Juliane Rabe has been living in Hangzhou for the past seven years. In November 2019, she took on the job of Project Manager, Sales & Applications, Asia Pacific, at Koch Pac-Systeme in Shanghai.
“After seven years in Asia, Germany already feels almost foreign to me. I originally went to China on a Bosch assignment, and then began working for Uhlmann in Shanghai in November 2019. Together with my boyfriend and our cats, I live about two and a half hours away from my workplace in Shanghai. Since I spend a lot of time working from home, I don’t have to commute. A few months ago, I visited KOCH’s headquarters in Pfalzgrafenweiler for the first time and got to know my colleagues there. Due to the pandemic and the Chinese government’s strict zero-covid policy, I was unable to make the trip any earlier.
What I like about China is that it confronts you with new challenges every day, like learning the language and culture which is challenging enough. That helps me to keep an open mind. The reason I’m learning Chinese is because I feel like a guest in this country, so I think I ought to have at least some basic command of the language – but it’s not easy. In the meantime, I can understand it quite well, but speaking it is still difficult. Recently, I had a conversation about soccer with a cab driver in Chinese, which gave me a real sense of achievement.
I am very impressed by how quickly people here get things done, especially when it comes to building machines. While we stick to our standards and work through the project plan, our Chinese colleagues are much faster. They just get on with it. Not haphazardly, but in a completely different way to how we approach things. So even though you may only see moderate progress at first, everything is up and running and can be optimized later. And you also see this kind of speed in many other areas, here. Everything is much more dynamic and spontaneous. We Germans are rather sluggish in comparison.
Always a highlight: Chinese food.
Animal acquaintance during the trip to Inner Mongolia.
The typical Mongolian hot pot was not to be missed.
Impressive landscape around the southern Chinese city of Guilin.
It took me a while to get used to the large crowds here and all the queues you see everywhere. It’s quite normal to queue up in front of a restaurant, grab a ticket, and wait for an hour and a half until there’s a free table. But it’s well organized: There’s an app that lets you regularly check how many people are still waiting so you can use the time to run errands. It’s also much more common here to order food or other things. When I broke my foot, I ordered crutches via an app, and they were delivered within 20 minutes. For me, it’s a bit of a culture shock when confronted in Germany with stores that close at 7pm or restaurants that don’t have a delivery service.
A special highlight for me was my stay in the city of Beijing which is incredibly rich in history – and another awesome experience was standing on the Great Wall of China for the first time. And you can also see some stunning nature here. I do think it’s a shame that people often have a negative opinion about this country, and I just wish people would be less prejudiced. I, personally, would be happy to stay here for a while. And living in Malaysia, Vietnam or India would also appeal to me.”
Tobias Jung has been living and working in Singapore since the end of 2020. After starting out as a project manager, in October 2021 he assumed the position of technical director at Uhlmann Singapore LLP.
“It was a really bumpy ride to start with. My visa was issued before the pandemic started, and when the time finally came in March 2020, I was not allowed to enter the country. Due to a an extremely strict lockdown in Singapore, people were only allowed to leave their homes in exceptional cases. In August 2020, the authorities finally gave me permission to enter the country provided I did the following: take a PCR test in advance, a PCR test on arrival, spend two weeks in a quarantine hotel, and take another PCR test after 10 days in quarantine. Then, at last, I was finally allowed to leave and start working as a project manager.
Actually, I always wanted to go to the U.S. as an expat, but when I got the offer for Asia, I thought: Why not? The position of project manager was limited to six months, but then it quickly became clear that nothing stood in the way of extending this contract. And later on, yet another door opened: I was able to take over Florian Weiher’s position as technical director – initially until December 2023. Naturally this brings its own challenges and can turn out to be a bit of a balancing act, especially since I rarely see my girlfriend. I also miss my friends and family, of course, but not much else in Germany. And when I go home to visit, I quickly miss the culinary delights you can find in every corner of Singapore. Thanks to the many cultures that live here, Singapore is a very open country where it’s easy to feel at home.
We also have a very international team. My former supervisor was Italian, and I naturally have many Asian colleagues. What I like about my job is that we are a small organization which gives it a bit of a “startup” flair. We can push things through very quickly and are very agile in the way we work. It’s something I enjoy and that suits me very well. So going to Singapore was certainly the right thing for me to do.
Quarantine hotel with a beautiful view.
A look behind the scenes at Universal Studios.
Always worth a trip: Gardens by the bay in Singapore.
Singapore is also a fascinating city at night.
Delicious bowls can be found on every corner here.
Vacation break in Thailand.
Singapore is a thrilling city and has loads of great places to visit. I intend to gradually start visiting the surrounding countries as well, since travel was very limited until 2022. From here you can quickly reach many destinations in Asia. At the Agency Day, I was there with the team in Indonesia, and that made me curious to see more. It fascinates me to get to know new countries and cultures and to discover how differently they tick.
I can easily imagine working in Singapore for longer, but I definitely don’t see myself retiring here; the cost of living is just so high. Of course, whether I decide for or against extending my contract also depends on whether everything fits privately. For example, if someone in my family were to fall ill, that would clearly be a reason for me to return. Fortunately, my parents have since caught up technically, so we now have regular video chats. As a matter of fact, we do that more today than when I was still living in Germany where we lived 400 km apart and didn’t consciously take the time to talk to each other on such a regular basis.”
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