Expat Empire Podcast 22 | Teaching and Learning in Vietnam, China, and Germany with Amy Jazienicki

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Amy Jazienicki

Episode Description

In this episode of the Expat Empire Podcast, we will be hearing from Amy Jazienicki. Originally from Canada, Amy has moved to Vietnam, China, and Germany through her career in English teaching and learning experience design. She has had a great journey around the world and back home to Canada again, so stay tuned for some awesome insights and advice for getting your start working abroad!

In this episode, you will learn:

• How to dive straight into the deep-end into teaching in Southeast Asia
• Tips for doing your research about countries before deciding where to move and how to stay on the right side of the laws abroad
• Navigating the governmental bureaucracy and legal challenges of working in China
• Learning to appreciate living in and exploring your home country

…and much more! You can find Amy Jazienicki on:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amy-jazienicki-0011441a6
• Instagram: http://instagram.com/thetravelinglxd
• The Expat Experience Podcast: https://lnns.co/4f9SpRxaLjJ
• The Expat Masterclass: https://www.udemy.com/course/the-expat-masterclass/

Eli Hermit produced the music for this episode, please check him out on Bandcamp at elihermit.bandcamp.com/.

Please leave us a review at ratethispodcast.com/expatempire.Learn more about Expat Empire and schedule your free consulting call to plan your move abroad at expatempire.com!

Episode Transcript

Intro

Welcome to the Expat Empire Podcast, the podcast where you can hear from expats around the world and learn how you can join them.

Hi everyone, thanks for joining us today for the 22nd episode of the Expat Empire Podcast.

Before we jump into today’s interview, I want to remind you that we are offering free 30-minute consulting calls to anyone interested in moving abroad once the pandemic situation has settled. It’s never too soon to start planning for your next big life change. Whether you’re looking to make your first move abroad, transition into life as a digital nomad, or just want someone to talk to about your travel and moving dreams, we are ready to help you think about the next steps in your journey abroad. Send us a message at expatempire.com and let us know what personal adventures you are thinking about embarking on in 2021!

With that said, today we will be hearing from Amy Jazienicki. Originally from Canada, Amy has moved to Vietnam, China, and Germany through her career in English teaching and learning experience design. She has had a great journey around the world and back home to Canada again, so stay tuned for some awesome insights and advice for getting your start working abroad!

Without further ado, let’s start the conversation.

Conversation

David McNeill: Hi, Amy thanks so much for joining us today on the Expat Empire Podcast.

Amy Jazienicki: Hi David, it’s really good to be here.

David McNeill: Awesome, well, if you could just tell us a little bit about your background? Where you’re originally from, where around the world you’ve lived so far and where you are right now. That would be a great place for us to start.

Amy Jazienicki: Okay, so I have a pretty extensive background, I guess you can say. When I was living the expat life, I was kind of jumping from place to place. I didn’t really have a goal of staying in one particular country for too long. So I’m originally from Toronto, I spent pretty much most of my life in and around the city. And after finishing university and working for a few years, that’s when I moved to Vietnam, so that was my first country that I was an expat in. I came back home briefly for a couple of months, apply for a job in China, and then relocated there. And I was living in Southern China, so it was a lot warmer there than what I was used to in Canada. And ultimately I ended up also going to Germany and ultimately had to come back because of the pandemic. But I did get to spend a fair amount of time in the country, so that was a good experience.

David McNeill: Okay, amazing. Thanks for the overview and indeed, you’ve lived in a lot of different places. I’d love to start with just hearing about what you were doing in your; well, I guess in your studies. And then ultimately in the beginnings of your career before you decided to move to Vietnam and just set the stage for your travels before that point.

Amy Jazienicki: Absolutely; so before I went to Vietnam, I was working in the public sector. So I was working largely in public policy, that’s what I got my master’s degree in back in 2014. And so I worked in that for a couple of years, mostly contract positions, which is very normal in Toronto and the surrounding area. So there wasn’t a whole lot of security. And to be honest, there was a lot of anxiety, not just for me, but a lot of my friends who were also coming out of graduate school in different fields. Because that seemed to be the norm, so it was very competitive and it was very tough to find something that you could actually stay in and grow professionally. It was like; instead, you were just bouncing from job to job all the time. So I got a bit fed up with that and I also wanted not just some security, but some real growth in one place for a little while. So I thought I really want to travel, I haven’t had the opportunity to do that yet. So I looked into becoming a teacher, which was a complete departure from what I was working in before. So I became certified to teach English, so I went to Vietnam and did that. I actually got the certification in the country, so I spent the first month more or less just studying and getting that done. And the great thing about the program was they also helped you find local jobs.

Amy Jazienicki: So if you wanted to work in the city, that’s great, they could help you with that. If you wanted to leave and maybe go to a neighboring country like Cambodia or even somewhere else in Southeast Asia, or even in Asia, I guess, you could do that. But a major draw of the program was that they help you with finding a job. So that was what I did and then I transitioned into more or less just working with adults and business students. So that was pretty much what I did in China and once I got to Germany, I got more into e-learning. So that was when I actually started my new degree in educational technology. So now I work as a learning experience designer and I have my own business. But when I was still in Germany, I was still considered technically like a freelancer. So I was doing a mix of face-to-face and online corporate training, but also doing some e-learning course development as well. So it’s been a really interesting progression professionally speaking.

David McNeill: Yeah, it sounds like you’ve had a packed time over the last few years, not only across different countries but in your career as well. How did you find that initial opportunity to go to Vietnam and get your certification and work with this company to get that first job in Vietnam or across Asia, as you mentioned?

