Before I go too deep let me explain a little about my situation here. When I came to Taiwan I agreed to stay at my company for 2 years. My boss always wanted me to stay for 3. Then he found out I am capable and can handle myself just fine—so now he most definitely wants me to stay at least 3 years.
The thing is I haven’t made my decision. I know I want to go to law school (I've also thought about an MBA or a dual JD-MBA degree too) in the future and that means I need to take the LSAT. So the first consideration is when do I give myself time to study for that?
Whenever I opt out I will have a crazy ton of experience. The thing that makes me a little nervous about opting out after 2 years is the economy. If I jump into a private law school for 3 years I am looking at minimum tuition of 30,000 a year without a cent of extra costs added in. If I decide to do a JD-MBA then I have 4 years of tuition. That is some serious debt that I will be taking on. If I cannot find a job that can help me make a dent in that debt after I get out then I will not be in a good situation.
So maybe I can spend 3 years here. The trade off with that is the longer I stay here the harder it is to leave. What I mean is I get more and more established, build ties, make more friends, etc. All of that makes it harder to leave. Basically, I worry I could end up being like Gulliver and being tied down and unable to leave (there are plenty of Westerners in Taiwan who end up this way)
Back to my timetable for Taiwan, my boss had something interesting to tell me. He suggested that I join the high end social club here in Taiwan (the American Club: http://www.americanclub.org.tw/, even though it is mainly Taiwanese who join). His suggestion was that if I do then I am set up long term and if I want to join then he and the company can give me some recommendations to get me in without a hitch.
Don’t get me wrong. I am all for joining. But I worry my boss will interpret that as a commitment to stay long term in Taiwan, which I do not want right now. At the same time, my boss has been dropping these hints in a much less direct way the past few weeks (telling me, “We could make a lot of money together (if I stay on).”). What I did not except was when he mentioned staying on long term he also mentioned having a family here. Whoa there! Not going to happen anytime soon—this I am 100% sure of (this is also funny since this is the same guy who when I first arrived to Taiwan warned me that all Taiwanese women were devils and to avoid dating them—he honestly figures no lady for me means I can work all the harder).
The thing is that before I went home for vacation I got the feeling Asia will be my Hotel California. Say I graduate with a JD and I have some great work experience here and I speak some Chinese. Anyone who hires me would be crazy not to send me back here.
You see, a lot of companies and firms are dying to get Westerners with real experience in Asia to come over. A major reason I came here was to get that experience and show that I can handle living here (and not end up like a lot of the younger Westerners who come over and drink themselves out of a job in a few months—hence most young Westerners teach English which is apparently conducive to heavy drinking). Basically, I can hit the ground running if I am sent over. Anyone hiring me will be able to see that, and I think they would tell me to pack my bags and get on the next plane to Asia. To be sure, my dad thinks that it is just as likely that I will be placed in the US. I am not so sure. If I am in the US and deal with Asia, there will be travel involved and at some point it comes cheaper and more convenient to just live here.
The thing is when I was younger I always envisioned working in the US and being able to raise a family—you know the deal with the dog, 2.5 kids, and a white picket fence in the suburbs. But if I live in Asia then what happens to that vision?
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