How useful is the Chinese language in the UK?

OK I shall deal with a simple, straight forward topic today. I've been asked just how useful the ability to speak Chinese has been for me in the UK. Did it help me get a job? Did it help progress my career? Is it an advantage for me when competing for jobs? Loads of my Singaporean readers are actually bilingual in Mandarin and English and it seems like a simple question for me to answer today.

Have I used Chinese in my work? Yes I have, but only a little. I could go weeks or months without speaking a word of Mandarin to anyone in London as I usually don't need it for my job - but once in a while, I may get a contract or project which does deal with China, then I would need to use my Mandarin just for that project. I remember back in 2005 and 2006, I did a long contract for a company who had a major project in Shanghai - so they needed someone who was bilingual to act as a conduit between the staff in the London office who didn't speak a word of Mandarin and the local contractors on the ground in China, so naturally, I was speaking Mandarin all the time then and doing a lot of translating. I was even translating press releases from English into Chinese, I was dealing with Chinese journalists, it was rather challenging since I practically haven't used my Chinese at all since I left Singapore years ago but I managed to do it. Ironically, my sister who works in Ang Mo Kio doesn't need to use Chinese at all for her work due to the nature of her job - business is conducted entirely in English despite the fact that most of her colleagues are Chinese.

Yes I dealt with the Chinese media in Mandarin! 

But otherwise, in my current job, it is completely irrelevant as my employers are not dealing with anyone in China at all. It is just not a market they're targeting at the moment and even though we are dealing with clients in places like Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore, the business language in these places is always English. Even when I worked in Singapore in 2011, I barely used my Mandarin apart from making small talk with taxi drivers or the receptionists. I do however, use my French quite a lot as I am often dealing with French, Swiss and Belgian clients.

So would being able to speak Chinese help you get a job in the UK? Not really... It depends - firstly, it would be dependent on you applying for a job with a company who are currently doing business with China or with clients from China. Not that many companies actually do that - many companies deal only with domestic clients or simply do not target China as a market given that China is halfway around the world. Say if you're a small company making cupcakes. You would be looking at supplying local cafes, schools, hospitals, hotels and convenience shops with your cupcakes. You would not be trying to sell your cupcakes halfway around the world to China, so for such a company, Mandarin isn't relevant at all. The UK imports many things from China, but when you're buying stuff from China, they'll gladly deal with you in English - it is only when you want to sell to the Chinese, that you need to speak the language of the client.

Cupcakes = 纸杯蛋糕

Many companies in the UK do not actually target the Chinese market at all despite the fact that it is one of the world's fastest growing economies. Our main trading partners are the European Union and America - is the UK missing out on an opportunity here? Yes, probably, but there is no great rush on the part of British companies to hire Mandarin speaking staff to try to crack the Chinese market. It is not an easy market to crack - it is halfway around the world and there is a huge language barrier. Many British companies prefer to target markets closer to the UK in Europe and only move onto China after they have conquered Europe and America. In business you always pick the lowest hanging fruit first - the China market is a pretty hard nut to crack by that token.

Big British companies who are active in China will have an offices, branches and operations in China - so yes these people are need to hire bilingual staff, but these jobs are in their branches in China, not London. Furthermore, smaller British companies who do target China but do not have an office in China will often use a bilingual local agent or fixer on the ground.. He acts as the intermediary for the British company and the local suppliers, contractors, clients who do not speak English. So yes, there is work for bilingual professionals in British companies active in China - but those jobs are in China, not London. So that's good news for those Chinese graduates in China who speak English very well, but it doesn't help someone like myself in London at all.

So really, in the UK, jobs for bilingual English-Mandarin speakers are mostly those in the tourism industry, to cater to the needs of Chinese tourists who do not speak any or much English. So we're talking about staff in hotels or major tourist attractions, or say gift shops that target tourists. Bicester Village is a designer brands shopping outlet in Oxfordshire that is very popular with Chinese tourists. Indeed, many of the shops there do have Mandarin speaking staff to make the Chinese big spenders feel at home and enjoy the shopping experience.

But we're not talking about jobs very high up the food chain I'm afraid, we're talking about shop assistants or hotel front desk staff who are hired specifically for their Mandarin language skills whilst the big boss is usually someone who doesn't speak any Mandarin. The fact is these hotels, designer boutiques or tourist attractions don't need to be run by someone who speaks Mandarin in order for them to be successful - all they need is some staff who speak Mandarin to serve the Chinese customers and these service jobs are not particularly well-paid or high up the food chain.

If you wish to use your Mandarin for work, then it needs to be absolutely fluent. You need to be able to read, write and converse at a very high standard. It is not enough to have a decent grasp of the language - you need to be able to operate at a business standard if you expect to be paid for your language skills and if you speak Chinese as a second language, then it is unlikely that your Chinese would be good enough in a business environment. I'm sorry to say this, but here's the truth: if you're not fluent, then it's practically useless. By that token, many Singaporeans don't actually speak Mandarin well enough to use it for work.

However, it is very hard to depend on just your language skills to make a living. Really, you need to establish yourself in an industry as say an engineer, an architect, a doctor, a fund manager or a designer - then whatever other ancillary skills you have on top of that will help you stand out from the crowd. So for example, if you are an engineer who speaks Mandarin, then your company can send you to China to work on a project knowing that you would be a lot more useful there than someone who would face a major language barrier dealing with local contractors. If you are a fund manager, then the ability to speak Chinese would enable you to identify investment opportunities in China that would not be found by those who do not speak the local language. Mandarin (or any other foreign languages) can enhance your abilities and complement the skills you already have in your profession.

The ability to speak Mandarin can be useful under such circumstances, but it is of very limited use if all you have is the language skills and nothing else. So focus on establishing your career in your chosen profession first and either you have the language skills or you don't but don't put the cart before the horse. So things may change in the future if more British companies start targeting the Chinese market or if we see a significant rise in Chinese tourists in the UK, but for now, no, it's not particularly useful.

Let me end by saying this: way back in 1985 when I was 9, my late granduncle said that in the future everyone would learn Mandarin as China would become the next world's economic superpower. He said that to encourage me to make a greater effort with Chinese at school. Well, China may be a world economic superpower today, but there has been no rush by the rest of the world to learn Chinese - this is simply because Chinese is by far the world's most difficult language to learn and many who have tried to learn it as a foreign language have failed and given up. So my granduncle was wrong and English is still the global business language of today and the future no matter how successful the Chinese economy will become.

People like my granduncle and father do speak Mandarin fluently so they would love to imagine and believe that they do possess a skill that will be useful and relevant in the business world of today - thus people like them are hopelessly optimistic about the importance of Mandarin in the business world. It's not about me not being in touch with my Chinese roots - this is me putting on my pragmatic business hat and saying that we should not exaggerate how useful the Chinese language actually is in the UK. You can't compare it to a place like Singapore where the majority of the locals speak Mandarin, then yeah of course it is far more advantageous to speak Mandarin in Singapore - but not in the UK.

So that's it for today, I told you it was going to be a short piece! I am working on my next vlog piece - I will rush one more vlog piece out before I leave for Oman in exactly one week!

Whoopee! I'll be off on a 4 week long holiday soon.