Amy Jazienicki: Sure, so it was very challenging in the beginning because I had traveled before. I had been to East Asia before, but never a place like Vietnam, especially Ho Chi Minh City. It is a very chaotic city like they don’t really have traffic lights and that kind of thing. So the traffic is just constantly flowing and initially, I didn’t even know how to cross the street properly. I felt almost like I had regressed into being a child because it was all so new and so foreign in that sense. So in the first couple of months, it was really rough because I also had to find a place to live and secure a job and just get used to living there. So the first few months were really tough, but once I had more or less overcome those sets of challenges, then it started to become almost second nature to me at that point. So I was working out of a school and then I also got a part-time gig, actually designing courses and curricula for university and adult students. So I really got to kind of explore my creativity there too. So once I found that kind of niche that I was happy in, then it was a lot easier to kind of adjust to the way of life.

David McNeill: Yeah, I can imagine. How did you decide on Vietnam, actually, if you could have gone, let’s say anywhere in Southeast Asia or Asia generally? How did you decide Vietnam was the spot because I’ve been there, I loved it, I really love the place. And it’s always been in the back of my mind as a potential place to go in the future, not or perhaps again, for travel of course, but perhaps for longer as well. So to me to hear that you decided to go there is great, but I can imagine it was just such a shock from going from well, Toronto going from where you’re from into such a completely different environment.

Amy Jazienicki: Yeah, so the draw for me with Vietnam was I always thought that if I went to go teach for a year. Let’s say that I would go somewhere like China or Japan or South Korea because they have some of the best packages too for expats. But because I was a first-time teacher, usually in Southeast Asia, it’s very easy to find work. So that was one draw, the other was that I had spent a lot of time kind of recreationally studying countries like that. But with Vietnam, I didn’t know anything about it, aside from the war and the protests at that time. And so a bit of the history and I wanted to see how it is now. So that was a really kind of fascinating experiential lesson for me because I really didn’t know what to expect going in. Like I went in pretty blind and it was a great learning experience because how far they’ve come now is really impressive.

Amy Jazienicki: I haven’t been there since I was living there in 2016, but I think now they’re even building a subway system and everything, which they didn’t have before. Everybody was just driving motorbikes and that kind of thing, so it’s really interesting to see how they’ve progressed in different ways.

David McNeill: Yeah, and on the notion of the kind of having that perception or perspective, I guess you mostly came in without too much expectation, but that you had that cultural and historical context to it. What was the thing that surprised you most outside of; of course, the trouble of getting across the street, but maybe on a cultural level, you know. And did you find yourself easily able to adopt the culture, integrate yourself into the society, you know, how did that sort of evolving over, I guess the two years or so that you were there?

Amy Jazienicki: The experience was very mixed in terms of integrating with the local culture. I did make some really great local friends, which really helped with the whole experience. But I think it was one of those places where when you spend enough time there, obviously every individual is different. But I found that for me, there were certain things I just couldn’t reconcile, so there were things that I could just accept as well as just different and that’s okay. But then there were other things that may be impacted my visa or impacted my job and those were things that I couldn’t really come to terms with as well. So after a while, I realized it wasn’t really the place for me long-term. But I think as a starting point, it was really good because it was a lot rougher than say going to South Korea where they give you an apartment and set you up with everything. And Vietnam didn’t do that at all like I had to figure all of that out. So I thought, okay, well, if I started with the rougher country first, then wherever I go from here is going to be much easier to adapt to. So I’m really grateful that that was my first choice in hindsight.

David McNeill: Yeah, I think it’s very impressive to take the plunge, but so deeply that you go into maybe the hardest spot to start out first, just so that you know, that you can make it work no matter where you go. It reminds me of learning to drive in Los Angeles or in California on nerd’s day, if you can drive here, then you can drive anywhere. And I don’t know if I’d be able to drive in Vietnam, but let’s say it inside the United States. So, props to you for taking the plunge on such an amazing adventure. How did you summon the courage for it or do you have any advice for others that would be considering going more off, let’s say the beaten path of Western Europe which is also great. But the Vietnam and similar experiences that you can find in Southeast Asia are certainly going to be much more different maybe culturally than it used to and much more intense in terms of getting set up there. So I’d love just to hear your advice or thoughts for others on that.

Amy Jazienicki: That’s a great question. I would definitely say as everybody says on expat podcast is really do your research. I know that there’s only so much you can look into in advance, but really look into visas in particular and make sure that you’re actually qualified for the visa. Because I don’t know if this happens so much in Vietnam, but there are other countries, especially in Asia where you have to be really cautious about that. Because maybe an employer will tell you, oh, it is okay like you can just work temporarily until we get your actual visa. In some places that is illegal, so you have to be really cautious about situations like that, that’s the first thing. If you want to go more off the beaten path, you know, say as a digital nomad or you just want to go to a country that’s a little more unorthodox. Although I think now Vietnam is considered a pretty good country for expats now last I read.

Amy Jazienicki: But at the time that I was there, it was a little lower on the list. So I think if you want to do something that’s a little less popular or just a little less common, I guess I would also just think about what your personal motivations for doing it are. So are you doing it because you just really want a growth experience from it? Are there going to be good professional opportunities for you? Is there something about the local culture itself that really intrigues you or a mix of all of those things? I think once you have a context for that, then it makes a lot more sense and it becomes easier to justify your decision to go there rather than somewhere else.

David McNeill: Yeah, I think it is fantastic advice and people should really ask themselves why first? And make sure that the place that they pick and indeed doing the research that you discussed, that country or countries will align with what they’re looking for. And you can always adjust down the way, but taking the plunge and yeah, more unorthodox country. Well, you can always adjust, but that might be a rude awakening if you haven’t done your research. Where did you do most of your research, how did you get that confidence that indeed like this I need, I know what I need to do? Because as you said, you didn’t have an easy landing, you had to figure it out yourself. So do you have any good tips or resources for finding that information to help people to make that decision?

