Freaking out about Chinese in Hong Kong IBD, advice needed

So I accepted an offer for a BB in HK a few months ago, and now I'm freaking out because I realize my Chinese is nowhere near good enough. I've never worked in HK (did my SA in NY), but decided to take the job in HK for family reasons. However, I am fine speaking Mandarin on a conversational basis (but I'm better at Cantonese), but my reading/writing is at like middle school level. Can barely read a newspaper, bunch of unknown characters still.

I got away with it during the interviews because there was no written test, just verbal fit-type questions in Mandarin, which I could answer. However the interviewer did mention there will be writing involved.

So for those who have been in HK (especially recently), how big of a problem is this going to be? I'm just worried I'll be fired a month in when they find out how bad my Chinese actually is. There's only so much I can cram in about 6 months.

 

You're fine.

1) You'll be a bit slower at start. Visit www.yellowbridge.com - great character reference material 2) Once you start using it more you'll get a hang of it 3) I was really nervous too and it worked out fine. And you mean middle school China or what? Middle schoolers in China can definitely read newspapers haha

anyway, you'll be fine

1 analyst in my group whose chinese was awful got laid off but mostly b/c he was incompetent ... he wouldn't have been fired for language alone and not in a regular market environment

At the end of the day they hired you to be a banker not a translator

 
Best Response

Hey dude, I was at a HK BB this past summer and encountered similar problems. Immigrated when I was a kid, have only intermediate proficiency in written/reading Chinese.

Here's the plus. Speaking is probably by far the most important of all those three skill-sets. The Canto is a plus. However, with that said, the reading and writing is important, Here are the Chinese that you will encounter:

1) Most commonly you will need to translate pitch books into Chinese as an analyst. Granted, you can get a translation team to do this for you BUT BIG CAVEAT: the translation team is there to save you time; however, you MUST be able to edit on the go by yourself.

2) Chinese companies sometimes only have filings done in Chinese. So in addition to having to read them, you have to translate them. Other times research materials by third party regarding the domestic market is done in Chinese. YOu have to read and interpret those as well.

3) Roadshow/ANalyst presentations. I would say a good portion of the Chinese companies going IPO have CEO's and CFO's who don't know English. So you need to write them scripts in CHINESE and ENGLISH (usually they'll bring someone on the Roadshow to orally translate as well)

I can give you an example of when I got OWNED. My associate handed me a DD-questionnaire written in Chinese so I could lead the DD-call with our joint book runners. I panicked. In front of the client, joint-book runner, and associate, I said "SOrry can't read chinese....". Yea- you can imagine.

ANother thing that I found out is that while I could speak fluently no problem---- business/professional/formal Chinese is infinitely more complicated than everyday speech. And in China in particular, the difficulty of the oral language skyrockets when you are in formal conversation. I've found that the biggest problem with mediocre skills in China is that it saps your confidence.... everytime before you get staffed you pray you dont get staffed on a China project (which kind of defeats the point. Why do HK if you cant work on China deals?), Also, most of the offices I encountered were staffed with 95% Chinese/HK expats who received studies abroad.

I think the BB"s are increasingly becoming aware of this problem and they are doing everything they can to hire kids who know English and Chinese. Usually, BB's will include a WRITTEN chinese test.

Solutions:

With that said, language is less and less of a concern the higher up you go (a lot of MD's are white). It's really the bitchwork that they need people who know chinese to do.

What you can do is this. A) Contact them and inquire about transferring to New York given your situation. B) Transfer to Sales and Trading (don't need Chinese) or ECM (less CHinese). C) Call up your primary contact and ask him what you should do, be candid. D) Spend every waking minute studying Chinese. You have until September. If you have a strong command of the oral language, it's mostly about memorizing characters + growing your upper level vocabulary.

 

Pokersliar, can you elaborate on your full-time experiences. Does it vary with bank? All of my fellow SA's were fluent (all were Chinese expats).

At my exit interviews, I had sterling reviews but the problem was my Chinese. I was offered the chance to go work in Singapore...

 

^^ WTF ? Don't back out of your job because of your lack of confidence with your chinese lol ... also ... how is Cantonese a plus? It's a plus when you want to hail a cab or order dinner. Mainland clients speak Mandarin ... and HK clients speak Mandarin (I've only dealt with 1 who demanded canto)

To the above poster - you were probably shat on because you're an SA and no one likes to translate. Hell I gave all the translation to my 2nd year who gave it to the intern. I don't know of a signle BB bank that gives written tests. You are correct that they're hiring more and more local kids with foreign educations rather than foreigners / expats with Asian language skills / interests. but that's mostly at the very junior level. The VPs my that team pick up are still non-chinese speaking

Just be candid. DON'T say you're good at Chinese and then day of the pitch you're like oh yeah btw, not that good. If you're candid, they wont overstaff you and it's all cool -

One caveat is - if you are on China team and your Chinese is not good ... then i'd think about another group. If you're in coverage, not knowing that much Chinese is perfectly fine.

side quesiton - how many people on your team are Chinese speakers (mandarin / mainlander)

 

I was on an IPO last summer. Let's put it this way, the joint-book runners, my associate, the lawyers, and the CFO were all from Hong Kong (this was a Chinese company). I could not understand a lick of what they were saying. Oh, did I mention the white lawyers from King and Wood and from Linklaters that were natively fluent in mandarin and cantonese? fml.

