applying to (or knowing someone who knows someone) will give you a huge advantage in the hiring process. I would even go so far as to say that was about 90% of the reason I got this job. It’s an unfair world we live in, sadly.

What’s so good about translation jobs in China?

The main advantage of translation in China is that the industry is fast-growing. The Chinese market is huge, businesses are booming, and Chinese companies want to export their products to a global audience. Many Chinese people only speak a Chinese language (and rudimentary English), but it isn’t enough to just use online translation tools like Google Translate, which will sound completely unnatural and often comical. This is where translators fill in the gaps. Companies will often call on translation agencies (like the one I work for) to provide natural-sounding, accurate, catchy translations done by native speakers so they can get their foot in the door in foreign markets.

A second advantage is that translation is a great alternative to English teaching. If you can’t see yourself teaching for whatever reason, translation jobs offer a slightly higher starting salary and actual workplace skills you can proudly display on your resume when you return home after a few years. I could never really do that with teaching.

How easy is it to get a translation job in China?

In short: it’s not that hard if you have the minimum required skills. There are a whole bunch of translation companies in China at the moment, and most of them will be in need of translators. If you can speak English plus at least one other language and have at least a university degree, you’re already at a great advantage to most foreigners out there who only speak English (and might speak it poorly). Usually, they will prefer that you be a native speaker of a widely spoken language (e.g. Spanish, French, Portuguese, Russian, Japanese, and Thai, to name a few) and have English as your second language, as most documents will first be translated from Chinese into English (my job!) and then delivered to other translators who will then translate the English into their native tongues.

Most translation jobs are in China’s major cities (Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen), but other cities will have plenty as well. As long as you don’t mind too much where you live, you’ll be able to land a job pretty easily once you pass the test. It provides decent pay and work experience for fresh graduates or even those a few years out of university. Plus, living in China for a bit is an adventure that you shouldn’t pass up. I’ve been grateful for my time here, meeting great people (and gaining the ability to recognize a horrible person when I see one) and growing as a person. Heck, I would never have started this blog if it weren’t for China!

Thanks for reading, and remember to subscribe to my blog by going to the sidebar on the left!