Amy Jazienicki: Yeah, that’s a fantastic question. So I hate to give an answer like this, but it really does depend on which country you’re going to. So some countries are going to have more resources readily available even online than others will. So for instance, when I think back to Vietnam, compared with China, I found that it was much easier to find information or even people to directly talk to for Vietnam than it was for China. So when I was working in China, I did have to rely a lot on my employer to ensure that even when you’re given, say a one-year contract, I don’t know if it’s like this still, but at the time I was working there, even if you were given a one-year contract, you still had to renew your visa every six months. Why? I don’t know, that’s just the way they structured things. So you don’t want to be dependent of course, but in some sense, you kind of have to be in countries like that, where your employment or your visa is tied to that particular employer, right. But for a country likes Vietnam, or if you want to be more of a nomad, you just want to make sure that you’re following all of the laws in terms of immigration and staying there for certain amounts of time.

Amy Jazienicki: So I knew a lot of expats in Vietnam who did visa runs and I used to do this too, where technically you’re living there as a tourist and technically it’s not legal. But the authorities aren’t going to crack down on that because they don’t want to deal with people who don’t speak Vietnamese. Typically they’ll accept bribes and different things if they do catch you doing something but for the most part, they just leave you alone. So if you want to, I think it was every three months, you can go across a border say into Cambodia and you just come right back in and you’re like a tourist for another three months, right. But if you can look into more, I guess, quote, unquote, legitimate visas so that you don’t have to worry about doing that every three months, that’s what I ended up doing. So I actually found a website that was for Vietnamese visas and it was all in English, all of the consultants there were English speakers too. So I actually got to reach out to one who helped me get my business visa so that I was able to stay there for a full year and not have to worry about coming in and out. And you can get a single entry, you can get multiple entries, so if you plan on traveling around, you can look at things like that. And I guess my point would be to ensure that as common sense as it sounds like, just make sure you understand the laws, right?

Amy Jazienicki: Because if you don’t look into that in advance and you’re just relying on an employer or relying on someone too much to tell you what’s okay, and what’s not, you might find yourself in a compromised situation. So go into Facebook groups or watch YouTube videos, read blogs, do whatever you can, and try to get a more holistic picture of what it’s really like to live and work in that country.

David McNeill: Sure. Yeah, great advice, and you do have to adapt to your situation and your goals and the country that you want to go to and where you’re coming from of course. But I think that’s just good tips for things to look up before you make the move. And in your case, so have you been to Vietnam before, or are you really just went sight unseen?

Amy Jazienicki: It was completely unseen.

David McNeill: How did you decide or get the courage I should say, I guess we know how you decided. But I’ve met some people who’ve made the move abroad without ever seeing the place. For me, it’s hard to get my head around because I think what you can see on the internet is so different from maybe what it’s like on the ground. You never know, you always have to experience a culture firsthand. But a picture can look great on Instagram and not so rosy or in such a great filter when you’re actually there. So how did you think about just really taking the one-way flight to a country halfway across the world that you hadn’t even stepped foot in before? I mean, you’ve done something really impressive, so that’s why I keep asking.

Amy Jazienicki: Yeah, well, honestly I think a lot of it; this is going to be very, very subjective, but I think that’s just my personality type. I think I just spent so many years, especially when I was going through grad school and trying to get a different career off the ground. That I was so preoccupied with security and like wanting to know what my path was going to be, that I kind of forgot to just enjoy things. And I got to a point where I was fed up with that and I just thought, you know what, I don’t want to say threw caution to the wind and not, you know, research anything or consider anything in depth. But I also recognized just from traveling that obviously living somewhere is very different than just visiting. So the only way I’m really going to know for sure is if I just dive in and do it. And if I come across issues along the way, then just make sure I have emergency contacts. You know, like people back home that I can contact if I needed to, which thankfully didn’t really come up much. Or try to get acclimated with locals as quickly as you can.

Amy Jazienicki: And, and that also includes people who are also foreigners too, that I’ve just been there longer. So they’ll be able to kind of give you a heads up about certain things. With Vietnam in particular, I think enrolling in the program that I was in to become certified as a teacher was one of the smartest moves I could have made. Because if I just went there and then tried to find a job, just living out of a hostel for a while, that would have been a little tougher to do. But because I was in this like course with like 20 other foreign people and a teacher who was a foreigner, all these different things, there was already a community there. So I could already defer to other people or say like, you know, do you have any experience in this country? Or have you heard about what we’re supposed to do in this situation or that situation that did help out a lot? So if I didn’t have that, it would have taken a lot longer to discover the same information

David McNeill: And you found that agency or essentially that course online before you made the move, right?

Amy Jazienicki: Yeah, so they also provided accommodation, so that was another major draw in addition to job support. And that kind of thing was I wanted somewhere that I know I could stay for that first month. And then just figure out, okay, once I get the job, then I can move in somewhere else and figure it out from there. But I just needed to get there first, so I just looked at it more like a sequence of events and you cross that bridge when you get to it.

David McNeill: Yeah, so that was your entryway. That was your foot in the door into the country and to live abroad for that matter. And yeah, gave you the certification to start teaching English. So could you talk a little bit about your experience as a teacher, I guess, ESL, and what type of students did you have? You know, what was the schedule like? What were your responsibilities? Just everything about that would be really helpful.

