China has research jobs.
14d 18h ago by mander.xyz/u/tristynalxander in labrats@mander.xyz from mander.xyz
Just got out of an initial interview with a Chinese lab. I was nervous at even the thought of moving that far, but they showed more interest in hiring me than any American lab (probably because Americans have no money for science). I'm setting up a time to present my research to them.
It's been really hard to find work, so while I'm nervous at the prospect of going somewhere so (supposedly) different, I hope this goes well.
The facts of life or how I learned to stop worrying and love modern totalitarianism.
Haha, I don't think it's measurably different from the US in pretty much any way.
I think it is different in the transparency of its opacity, the US keeps its opacity opaque.
What city? I spend a lot of time in China.
Westlake University in Hangzhou, China. I'm told everyone on campus speaks English and they have post-doc housing, so I think I should be able to get by well enough. I should probably start learning the language though it seems from the news that China is going to be the biggest player in science soon enough regardless of whether I get this particular job.
Learning chinese in 2026 couldn't hurt. I've never been to that province, but I can see gor 3-9USD, you can take a 30-90 minute train to/from Shanghai.
See the min wage in my state is 15 usd a hour, so I see no need to learn chinese
Its useful for international business and apparently science given that everything is made in China.
But also when rent is 1500, that's 100 hours per month just to not be homeless. A chinese teenager working at a fast food place makes a measily 3USD/hr, but his rent is 150, so he spends half as much time to not be homeless. Same applies to food and transport.
Hangzhou is really nice to visit…I have friends living there that think it's a little boring, but different strokes and all that. Overall I'd say go for it! You aren't even that far from Shanghai, it's possible to live in Shanghai and commute to Hangzhou by subway/train in like < 1 hour, so if you find you don't like living in HZ, you could move to SH (if you don't mind the commute).
its just the americans tend to be cheapskates and would rather hire a few "x-years of experience" rather than the one that needs it the most entry and junior level to train them up., it saves them money,. im pretty you kinda experienced that already. tech is heading this way in the near future(biotech is already there with them mostly rejecting candidates". american ones are going to face a dwindling talent pool once the "experience one ages out/retire". plus many of them prefer visa holders over actual americans. ive done the same job search you did and its likely resulted in what im talking about. that is why some area of biotech is kept artificially shortaged , they cant have junior/fresh grads competing with skeleton crewed scientists.
plus(i think the bio job statistics are heavily skewed towards nursing, likely biotech has a much higher unemployment rate than 3.5)
I'm not really comparable.
Companies aren't innovative enough for me, so I'm strictly in academia or research institutes. I also had an exceptionally long PhD (~8 years+1 postdoc), so I don't think anyone would accuse me of being inexperienced in my field. For me, it's more that no one has any idea if they'll be getting their grants because the Trump Administration is deliberately bogging them down. I've gotten a decent number of people who think I'm a good fit, but have to know if their grants will be awarded before they can start the hiring process for anyone.