The long journey of a young Belgian
“Day to day it’s a bit of a roller coaster here! “
Son of a long-range officer who had worked in China since 1984, Jonathan Jungers nevertheless experienced a journey filled with adventures to finally come to live in the former Middle Kingdom. This political science graduate from the Belgian University of Louvain-La-Neuve has since married a woman from Guangzhou and started a family in the great southern province of China, Guangdong. Tencent has hired him in its Electronic Games division. But things are still unstable for him as China has to be earned day by day! Today, the young man is torn between love for his province, Guangdong, his family and an international career.
LHCH: What was your first intellectual encounter with China?
Jonathan Jungers: My father was a long-term naval officer and worked in China since 1984. They kept telling us about this gigantic and distant country. He was already excited about the future of China. As a child, I admit it was a bit abstract for me. It wasn’t until 2008 in Paris that I experienced some sort of revelation. I was leaving the Pompidou Museum when I noticed that the streets were empty… Not a cat. A little further, in a bar, I saw people gathered in front of a television: they were watching the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in Beijing! I understood that something great was happening!
LHCH: How did this revelation come about?
Jonathan Jungers: I decided very quickly to learn Mandarin at my university in Louvain-La-Neuve, near Brussels. I diligently followed Madame Baron’s classes for 3 years.
LHCH: So what did you take the plunge and go to China?
Jonathan Jungers: In 2011, I participated in a 6-month university exchange with Zhejiang Daxue University in Hangzhou. A wonderful but very trying experience. I was probably too young because I was a bit unsettled there. A young person can get lost in China if he is not sure how to manage his energy and his time. It took a long time in Belgium to get my ideas back in place.
LHCH: A second chance was needed to adopt China.
Jonathan Jungers: Yes, during a “project KOT” at the University of Louvain-La-Neuve with 7 other students, including Chinese, I approached the world of Chinese companies in Belgium. This allowed me to get an unpaid internship in a Chinese company, a year after I graduated from Political Science. So from 2012 to 2014, I experienced the rhythm and style of this work culture in a company.
LHCH: How did it go?
Jonathan Jungers: I humbly started taking care of the coffee machine and printer. Then, little by little, I was given more exciting tasks! I became essential because they needed local people to carry out projects between Belgium and Luxembourg. Around me, the Belgian business world and the job market were not flourishing. With the Chinese, I felt another energy! I was becoming versatile and wanted to understand where the guidelines were coming from. I then came to the idea that I had to go back to China, armed with this experience.
LHCH: Who gave you this opportunity? A Chinese company?
Jonathan Jungers: No, in 2014 I left as part of AWEX’s Explore program, a program for people who are unemployed or leaving school. These are normally internships in Walloon companies around the world, and therefore also in China. But I preferred to do my internship at Chinese Electrabel, State Grid, in Wuhan. I have translated a lot of Power Point from Chinese to French and English for the marketing department. And this, from the top of my HSK3 (!).
LHCH: Have you never worked for the promotion of Belgian products in China?
Jonathan Jungers: Yes, I worked for a Walloon beer company and food imports. But I was not very enthusiastic because, for me, Belgium is not all about beers or waffles. It’s often a bit of the same kind of communication. From 2015 to 2017, I then worked for an American investment aid company in China. But here, the ethics were not really there.
LHCH: What a courageous journey. Did you end up finding a job that you liked?
Jonathan Jungers: Yes, I have been working for 4 years now at the Chinese company Tencent in the communication department for the publication of video games. Communication is not really the strong point of the Chinese. But it is changing very quickly. At the creative level, there is the Tik Tok phenomenon which is a revolution in the genre.
LHCH: What about love in China?
Jonathan Jungers: Here in China I saw a Chinese woman from the Belgian University of e Louvain-La-Neuve. We had our love affair but the dad didn’t really appreciate my profile as a young first and foreigner in China. Then I met the woman of my life, a woman from the Hakka minority, also of Han Chinese blood. We just had a child.
LHCH: Beautiful! Are you living the dream life now in China?
Jonathan Jungers: If we had to take stock after 7 years here in China, I would say it is mixed. The wonderful times are balanced by the more difficult times because nothing can ever be taken for granted in China. We have to fight day by day. Everything has to be earned. Nothing is ever really certain.
LHCH: Isn’t a local bride helping to endure this “roller coaster” of life in China?
Jonathan Jungers: Of course my wife gives me stability. But I’m looking for more balance with my culture. Such an international dimension. Did you know that there are only 800,000 expats in China? With Koreans and Japanese! And most expats eat instant noodles to reserve a restaurant once in a while. Our life is not easy. Or rather, either you are a very wealthy expat or you survive.
LHCH: China indeed prefers very high quality expatriates. The competition must be tough between you.
Jonathan Jungers: You go from a hysterical feeling of being highly valued to feeling like you’re no longer being an hour later. Yes there is terrible pressure.
LHCH: Are you a little « bitter » ?
Jonathan Jungers: No, I really like China despite everything. Maybe I dream of a life a little more between Europe and China. Tencent has opened its Headquarter in Amsterdam… And is setting up more and more offices in Europe. There will be opportunities. I would like my child to have a bit of an international education as well.
LHCH: This is probably the reason for your hesitation. Among the Belgian community in China, however, you go through a tourism specialist in Guangdong.
Jonathan Jungers: It’s my weekend hobby! I take my friends to visit the most beautiful corners of this magnificent province. I specialized in the history of the opium war in particular. I admit that these weekend cultural outings are my oxygen once a week.
LHCH: We hope you will find your balance quickly. It is essential for the well-being of your family. And China still has great things to offer you in the future!