Amy Jazienicki: Sure, okay. So with Vietnam, the first job that I had was at a primary school and I’m not the biggest fan of kids. So that was kind of odd; it wasn’t even really a choice, it was just where they placed me. So I wanted to maybe be in a high school or a college or university, but because I was a first-time teacher, they just tend to put you with kids most of the time. So I just took it for what it was, and there were aspects of it that I ended up kind of enjoying, you know. Some of the kids, especially the really young ones were very sweet, you know, they’d get very excited when they’d see me. They’d yell like Teacher Amy and like come running and this, some of those memories were very sweet, but at the same time, as I said, it’s just not my cup of tea. So after doing it for almost a year, I was really happy that I also found a side gig doing instruction and even course design for some of the local university and adult students, which was a totally separate job. And that was kind of what ignited my interest in education in L and D. So for me, teaching, wasn’t just like a way to finance my travels, it was ultimately like a career transition. Which I didn’t even realize at the time, I just thought, Oh, I’m going to travel a bit, I’m going to just enjoy this year and see what happens.

Amy Jazienicki: While like many others, I ended up getting kind of addicted to this life and I wanted to see where it could go. So when I came back from Vietnam and I was only in Canada for a couple of months, at that point, I ended up reaching out to a recruiter who happened to be a Canadian guy as well. And I said, you know, I’m really interested in maybe working in South Korea and I’d like to work with adult learners this time. And he said to me, well, Amy, the trouble is that market is kind of oversaturated in South Korea. Like anyone who’s, anyone is already doing the job there. So unless you want to teach kids, it’s going to be a lot more competitive. But if you want to go to China, so I thought, huh, okay, I’ll think about it. So I did, and it turns out his wife worked for the company that I ended up working for. So he directly referred me to that company. And within a week I had two interviews and was given a job offer.

David McNeill: These things happen quickly, don’t they?

Amy Jazienicki: Yeah, sometimes they really do. Yeah, but I mean, the processing, the visa took an infinite amount of time. So I mean, I know times are very tenuous, you know because, at the time of recording this, we are still in the midst of the pandemic.

Amy Jazienicki: And only now we’re seeing vaccines come out, which is very exciting, but I don’t know how many listeners might be interested in working in China. I mean, the opportunities are very lucrative there and they’re very secure as well, but it’s mainland China. So there’s a lot of censorship, there is a lot of; not towards you as a foreigner, but there is a lot of repressions that you do see as kind of an outsider looking in. So there are those kinds of cultural things you always have to factor in. And when I was working with adult students, I could kind of see that. So even in a lot of the students that, you know, had really great, critical thinking skills and were very perceptive and could catch on really quickly. I could still tell that there were just things that they just didn’t know because of the political climate that they had grown up in. So that’s something that I also had to get used to as well because there were a lot of things I couldn’t openly discuss that under normal circumstances would be just completely normal to discuss, right?

David McNeill: Right, how did you find out what those things were, did they tell you when you came in, or what role was the process of?

Amy Jazienicki: Oh yeah.

David McNeill: Okay, so it’s very direct.

Amy Jazienicki: So my manager actually, so he was a local person and we were actually pretty close in age. I think he was only a few years older than me, but he sat me down. And this is kind of the process, at least with this company; I don’t know how the other language schools or just schools in general in China are. But when he sat me down, he explained to me, well here, there are three T’s that you can’t discuss. I said, what are those? And he said, Tibet, Taiwan, and Tiananmen Square, you can’t discuss any of those. I said, well, what if a student brings it up, which did happen more than once?

David McNeill: Really?

Amy Jazienicki: Oh yes, yes, tons of stories about that. But I said, well, what happens in that situation? He said, you have to diffuse it; you have to find a way to shut it down. So I had instances where it wasn’t really about any of those three, but maybe they spoke about someone like Mao Zedong for example. And they have very different opinions, so I had one student who thought, oh, he’s this hero and he’s great. And then someone else said, no, no, no, he was responsible for so much disparity. And I thought, Whoa, Whoa, okay, how did this even come up? So there were a lot of situations like that; that I had to kind of contain or control in some sense. And because in East Asia teachers are seen as authority figures, even though I didn’t really see myself that way because some of my students were older than me. That is the culture, so I had to kind of use that hierarchy a little bit to keep the subject matter lighter. So there were a lot of those little things that you learn being in that environment and how to control those situations.

David McNeill: Did you find it easier to move a second time to a new country or were the problems just as difficult to numerous, maybe just slightly different than the first time? Or was it easier?

Amy Jazienicki: Yeah, that’s a really great question. I think it was easier in the sense that in terms of the actual planning and financial management of relocation, it was a lot easier. Because I had been through it before and I’ll be honest, when I first moved to Vietnam, I didn’t go there with a lot of money. Like I had just enough to pay for the first month and maybe like second or third-month basic expenses, but I couldn’t really do much until I got my first paycheck. And because it was a major holiday at the time that I was supposed to start the job, our payment was delayed. So I was like, oh God, what am I going to do? So things like that, you do kind of learn. But thankfully with China, I went there like in April, so thankfully nothing was really going on at that time. But the challenge with China was the bureaucracy. So the visa process is very, very different than say Vietnam where it’s a lot more, I hate to say it like this, but relaxed, you know. But in China, they’re very strict, so if you’re caught working without a proper Z Visa, you can be detained and deported, which did happen to a guy that I was training one day and he was taken away by the authorities. So looking into those legalities and ensuring that you’re really on the up and up is so, so, so important, especially in a country like that because you don’t want to be in a Chinese jail.

David McNeill: No, probably not. Did you get support from this company that brought you over in that process or was that you kind of on your own figuring it out again?