In my entire office at the BB (VP and below), there were 2 caucasians, both of whom know chinese fluently. THere are also a couple of koreans-- but they know Korean......

Seriously though, everyone else VP and below were either from Hong Kong, China, or Taiwan. There was only 1 ABC too. Is this atypical?....

 

IB Hopeful, tried to msg you but you don't have it on. Where'd you work this summer?

BTW, I told my intern this as well (I had 1 korean and 1 chinese) - there will ALWAYS be associates who are huge douches and stress your chinese ability but thats just because they're lazy ... we had an associate who made 1 kid's life miserable b/c he made him make a financial glossary for him in Chinese ... and then proceeded to critique his ability to translate fluently

I mean this is true for language skills, finance skills, whatever it is - you can 1) pick them up on the job 2) pick a group that will allow you to develop them / focus on what you think is important.

I know of one bank that is hiring FYA just for translation and btch work ... and i would never go work there

 

I recently met an analyst at BB in Hong Kong and he wishes sometimes he didn't know the language so that he didn't have to be the one to translate, He also told me not worry if my Mandarin wasn't strong. He said at his firm you can get by without Mandarin and that there is alot of non-chinese speaking bankers. Also, he works in FSG, not sure if that helps any.

 

Depends really on what bank you're at. Different banks have different China franchises and the proportion of Mandarin stuff varies a lot. We fired four of the first years last year and all of them had "poor mandarin" as one of the reasons. Other banks I hear it doesn't matter as much.

If your mandarin is bad it gets you out of translation, proof reading translation, and all that which is frankly quite annoying, but on the other hand it limits your contribution to the team if you are not able to do such things..especially in a mandarin heavy bank.

 

Blue where do u work? u can pm me - interesting to see you fired four first years b/c of poor mandarin

I can see that happening at CS since they don't have a China team and they need their industry coverage bankers to know Chinese

 

^^ Agreed.

Put it this way, knowing Mandarin will always be a plus. Not knowing it might hurt you at some places more than others. At MS, industry guys Chinese at junior level (Analyst / Associate) is very important ... you can get by without but I mean ... you'll feel left out. Same with UBS, GS, etc.

But my point is, don't feel like you're destined for failure just b/c your Chinese is not that great - just work on it. If you're doing CHinese work all day, you'll be up to snuff in no time

 

depends on which bank you're at. the european banks tend to be more local than the US banks. ubs, cs, ms especially go hard after the mainland chinese deals.

when i used to work there, one time the vp was on a call with a chinese client and told me to listen in and take notes on the conversation. the entire convo was in mandarin chinese......

there will def be a lot of translation, proofreading, reading financial statements in chinese (esp if the company is from the mainland). remember that all IPO companies are private so their financial stmts, websites, etc will not be the best and if they are a mainland company, chances are they won't have an english version or a very broken english version.

i wouldn't count on the translation teams that much. at the bb where i used to work, the translation team at the bank was tiny and they're always overbooked. and they also don't work nights/weekends (when you need them the most). a lot of the translation also gets outsourced but the outsourced translators suck. honestly, probably just a little better than google translator. what this means is that even if you do send documents to the translation team, you will definitely need to proofread what they finish. if you don't proofread, prepared to get yelled at.

 

Sorry to resurrect a 5 year old thread.

I was just wondering,

1) Why is oral/spoken mandarin the most important when most of the chinese work seems to be reading/translating stuff? 2) How important is tone accuracy and how important is the ability to speak fast? people can understand my mandarin perfectly, and I have a pretty strong grasp of high-level vocabulary. it's just my tone that is a bit off, and the fact that i can only speak mandarin at a regular speed, i can't go to town and speak as fluently as a native mandarin speaker. How much would that put me at a disadvantage in any potential business situation compared to native mandarin speakers who can speak fast and have perfect tone? 3) If I only know traditional Chinese, should I try to transition to simplified Chinese since I imagine 90%+ of all documents will be in simplified...?

 

1) because oral speaking skills gives people their first impression of you and it's much easier to test... plus you can prob pass on translation work to other juniors 2) it's good if they understand you, but from experience, some clients only want to deal with people they can relate to not only in language but the whole "culture" 3) dunno about other banks but at my bank, English and Mandarin are both preinstalled on your computer but the mandarin is only in simplified. I use traditional, but I can read and type simplified no problem so def helpful if you can do both

Almost every single person I met from FO has a Chinese background... actually the majority came from LSE/Oxford/Cambridge and were from China originally. NoLongerActiveHere hit it spot on with the bank guesses...

