The App bubble has already popped. The only people that make money writing apps are contractors building them for companies that insist they need an app (even though they probably don't...), employees at companies like that drawing a salary, and the 1 in a million that comes up with the ugly meter. Eventually the marketing departments will realize that "Billy Bob's horse feed insurance" doesn't need a mobile app and all of that will dry up pretty quickly.

If you want to have a long career in development, learn databases. You don't necessarily want to be a DBA since they tend to get tied to a platform and their fortunes rise and fall with it (Foxpro anyone?). But, learn how to manipulate information. There will always be someone willing to pay you to manage their data. Maybe through an application, maybe through an app, maybe through a web interface.

At the end of the day, most of the decent paying technology gigs come from managing information for someone.

I got into this business in the early 90's and was told that by a friend of my father's who had been programming since the 60's. It's the best business advice anyone has ever given me.

Interestingly enough, my new employer's (Stateside again) largest market is mainland China. On several occasions, my ability to speak/read/write has proven handy. Mostly for collecting money and reading documents. But, it's a nice break from code-monkeying.

Until you have a decent level of proficiency, reading books in Chinese is VERY difficult. Chinese dictionaries are almost unapproachable until you have a middle school level ability. Tablets improve the situation quite a bit, if you learn how to write, but it's still not much fun.

Background:
I lived in China for two years doing engineering work. I was in a small town in the middle of no-where and almost entirely cut-off from English speakers. I studied like crazy and by the time I left could do anything I needed to in Chinese.

It was a very hard road though. Not for the feint of heart.

I used overplay.net's commercial OpenVPN. There's several competing services specifically tailored to bypassing the great firewall. Overplay in particular has a huge list of servers in different countries. Occasionally one would get blocked, but one of the others would always work.

Best $10/month I spent while I was there.

Regarding the locals laws, etc.. it's a definite gray area. The laws don't say you're not allowed to post or view certain things. The laws just say that the government is allowed to "normalize" (filter/censor).

I used a VPN for years and registered for my internet account using my passport. They knew who I was and could obviously see the VPN traffic. I never heard a word from anybody about it.

This guy nailed it. I was in the tech business over there, but only because I came over with an existing business.

Going over there and trying to start from scratch? Forget it. If you do manage to find something, you'll do well to make 8k rmb/month. But, you'll probably never find anything.

Best bet is to teach english. You'll be hard pressed to get work doing much else unless you've already got connections.

I moved to China two years ago with no background in the language at all.

Total, 100% immersion + whatever training material I could get my hands on.

Now, I'm pretty fluent. But, 3 months in? Forget it. I couldn't even talk to a taxi driver with any consistency. Forget ordering food from a normal menu. Picture menu or nothing.

Most Americans don't even know the difference between immigrant and emigrant. I fall into the latter category, but have stopped using that word. It doesn't help that they sound almost identical.

I prefer expat now.

"At what point will we acknowledge that the disparity of wealth here in the USA is encouraging a wealth disparity throughout the entire 3rd world?"

I'd never really looked at it that way. VERY interesting.. You've given me food for thought for a while.

"They have a long ways to go. So keep pushing to make working conditions even better."

Absolutely.

Of course they did.. they were embarrassed by western news reporting it first and had to. Plus, Foxconn isn't a mainland company and they ALWAYS like a chance to bash on the Taiwanese.

They would NEVER tell you about the real suicide rate in mainland china. Or any other thing negative about Chinese society.

Absolutely. All I'm advocating is some patience in the process. I hope one day they can all enjoy the benefits that American factory workers receive.

Oh, wait... the only benefit is 6 months of unemployment checks and a foreclosure notice.

I wouldn't ever want to demean someones death, but, the suicides at Foxconn were statistically insignificant. Compared to the suicide rate among the general population here, they aren't out of line and are actually an improvement.

Think of a city you know in the US with 200,000 people. I'll wager you every week you can find an obituary in the newspaper for a suicide.

That's a much higher rate then the few at Foxconn city. Perhaps all US cities should have nets as well?

My wife just showed up with lunch and I asked her specifically about this. (she's native born Chinese) Basically, she said that people work there because they can make more money than they can anywhere else.

In theory they could unionize, but what would it get them? Most likely a chance to get fired and replaced with 200,000 other farm kids that are quite happy to take the wages Foxconn is willing to offer.

Unions only work when there is a limited supply of workers. That isn't a problem right now in China. Eventually (10-20 years I estimate) it might be, and then unionizing makes sense. Until then, there's no point.

Can you imagine all those workers going on strike? I would wager they would all be replaced within a week, everything would go back to normal and the western world would never even notice.

I've resisted posting on these threads because I don't want to start a war. However, I think it's finally time that I spoke up.

Firstly, I live in China, speak Mandarin and Cantonese and build electronics among other things over here.

I think this isn't a bad thing in concept, but everyone needs to get a little perspective on the issue. The educated workers, engineers and the like, are pretty well taken care of. They make middle class (for the region) wages, get weekends off and generally put in a comparable number of productive hours to US engineers.

The factory workers, which are the ones that everyone seems to worry about also have it pretty good. They get company provided housing (no, the housing isn't up to western standards, but it's significantly better then where they grew up, I PROMISE). They also get company provided food (No, it isn't Ruth's Chris, but it isn't bad.. I frequently eat in the factory when I don't want to take the time to go out).

Everyone is trying to apply western working standards to the workers over here. While I think it's great in principle, consideration has to be taken for cultural and lifestyle differences. Most of the people that are working in those factories came from a life of subsistence farming. They are also migrant workers. Their families live back in Henan, Hunan, Dongbei, etc... Most of them grew up in a single concrete room. They're quite lucky if their parents house had a flushable toilet.

Making a thousand or two thousand RMB per month, having a decent bed to sleep in and 3 meals a day is a significant upgrade.

With all of that said, I'm also a firm believer in giving them the opportunity for more. Everybody should have the chance to enjoy western working standards. But, it needs to be done in a patient manner. Expecting Apple to leverage Foxconn to give $10/hr and carpeted apartments to 200,000 workers is way out of proportion. Not only would it be prohibitively expensive, but it would screw up Foxconn's competitiveness.

Remember, Iphones aren't the only thing made in Foxconn city. Hundreds of other electronics manufacturers make things there. If Foxconn doesn't stay competitive in Shenzhen, somebody will open a factory in Vietnam where they don't even have to feed their staff and pretty soon all of those people in SZ that everyone was so worried about will be out of work and back to subsistence farming.

Let me repeat... I'm not opposed to this. A little external influence to help them move up the economic ladder is certainly not a bad thing. Neither are all the good intentions. What is a bad thing is expecting too much to happen too fast. China has advanced at it's own pace QUITE effectively in a single generation. We all need to bear that in mind.

They have a long ways to go, but they've come a HELL OF A LONG WAYS from hole-in-the-ground toilets that don't flush.

I'd say, we should all give Apple and Foxconn some credit for the 200,000 migrant children of farmers that now can feed their families back home and raise their children in better conditions then what they grew up in. Isn't that the "American Dream"? Giving more to your children then you had?