Amy Jazienicki: Yeah, so because it’s one of those situations where the company is the one processing your visa. You don’t really have a choice, but to kind of be relying on them for that, right. So what ended up happening was when I first arrived there, I was a tourist. So I didn’t explain at the border that I had a job lined up, I just said, I’m here to visit. So you enter as a tourist and then they transition you into the work visa. But at that time, some companies or some schools will try to get you to work in this in-between period. So I caution anybody, not just teaching any job, I caution anyone who wants to maybe work in China, don’t let them tell you that this is legal. I don’t care what they say, that they have some kind of arrangement with the local authorities. Don’t let them tell you that because that’s not true if you’re caught, you will be detained and probably deported, so it’s really, really important. And thankfully, I kind of put my foot down with my manager and I said, listen, I’m not starting until I have a proper visa in my hand.

David McNeill: Well, that’s great advice. And certainly, if we can keep any of our listeners out of jail in China, I think we’ve done a good service today. On that front though, how long did it take for you to get the work visa in hand? How long did you have to keep putting your foot down to wait to start working?

Amy Jazienicki: Oh Lord, so the actual offer took, like I said, next to no time. Like I got the job offer within a week of starting the interview process, which was crazy fast. So I thought, okay, I’ll probably start around March, so this was back in 2017. I applied for the job early in the year, I think it was January I was given the offer. They said, okay, we’re going to aim to have you here, like mid-March, somewhere like that. So I thought, okay, great and so I start getting my paperwork. I had to go to the consulate in downtown Toronto and process my paperwork and do all those things. But on the company’s end, they still hadn’t done a lot of things and they weren’t really communicating with me. So it took nearly three and a half months for me just to get to China. And then when I got there, there was still another two or three weeks that I didn’t have my visa.

David McNeill: Okay.

Amy Jazienicki: So there was a lot of waiting and a lot of back and forth, which was quite frustrating if I’m being perfectly honest? So when I finally got it, I was just relieved that I didn’t have to worry about it again for another six months.

David McNeill: Yeah, that feeling of relief I definitely understand. But then you; as with a lot of things, I think being abroad, it just resets the timer kind of like, okay, I’m good now, I got past that hurdle, but now six months or twelve months down the road, you’ve got to get over the next hurdle right?

Amy Jazienicki: Yeah, and when I worked in Germany, I mean, it was also very bureaucratic, but for completely different reasons. Like they’re very efficient there, they definitely know what they’re doing in terms of processing it, but it’s just very time-consuming. And if you don’t have all the paperwork, including things that aren’t even required, but are just nice to have, maybe the agent’s not in a good mood that day and just decides, you know what, you don’t get your visa.

David McNeill: It really seems this way or it is I think we could say it is this way. Because I think almost anyone who’s gone through the process realized just that, that stamp, you know, the approved or rejected stamp is really in the hand of the individual that’s behind the table. And that their feelings can be swayed by many things, including your ability to communicate in German, your paperwork, including stuff that is nice to have, and perhaps even if they’ve been on their lunch break or not. So it’s a tough spot to be in I know for sure.

Amy Jazienicki: It is, yeah. So when I was working in China though, thankfully once I got it, it was something that one of the; I forget which role it was, but someone in the office was primarily responsible for dealing with visas. So the first person we had there when I was working was great like she was really on top of things, she would let you know, like, okay, your deadline’s coming up. So we have to start getting the paperwork ready for you. But if you’re not so lucky and you’re working with somebody who’s not on top of things or doesn’t know what they’re doing. That’s when I would give the advice that even though you really shouldn’t have to do this, just keep track of dates, right. So if you know that you’re going to have to renew in six months’ time or however much time, just keeps it in your calendar or something. And set a reminder at least like a month in advance, so that if you do have to kind of be a little more self-reliant about it, then at least you’re prepared. Instead of waiting on somebody else who maybe tells you too late and then puts you in a compromised position, right?

David McNeill: Yes, yes, I totally agree. And I think that’s a good takeaway in general from living abroad is that hopefully, you have people around you that can help you. Whether you’re paying for those people or they’re coming from your company or whatever the situation is. But at the end of the day, you are still responsible for pushing your process forward and making sure that the government stays on the track that your HR stays on track. And that you’re in, as you say, you don’t want to get to a compromise position. So making sure that you’re putting those reminders in you are pushing people, you’re making the calls if you have to. Or making the emails to the person that needs to make the call or go see them in person. I think this is really, really good advice. I’ve had many near misses myself, so I’m glad to hear somebody else give that advice as well.

Amy Jazienicki: Yeah definitely.

David McNeill: You were in China, which city were you in? You were in the Southern part…

Amy Jazienicki: Yeah, I was in Shenzhen, so I was in the kind of the major tech city of the country, which was really fascinating. It’s also known as the SEZ or special economic zone, so it’s like how Hong Kong is the special administrative zone. That’s what Shenzhen is, but for the economic side of things. So there was an entire tech district there Huaqiangbei, which was a phenomenal place to visit. You know, you could see drones everywhere and all kinds of really sophisticated technology, but Shenzhen is a migrant city. So most of the people who are living there are not from Shenzhen, they’re from other parts of China. So you get this really kind of hot pot mix of people from all over the country. So you meet people with a lot of different life experiences in the country, dispositions, priorities, even. So it was a really interesting place to spend a full year in because there were a lot of differences even from person to person or class to class sometimes. That it almost feels like you go to one room you’re in a different group or like in a different part of China almost and then you go to another one.

David McNeill: Right? What do people speak there, do they all kind of go to theirs? No, I guess there’s the Putonghua the common tongue or whatnot. But maybe even then I’ve heard that that’s, I’m not even sure if there is a common tongue of China in the sense that there’s just so many dialects. So I can imagine a migrant city where people are coming from all over the place. You’re just going to; I mean, I’m not sure how much you were able to kind of integrate that way, but I’m just curious how it is to have people from all over China in a city like that.

