Thirty days ago, the GM for our Beijing R&D center calls me up cold. Asks if I wanna come over to Beijing on a two year contract paid the equivalent in RMB to my existing US salary.
For example, let’s say I make $175K/year today. Next month I’m in China making 6.8 X 175,000 = 1.2 million RMB/year. However, no ex-pat package (no housing allowance…etc)
Implication: built-in salary increase every year in dollars, due to the exchange rate move! Plus I get my typical raise on top of that.
My wife forced me to turn down that offer. She’s Chinese and yet doesn’t want to go back to China! I married a Chinese and that prevents me from now living in China? How the hell does that make sense? We had a full week of yelling matches over that topic.
She’s a high school teacher who is only one year away from getting her tenure…and she has just landed a full time job in Palo Alto, one of the most sought-after Silicon Valley school districts (both for teachers and students). She didn’t want to give that up for a teaching position in Beijing.