 
Aquitaine:

1) because oral speaking skills gives people their first impression of you and it's much easier to test... plus you can prob pass on translation work to other juniors
2) it's good if they understand you, but from experience, some clients only want to deal with people they can relate to not only in language but the whole "culture"
3) dunno about other banks but at my bank, English and Mandarin are both preinstalled on your computer but the mandarin is only in simplified. I use traditional, but I can read and type simplified no problem so def helpful if you can do both

Almost every single person I met from FO has a Chinese background... actually the majority came from LSE/Oxford/Cambridge and were from China originally. NoLongerActiveHere hit it spot on with the bank guesses...

Thanks very much for your helpful response Aquitaine.

Regarding 2), do you mean that some mainland Chinese clients only want to deal with born and bred mainland Chinese who knows all the nuances of the Chinese language and culture? Are most of them happy to deal with someone from Hong Kong who speaks good mandarin but with a cantonese accent?

Curious about your last statement as well. Do you mean Chinese background as in from mainland China? Do people from HK no longer cut it these days? And I had thought that US schools are generally more dominant... perhaps you work at a European bank?

 

Okay sorry if I made it sound a bit too extreme... there are definitely a lot of locals here as well, or locals educated overseas, but frankly Cantonese is not important when you work with clients... most will speak either English or Mandarin.

I went through some interviews where the first 2 with senior mgmt was in English (they were Caucasian/ABC), and the rest of the interviews switched completely to mandarin, including a quick stock pitch and all the industry questions. All 4 of the associates/analyst who spoke to me were from China, and some of them could speak canto and mandarin and english fluently. Most of the locals I've met could also speak mandarin, albeit with an accent, but very coherently within a business context (including those in risk). [edit] realized you got an offer already so ignore this haha.

Might just be my bank though, so really don't stress too much about it. You already have a good background haha. Congrats on the offer!

 
Aquitaine:

Okay sorry if I made it sound a bit too extreme... there are definitely a lot of locals here as well, or locals educated overseas, but frankly Cantonese is not important when you work with clients... most will speak either English or Mandarin.

I went through some interviews where the first 2 with senior mgmt was in English (they were Caucasian/ABC), and the rest of the interviews switched completely to mandarin, including a quick stock pitch and all the industry questions. All 4 of the associates/analyst who spoke to me were from China, and some of them could speak canto and mandarin and english fluently. Most of the locals I've met could also speak mandarin, albeit with an accent, but very coherently within a business context (including those in risk).
[edit] realized you got an offer already so ignore this haha.

Might just be my bank though, so really don't stress too much about it. You already have a good background haha. Congrats on the offer!

Thanks again for the reply. I actually don't have an offer yet, but I am trying to plan ahead for actual work situations.

Based on your experience, would you say that some mainland Chinese clients only want to deal with born and bred mainland Chinese who knows all the nuances of the Chinese language and culture? And would you say that someone from Hong Kong who speaks good mandarin but with a cantonese accent is at a disadvantage in China deals?

 

I would say that while those types of mainland clients do exist, they will not be the majority (or always THAT extreme), and there will definitely be someone on your team or ECM or sales who were born and bred in China who will take care of them. Deals are done on a team basis anyway, so it's less about you being disadvantaged during a deal but more during interviews, where you're competing against ppl who can speak fluent english/mandarin/cantonese.

Having an canto accent is fine, just like how ppl have Chinese accents when they speak English haha.

 
illegaleagle:
So I accepted an offer for a BB in HK a few months ago, and now I'm freaking out because I realize my Chinese is nowhere near good enough. I've never worked in HK (did my SA in NY), but decided to take the job in HK for family reasons. However, I am fine speaking Mandarin on a conversational basis (but I'm better at Cantonese), but my reading/writing is at like middle school level. Can barely read a newspaper, bunch of unknown characters still.

I got away with it during the interviews because there was no written test, just verbal fit-type questions in Mandarin, which I could answer. However the interviewer did mention there will be writing involved.

So for those who have been in HK (especially recently), how big of a problem is this going to be? I'm just worried I'll be fired a month in when they find out how bad my Chinese actually is. There's only so much I can cram in about 6 months.

I understand this is an old post, but just wonder how your career went there? The situation had changed a lot in HK these days...

 

interviews in mandarin, some will give you a business article to translate from english to chinese, and others have in-house language written exams. good luck.

 
ychoi88:
interviews in mandarin, some will give you a business article to translate from english to chinese, and others have in-house language written exams. good luck.

Thanks dude. Any idea which bank would/would not have the test? Or will all have some form of examination?

 
exit_strategy:
Hi guys,

Heard from my seniors that for IBD FT analyst interviewees in HK, there will be a chinese language test of sorts. How common is this amongst the international banks, especially the Bulge Brackets? And in what form will this test come in (written, comprehension, reading)?

I am a non-PRC chinese seeking employment in the territory, and was just wondering about the kind of preparation that I can undertake.

Would appreciate it greatly if someone can shed some light on this. Thanks!

I would assume it to be Cantonese. After all it is the first language in HK. But I am not sure

 

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