Amy Jazienicki: No, well, you actually hit the nail on the head because it is Putonghua. So the standard Chinese standard Mandarin is what’s spoken in Shenzhen, despite the fact that it’s in Guangdong province, which is the Cantonese speaking province and it’s for that exact reason, right? Because there are so many people with different dialects from other parts of China that they need some standardization. But while I was there, it was pretty easy to define tutors for foreigners. Because even though it’s not like Shanghai or Beijing in terms of foreigner population, there were a lot of great tutors around to help out with Mandarin, which was great. My first tutor actually told me she worked with a lot of business groups, so I guess like Americans or Brits who come to China to work and very often they don’t really need Mandarin for their jobs. But of course, it’s valuable if you can learn some, and of course, the companies were paying for this. So most of these people that she worked with, she said they didn’t really take it seriously. Like they weren’t really that committed to learning the language.

Amy Jazienicki: So when she was working with me, she said, you know, I actually really liked working with you because you’re actually putting an effort forth, which is nice. And I actually see progress because you’re actually doing the work. But she’ll go to these, you know some of these businesses and they were just, they were the same as it was six weeks ago, right. So that it feels like a waste for her.

David McNeill: Yeah, so did you spend just one year there, or what was your expected timeline, and how long did you end up staying there in full?

Amy Jazienicki: So I was planning to stay in Shenzhen for a minimum of a year. And then once the year came around or even before that, I suppose, technically I was interested in still living in China, but not Shenzhen. So I was a bit, I don’t want to say disillusioned because Shenzhen does have some really great aspects to it, but socially it was kind of rough, so I wanted to go somewhere a little more international, so I had my eye on Shanghai for a bit. So I ended up actually applying for a job there, going through the whole process of trying to transfer my visa to another employer, that was fun and by that I mean not at all.

David McNeill: Yeah, that sounds like not so much fun, but it’s really tied then to; each visa is tied to the single employer is that right?

Amy Jazienicki: Yeah, that’s exactly it. And again, that’s the only legal way to do it is the Z visa, right. So when I finally got to Shanghai, it turned out that the employer didn’t exactly know what they were doing in terms of processing the visa. So they kept asking me for documents I already gave them, changing the requirements for the photos and things like that. So I’m like, do they know what they’re doing, I’m not so sure? So I was getting a bit disillusioned and then they finally told me, oh, by the way, our deadline to submit, this has passed. So we’re going to need another four to six weeks; I’m sorry, what?

David McNeill: Oh yeah, that doesn’t sound good.

Amy Jazienicki: No, it wasn’t. So I think this particular company or at least this branch of the company because it is a larger company. So I don’t want to suggest that the whole company is this way, but at least for this particular branch, their visa, people didn’t know what they were doing whatsoever. So I got really frustrated and I actually told them, you know what, I’m just going to go home to Canada because I didn’t know what else to do at that point. I spoke with my family, I spoke with my friends, I’m like they said, and it’s another four to six weeks. They’re like Amy, like, like you’ve been there already for like almost a month what are they doing, I said I don’t know. So I finally told them this and their reaction wasn’t great, they kind of turned it on me and said, well, we put all this work into it, how can you leave? Meanwhile, I had to put in a lot of money and time to get my certificate notarized again, because Shanghai has a totally different process than other cities in the country, which costs me over a thousand dollars to do. I lost a grant just from that and then trying to find a place to live or living out of a hotel during that time. So I wasn’t very keen on that you know, someone telling me that somehow I wasted their time. And I was like, no, do not see what you’re doing like it was really disrespectful.

Amy Jazienicki: So I didn’t really care for that, so I finally just left and had enough. So when I came back to Canada, I ended up getting into freelancing. So I was getting into e-learning and some online teaching and training and I was really happy doing that. But I still wanted to go abroad again, so I had my sights set on Europe. And I thought, okay, I know getting into the EU is going to be a bit tough because I’m not an EU citizen, but maybe I’ll find a way maybe I’ll go to the Czech Republic or something. And I was fortunate because I happened to find I guess they’re kind of a visa company. They’re not actually affiliated with the government, but they can help you with your visa. And they mostly do freelancer and student visas, so I thought, oh, that’s really interesting. So I can be a freelancer in Germany, that’s quite cool. So I contacted them and they were the ones that kind of helped me through the process to get there and to also set up my visa appointment and to get all the paperwork process. So that was really valuable and I ended up in Germany for a time. So it’s been kind of interesting to see just how starkly different all these countries have been in different respects.

David McNeill: Yeah, definitely, I’ve seen quite a few different places that are all meaningfully different from each other. But before diving into being in Germany, I’m just curious what it was like between Vietnam, China, between China and Germany to go back to Canada. And I’m not sure, it sounds like maybe you just spend a few months there, but was your plan always, even when you went back between Vietnam and China to get abroad again? Or did you get; did you go back thinking I’ll stay here in Canada for a while and then you got the itch to be abroad? Just would be great if you could talk about that a bit.

Amy Jazienicki: For sure, so each experience was kind of different. So when I first came back from Vietnam, I knew for sure that I wanted to go somewhere else. I didn’t want Vietnam to be my only experience living overseas, I felt like it was just beginning. That mentality was very different from when I came back from China because initially, I’m just going to be perfectly honest here. I was very angry, so when I came back because I had spent the money and the time and was so disrespected, I was very frustrated. And I thought, what am I going to do, where am I going to go next? So, as I said, I kind of stumbled into freelancing when I came back and I was really happy that I did. Because it ended up paying off, I got more experienced, I taught myself more skills and I started my degree. So it all kind of worked out even though at the time; at least when I first came back, I didn’t see that happening, but it did thankfully. And it kind of gave me a new focus, so once I had that focus, instead of going back to Asia, that time was my opportunity to look elsewhere.

