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Bonnie Granat wondered: <<Companies such as ZTE, in Shenzhen, China,
employ English-speaking technical writers. Would any US technical
writer on this list, if the technical writing climate in the US got
very inhospitable, consider moving there to work?>>
How about a Canadian? <g> I spent a couple weeks in China back in 2002
as part of an international delegation, and loved it. Since then, I've
been corresponding regularly with several people, and doing a lot of
editing work for Chinese researchers. In my experience both then and
now, the people are wonderful. Of course, the Chinese are every bit as
human as we are, which means they have their unpleasant characters too.
With a very few exceptions, nobody there has heard of technical
communication and those who have (again, with some exceptions) don't
really understand our profession. If you're pondering a move to China,
read through all the "I don't get no respect" messages in the techwr-l
archives and put yourself in that frame of mind. You can certainly earn
respect there, just as you can here, but you won't get it for your
profession alone, even if you do good work.
You'll need to learn a lot about Chinese etiquette--which can be quite
tricky--if you hope to fit in well. Scott Seligman's "Chinese business
etiquette" is a good primer, though it's a bit more formally polite
than you may find people to be. In my experience, people were charmed
(and often astounded! <g>) by my overly formal politeness, and I didn't
make any major faux pas, but I was always excruciatingly careful
because of some horror stories I've heard. Westerners do get
considerable tolerance, but that only carries you so far.
Would I move there semi-permanently? No, though I'd happily spend a
month. China is a Very Different Place, and much though I loved my time
there, I'm not sure I'd want to abandon Canada (a country I love). If
you're pondering this, read a lot about the culture. For example,
culture shock strikes many people quite hard after they've spent enough
time there. I found the book "Dear Alice: letters home from American
teachers learning to live in China" (P.L. Thompson, 1998, Univ. Calif.
Press) to be a good primer.
<<If prosperity means freedom, and freedom means peace, does helping
other countries become more prosperous become something that you might
consider doing?>>
I'm a firm believer in the principle that international peace and
understanding is far too important to leave to the politicians. But I
have little faith that prosperity equates to freedom or that freedom
equates to peace; these pairs can certainly coexist, but the
relationship is not obviously causal. Since that latter statement leads
rapidly into heated political disagreement, I'll be happy to leave it
at that and hope that we can keep the communication on this topic
related to the first point Bonnie raised, namely technical
communication.
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