By HUI JIA

Foreign Correspondent

SHANGHAI (China Daily Show) — A tourist who arrived in Shanghai two years ago, hoping to tap his potential, has come to the brutal realization that he is, in fact, almost entirely without talent.

“As it happens, just going to a country which is in the limelight doesn’t make you special,” William “Bill” Hudson told China Daily Show. “Turns out, I’m actually kind of a waste of space.”

Hudson reluctantly concluded that he possessed absolutely no potential, whatsoever, at approximately 8:30 on Saturday morning, after a set of shelves, erected only minutes before, collapsed — smashing an entire collection of jade Zodiac symbols Hudson had spent months sourcing from Taobao.

As Hudson frankly discussed his pain at coming to terms with mediocrity, friends said the revelation had only been a matter of time, following a string of failed endeavors.

“Bill first moved to Guangxi province to work as an ESL teacher and, while the profession does play host to some very interesting, professional foreigners, Bill was not one of them,” Yangshuo English Corner legend Mick Watson recalled with a sympathetic smile.

“He didn’t know what he was doing, and just sort of read from textbooks aloud,” Watson said. “Didn’t really matter though; the parents loved his pale, febrile skin.”

Away from class, Hudson said he spent many days dreamily cycling and hiking across Guangxi’s beautiful karst trails and tranquil streams.

Despite bringing a notebook and watercolour set on his travels, however, Hudson’s muse yielded nothing more interesting than a series of insipid landscapes, along with banal written observations on Chinese society, that even Hudson admits to being “sophomoric, at best.”

The latter screeds, published in a now-discontinued WordPress blog, caught the attention of Beijing Normal University literary expert Kang Ma, who shared Hudson’s unqualified musings on politics, education, and food hygiene with his 2.3 million Weibo followers.

The resulting torrent of acrimony forced Hudson to abandon any further literary ambitions and, instead, attempt to go into business.

Hudson tried his hand at translation services, podcasting, IT work, and venture capitalism — yet somehow failed to make a single fen.

Many expats suffer “potential shortage,” says Beijing-based life coach Atkins Peiterman.

Maria Chung, originally from Manhattan, came to China in 2002, already speaking fluent Chinese, but now works as a “freelance marketer and style journalist” in Dalian. Yesterday she declined to give China Daily Show details of any recent commissions or published articles.

In fact, Peiterman estimates, around 80 to 90 percent of foreigners working in China have absolutely no potential skills or unrecognized talents whatsoever.

“People like Mr Hudson often can’t seem to figure out that, despite their ability to pick themselves up and boldly move to another country like China, they are still just as pointless here as they were back home,” Peiterman noted. “Bill seems to have just twigged this. That’s good — it won’t aid his job prospects in the slightest, but at least he knows that now.”

Hudson, and others like him, can face an uncertain future in China, even after years of solid classroom experience, but experts say most will likely still remain in search of a a breakthrough.

“I’ll probably stick around a few more years,” said Hudson. “Maybe a decade. Just to be sure.”

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