Amy Jazienicki: So that was kind of what helped me kind of refocus in a different part of the world. And I thought, you know, what, why limit myself to just one continent, I can go somewhere else, so I did. And of course, it took a lot of time with Germany because again, they’re a very bureaucratic country; they’re kind of notorious for that. But once I had my sights set on it, which was pretty much my commitment at that point. And it was different too because I have some ties to Germany like familial ties. So moving there, I connected with it in a way that I couldn’t possibly have in Vietnam or China. So it was different in that respect too. So even with the frustrating, bureaucratic side of things or, you know, things being very time-consuming. Ultimately when that was all finished, it ended up being, you know, one of the best experiences of mine, despite how short it was because of the pandemic that ultimately hit.

David McNeill: Right, when did she move there and when did you end up coming back to Germany?

Amy Jazienicki: So I moved to Germany in the summer of 2019, and then I was there up until March of this year when everything happened. And at the time Germany was one of the worst-hit countries for the virus. So at that point, I really didn’t know what was going to happen, so I tried to book flights to get back home and three of them got canceled on me. So I was very scared and it was the third flight that thankfully just rerouted my itinerary. So instead of going the way, I had booked originally, which I think was just from Germany to Iceland and then Iceland to Canada. They sent me on this kind of odd path, but I did get back home, so at least that happened. It was a very terrifying time because I really thought maybe I was going to be stuck there. And because I was a freelancer and I lost all my work, 95% of it in one fell swoop.

Amy Jazienicki: Like I went from full workloads every week with the same clients, pretty much too suddenly we’re not having face-to-face training anymore. All of the e-learning projects have been suspended temporarily, great, what do I do? You know, of course, I’m not the only one; there were plenty of people trying to figure out, okay, what do I do? And you know, I’m not from the United States, so I didn’t have to worry about potentially going back to a country where the cases were so high.

David McNeill: That’s true.

Amy Jazienicki: Right, so there was a lot of that that I was really concerned about. But thankfully I did make it back home and just kind of had to adapt when I came back again. So this time, to be honest, I’m not looking to be an expat again in the near future, but I’ll see what happens. You know, I’m just in my thirties now and I’d like to see where things go, but I’m actually considering moving to another part of Canada. So it’s not quite the same as being an expat of course, but different provinces have very different cultures. So there will still be a little bit of culture shock, just nowhere near what I experienced in other places, yeah.

David McNeill: So of course this happened in a way that you couldn’t have expected and you know, it was disappointing, I’m sure for you in many respects as well. But I’m curious if having those experiences in Vietnam and in China and Germany has made it so that you feel more assured or comfortable or confident indeed trying to stay in Canada and maybe trying a different province. Because I think at least for me, I can speak for myself in that I’m very happy to be abroad. And I want to try to keep doing that, but making the constant move from company to company from country to country from continent to continent gets kind of well, a little old and tiring after a while. And so I’m kind of hoping to stay put for some time myself, although you never know what the future holds. And I’m curious if that was something that has come into your thought process as well. Or what makes you feel like the next step for you is not to be abroad again, but rather to explore more of your home country.

Amy Jazienicki: Yeah, so at the time of recording this, like if you had asked me maybe a few months ago, I might’ve had a different answer. Because when I came back from Germany, my professional goal was to work solely in e-learning and instructional design. So that was kind of where I positioned myself online and restructured my whole website. Like I did so much in the first month that I came back because I had to act fast, right, so I did all of that and thankfully it really paid off. So I got back on LinkedIn, I optimized it. And now it’s crazy the number of people who have reached out to me, either for professional advice for them, or to even potentially work with them.

David McNeill: Oh great.

Amy Jazienicki: And yeah, so I was and I’m still am self-employed. So I have a sole proprietorship that I operate that’s solely like e-learning and instructional design consulting. Or actually being a part of the projects, which is usually what I do and so I was doing that for quite some time and I still do it on the side. But I just accepted a job with Grant Thornton to be a learning experience designer, LXD, which is pretty much like a dream job and a dream company and they’re based here in Canada. So as long as I’m still based in the country, I can still work for them. But if I decided, oh, maybe I want to go work in Ecuador or something, I can’t do that. Because you still have to be in Canada in order to still work for them, so you can be remote, you can go to another province, but you can’t leave the country.

Amy Jazienicki: If I was still just self-employed, maybe I would have considered going and being a digital nomad, which I did think about doing. But I also felt kind of emotionally that I was really happy to be back at home around my parents and my closest friends. And just the people that really, maybe it’s cheesy to say, but the people that really make me happy and proud to be who I am. Because sometimes when you’re in certain cultures, sometimes you feel like you can’t do that fully. And so it’s nice to just kind of have that again and be as Canadian as I want to be, you know, Torontonian to a certain extent. And it’s a nice feeling when you come back after all of those things. But now I don’t feel that restlessness, like, oh, I need to experience this because I never have before. I feel like I got a really good fill of it, but that’s not to say that the future couldn’t have something in store for me.

David McNeill: Yeah, we never know; we never know.

Amy Jazienicki: Yeah, so I think that’s where I’m at. So like professionally, emotionally, all the cards are kind of lined up for me to just stay here at least for the next couple of years and who knows what will happen down the line.

David McNeill: And congrats on the new job, by the way, that’s great.

Amy Jazienicki: Oh thank you.

