Living in China

So you’re set to move to China and you’re wondering how you might make a buck in the process? Reasonable enough. Some ideas . . .

If you have any skills suited to remote working - translation, website building, programming, graphic design, etc - you may want to try your hand at freelancing, perhaps with assistance from sites such as Elance, GetaFreelancer, etc. Bear in mind that although the lower cost of living in China compared to the US might allow you to undercut American competitors, there are also people from even cheaper countries - India, the Philippines, out there with the same idea.

One obvious possibility is a little bit of import-export business from China. With sites such as Alibaba geared up to bringing foreign buyers and Chinese manufacturers into contact, sourcing products in China isn’t as hard as you may think, and the economic crash means factories are keen for work. However, the trickier part is finding a buyer for the products overseas - if you don’t have contacts already, you’re going to need them, and your aunt’s knick-knack store isn’t going to provide the volume necessary to make the whole affair worthwhile.