We’ve fielded many questions from persons and companies wishing to work in China or place private contract employees within China asking for advice on how to go about doing so in a successful manner. There are many potential pitfalls that may await you in your attempt to gain employment in China, but nothing that can’t be overcome with an ounce of precaution and foresight.

Whether you’re looking for a job as a teacher, consultant, marketing director or web developer, you need to exercise tremendous caution, much as you should in any international employment deal.

Job deals within a single nation, such as a person from the United States seeking employment from a United States company, can be quite straightforward. You sign on to a deal and if you don’t get it you can take it to a local court or to the local media and very quickly find a reasonable resolution. Odds are you won’t have to do it because you’re both coming at the contract from a very similar perspective, but when dealing with a company from another continent, the deck is stacked against you and it can very quickly come back to bite you in ways you never could have imagined.

I know you’re excited that you have a job offer in a distant, exotic land, but there’s more you need to consider. Two members of our staff executed a poor, shanty sort of half-assed contract with Shanghai real estate company Shining Property, headed by founder Jessica Kai, but did not insist that all of their agreed upon terms meet mutual, legal acceptance. One worked for almost two months without pay while the other advanced transportation fees to the tune of over $3,000, but Shining Property cancelled the contract mere days before pay was due and not a single penny was paid. In fact, they went back on their advance contract and bilked them out of almost $5,000. Could you imagine relocating your family and children, working entirely up to specification and then being forced to pay thousands of dollars of your own?

The first big problem you’re likely to encounter is a cultural one. I’ve interviewed everyone on the AboutShanghai staff to put these together, but the biggest item we’ve encountered is the very most simple, cultural difference. It’s an easy misunderstanding, really. You expect certain things and certain boundaries, but once outside your (our?) own social norm, those expectations are out the window.

No matter what company, no matter what person, no matter who, how, why and what you’re looking to do, get absolutely everything in writing and make sure that your end of the contract is notarized and their end is likewise officiated. Best intentions mean nothing once a contract hits the point of no return and there’s often nearly nothing you can do to get what was duly promised to you after you’ve provided your goods, services or labor. Do you know how to take them to court in China? Would you even know which court to take them to if you did? Get it all in writing so that, if they break their end of it you’ll at least have some element of recourse against them. At the very least, a good contract will stay an unscrupulous company’s actions towards breaking a duly written contract.

If you do not demand and execute a thorough, legitimate, legally binding contract, you should assume right now that you’ll work the term of your contract and never see a dime in compensation. This is not to say that most (or even many) of Chinese companies act in such poor faith, but most companies have no problem with these sorts of thorough, diligently executed contracts, and there is then, therefore very little problem.

Do your homework. If you’re looking to work with a company, school or individual, make sure you’re able to do independent research on them. As a company, search them on Google. If you can’t find them, that’s a red flag. Insist on being able to personally speak with other western employees or past employees who will personally vouch for the company. Don’t take their word for who they are, if they go bankrupt when you’re three months in to your contract, you’re going to be in exceptionally high water with no one to hold accountable.

If you were going to take on a part-time job tutoring kids at a local school in your neighborhood working ten hours a week, would you demand a clause in your contract that says it may not exceed thirty hours a week? Of course not, but if you’re tutoring children in a Chinese school, it may be critical. There’s a member of our staff who signed on to a ten-hour per week contract, but ended up working thirty-hours per week, and still did not receive her final payment because the children did not perform up to the school’s exceptionally high standards… how many hours would it have taken her to earn her fina payment? Would forty or fifty have accomplished it or was it an impossible goal from the first minute? In either case, this is the sort of thing that needs to be established.

If you choose to forego the common placement of a binding, legal agreement, know in advance that your future claims for compensation will not just be limited, but nearly impossible towards your ability to make claims and assert them. No court with international jurisdiction, not even weak international jurisdiction, will have any claim if you fail to make your initial agreement known in a binding form, such as a thorough, binding contract.

Even if you have a good contract (but especially if you don’t) you’ll face the complication of limited legal recourse. Are you willing to hire an attorney to represent you in the court of another nation? Can you afford it, even if you win? The value of a thoroughly written (and agreed upon) contract in advance is worth more than a million implied contracts, or even a thousand loose agreements as determined by informal (and, I assure you, unverifiable) email conversations.

When you’re working, do your best to e honest, diligent and act as a stellar ambassador for your nation. Even when the companies or persons you are working with are less than honest and less than forthcoming, that’s as much of a representation on you as it is on them. Get your facts straight in advance, get absolutely everything in writing and make certain that you’re dealing with a true, honest and forthcoming company. To do anything less speaks less about their ability to sucker you in than it does for your ability to fall for it.

And come what may, assert your rights and make your grievances known. Whether in true “to the letter” compliance to a contract or not, you know what you were entitled to and what you expected to earn from your labors. Come what may, we welcome your suggestions on this article and within our forums, and will not hesitate to blacklist a company practicing questionable or illegal practices, even companies like Shining Properties, even if they’re bigger or more international.