David McNeill: So just to get; I guess, some key takeaways or some final thoughts for you, for our audience, what advice do you have for people that are interested in living abroad as you’ve done for the last quite a few years now, and maybe in particular in Vietnam or China? I know we’ve talked about Germany in this podcast a few times, but if you have any other thoughts on maybe those countries or just the topic in general, it’d be great to hear anything that you have to say in parting.

Amy Jazienicki: Okay, so I think I alluded to this a bit earlier, but again, I think really researching visas and legalities is so, so, so important. Even in countries where the laws might be a little more relaxed or they don’t seem as enforced, just know what they are anyway. You know start joining expat groups for the country or even the city, which is even better than you’re thinking of maybe going to and just talk to people. You know, I don’t want to say for everybody or all places, but generally, you could find at least a few people in these groups that are open to talking with you. Usually, because if they made the move and they haven’t left, it’s because they want to stay put it’s because they love where they’re at. So typically people like that, I find will want to talk with you and help you out. So I think that’s really valuable too, because they have that on the ground knowledge, so that’s the first thing I would suggest. The other thing is, you know, read blogs, find YouTube videos like there are so many valuable resources online alone that you probably would never find on a government website or anything like that. So I would definitely explore as much as you can. And I mean, it’s tough right now, again, because of the circumstance that everybody’s in, but if you do have a chance to visit, that’s great.

Amy Jazienicki: But to be honest, I’ve never done that, every country I’ve lived in, I never visited before I went. So I did it the crazy way, but every time it worked out in some respect or another. So if you can visit great, but if you don’t just kind of try to mentally prepare yourself for things that may come up that you don’t expect. Or just be cognizant of the fact that you can only do so much research in advance, there are certain things you’re only going to learn once you’re there. So as long as you kind of brace yourself for that, I think you’ll have a much better time and a much better experience.

David McNeill: Yes, fantastic advice indeed. I know you have a podcast called The Expat Experience and also a new online course out about moving abroad. So I’d love to hear a little bit about these projects and why you started them, how they’ve evolved over the last months and years, and of course, how the listeners can find them.

Amy Jazienicki: Absolutely, so the expat experience podcast, you can find pretty much anywhere where podcasts are a thing. Most people tend to listen to it through Apple or Spotify; at least that’s what my analytics tell me. Yeah, so that’s where you can find the podcast, I don’t have a whole lot of social media connect to it, just a Facebook page. As for the course that just got launched less than a month ago, so I’m still building up a student base for that. But essentially what it is, it’s the expat master class, so the idea is that regardless of which country you’re from and which one you want to go to, the modules will cover everything that you need to consider. So everything from your inner why and putting your reasons into context, to researching visas, to planning your finances and finding work, all of those things are covered. And all of the key strategies that I used for every country up to this point that has led me to a good place I’ve integrated into the course. So if you’re interested in enrolling in that, it’s available Udemy. So you can search the expat master class and you’ll find me Amy Jazienicki, as the instructor, so you can go there and join if you want to. As for why I started these projects, the podcast I started while I was in Germany.

Amy Jazienicki: So I wanted to highlight the experiences of people in different continents, different countries, and different professions, even different cities in the same country or different professions in the same country. I, myself, I’m just so fascinated by other people’s stories and how wildly different they can be from person to person. And I wanted to showcase that, and I’m sure you’ve probably had this too. Being someone whose entire thing is expat life, you probably get a lot of people asking you, you know, well, I really want to do this, but how? Like, where do I even start, where do I begin? So I wanted to kind of inspire people through that by showing them that there isn’t just one singular path to pursue that. In fact, it’s very much the opposite and you can be very innovative in your approach, very creative in terms of how you pursue this life. So I wanted to kind of showcase the stories of people who have managed to do that. As for the course, it was kind of inspired by a similar thing, except it would be a lot more structured.

Amy Jazienicki: So the podcast is more for open-ended stories and experiences that we talk about in a very conversational way. Whereas the course is a lot more structured and also has a Facebook community that you can join. And so that everybody can share their ideas and, you know, exchange their thoughts and even share advice if they have been expats themselves. And if you’re brand new to it, then you get the direct benefit of interacting with people who have already done it or still doing it now. So more or less that’s where the inspiration for those projects came from.

David McNeill: Awesome, well, I’ll be sure to put links to all of that in the show notes, so definitely everyone who’s listening, check it out if you’re interested in the expat experience podcast or the expat master class online course for how to move abroad. Is there anywhere else that our listeners can find out about you and what you’re doing?

Amy Jazienicki: Okay, yeah, I guess so funny enough, I spent a lot of time on LinkedIn now, which I know is not the most exciting place for everybody. But like I said, I’m just in a career that I absolutely love, so I love connecting with people, not just in instructional design. But even people who maybe want to be teachers or online trainers or anything like that, if they want some professional advice or if they just want to ask me about some of my previous experiences, whether that’s abroad or not, you can find me on LinkedIn under my full name. Which I guess you can include in the description because my last is a nightmare, which is Amy Jazienicki, I’m the only one, so it’ll be very easy to find me. I guess you could follow me on Instagram too, you can find me under thetravelinglxd, which is short for learning experience designer. Yeah, I guess those are really the only other platforms, I guess, that they could connect with me on.

David McNeill: Okay, perfect. All those links will be in the show notes and I really appreciate your time today, Amy, thank you for sharing your story. It’s been inspiring for me and I’m sure the listeners as well and hope to keep up with you and talk soon.

Amy Jazienicki: Awesome, thank you, David.

Outro

Thanks to Amy for sharing her story with us. You can find the full transcript for this episode at expatempire.com.

Music on this episode was produced by Eli Hermit, please check him out on Bandcamp and Spotify.

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Originally published at https://expatempire.com on January 29, 2021.