[vfulco2]

Jumping on this thread, I came 4 year ago starting a company to mentor and coach young people who want to get into MNCs. Think English resume editing, LinkedIn Profile enhancements, interview coaching. Right now, Chinese is intermediate level (I am behind as my work is almost entirely in English).

You can make wonderful friends and the average Chinese is a decent, hard working person. Still, the level of mistrust throughout the society, for very obvious historical reasons, means people keep to themselves. You have to work 2-3x as hard to build brand and reputation. This coming from someone with 5 start ratings and laudatory comments in all our reviews.

And as for the "traction" techniques, quite common in US based startups. Almost none of them work so marketing and demand generation is a long, slow painful effort. Generally, they are in the historical economic cycle where they seen the "value" in an iPhone X. Services to better their lives, other than primary school education, not so much.

Disappointing to say the least as the need for career upgrades/polishing is huge. As someone once said to me, and it took time to really sink in...Just because they use the latest cellphone you do, doesn't mean they think in the same way. Truly the logic here is more convoluted and less linear. Hard to explain.

I love the adventure aspect, not sure I would do it again.