8 ms·

As a Chinese I would say that the points in this article, though true, are not among the driving reasons. If you ask me, I would present this list: 1. Practic

As a Chinese I would say that the points in this article, though true, are not among the driving reasons. If you ask me, I would present this list: 1. Practically, there are only 4-5 cities suitable for 'tech talents' in China. The properties prices in these cities are comparable to the ones in NY and SF while the salary isn't. BTW: you have very little chance to be able to get married without a property under your name in China. This isn't a 'tech talents' specific issue but 'tech talents' have more chances to emigrate. 2. There is no union nor labour law in China (well technically they both exist but..). So labour abusing is normal. Many tech workers are 'voluntarily' working 996 (which mean 9am-9pm, 6 days a week) on a 955 pay slip. 3. Chinese society is relation-oriented. Tech workers hate that. For example often the promotion goes to the guy who has the closest relationship to the manager. 4. Primary/secondary education in China is very, very cruel. Many people don't want their children go through it if possible. 5. Pollutions etc.

ar15saveslives 10y ago
> Primary/secondary education in China is very, very cruel Could you elaborate? Based upon what I see here in Canada, chinese immigrants maniacally push their children to all functions that can be found around. And it's considered good when there're many chinese children in your kid's class.
- TACIXAT 10y ago
  By all accounts I've read, it is an incredibly intense amount of work. Far more than I would subject a child to. From a quick search [1]. 1. http://hechingered.org/content/a-day-in-the-life-of-chinese-students_3826/ http://hechingered.org/content/a-day-in-the-life-of-chinese-...
- yzard 10y ago
  As a Chinese, Chinese culture think taking the education is the best way to be success. Honestly, most think that's the only way to do it, no matter they are poor/rich, or even under educated. if they(including me) want their kids to live better in the future, the fundamental thing is education. I attended a very competitive high school in China, and under pretty high peer pressure, books were stacking up on my desk. The final goal is getting high score in "SAT" like test(also much harder) and attending good university. Some of my classmates get medal from International Olympiad and have higher chance to get in to good universities. I think the historical reason for putting education in such high level is this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_examination https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_examination.
  - justicezyx 10y ago
    > books were stacking up on my desk That's a common situation in Chinese high school. I'd say most Chinese high school are equally competitive. I am in a not so high-ranked school in Shanxi. And I literally have less than 1 day of rest each week. Each day it's from 6am to 9pm. Early self-study, day lecture, and night self-study, all in classroom...
    - fil_a_del_fee_a 10y ago
      Serious question from a concerned American.. How much are you learning and more importantly, are you retaining this information? What subjects / topics are you studying? The reason that I ask, is that I work in IT. If you spent this amount of time devoted to learning a programming language, web design, etc... you would be in an excellent position to work remotely for a company like mine. If you spend 6-9 learning everything under the sun, I think it is kind of a waste.
      - s4vi0r 10y ago
        Whatever it is they learn/how they learn/etc it seems to be grossly inefficient. I noticed literally no difference between my Canadian students and Chinese/Korean students as a TA at a top university here, other than the international students being more likely to plagiarize/copy work. Also, the international students were way more likely to be smokers - not sure if that's a cultural thing, or if it's caused by being stressed the fuck out because of the ridiculous education system there.
        argonaut 10y ago
        While I agree with your observations, there is also some element of selection bias. Most Chinese students that are able to make it to the US come from rich families since most internationals don't get financial aid (so maybe they're more likely to be spoiled/entitled). Also, depending on how "top" your university, it may have been easier for these students to get into your university than the top universities in China (e.g. they have lower test scores than their peers at the top unis in China).
- blacktulip 10y ago
  It would be a book. There are of course extreme workloads from both the schools and the parents. But to me there is something worse - the public shaming culture. I live in the UK now. Something very odd to me at the beginning is that I can never know how good my kids are doing compare to their classmates. The teachers would politely refuse to answer such questions. And the 'parents meeting' is private to one pupil's parent(s) and the teacher. In China things do not work this way. Every test - and there are a lot of them - is publicly ranked. There will be a very large poster at the back of the classroom with the ranking on it. The parents' meeting is a meeting for all parents of that class together. A teacher will read the ranking aloud on the stage to all parents. The top pupils will be invited onto the stage and receive praise, which is alright. But the bottom pupils will also be invited onto the stage and receive criticism - in front of all peers and their parents. The idea here is to motivate them work harder to avoid the shaming - or to motivate their parents to push them harder to avoid the shaming. It may work for some. But I see more harm done than good here.
  - cesarbs 10y ago
    Are test scores calculated relative to the top performer - so that there will always be bottom performers - or is there a bar that everyone could clear so no student would be shamed?
    - blacktulip 10y ago
      That's the teacher's call. If consistently underperform pupil once underperformed less he/she may even get praised. On the other hand. If a top 3 pupil ranked 10 once, he/she may receive some shaming. Different teachers have different styles And of course. Some teachers won't shame pupils at all. But the rankings are always public. No one can change that.
    - xiaoma 10y ago
      There are always bottom performers.
    - Cerium 10y ago
      Doesn't matter which way they are calculated. Names are listed in order of performance. Additionally, at least some schools place students into classes based on previous years rank.
- runeblaze 10y ago
  Just to add an alternative viewpoint here. It was "cruel" retrospectively and perhaps from the point of American society. Yet it was not really "cruel" when I was "in it". It was not a burden entirely carried by individual students. The entire class was working hard. Everyone was more-or-less tired after class. Teachers and parents accommodated my needs and gave encouragement as long as I was striving to do well in school. Thus it might be ignoring the context to simply push one child in the US to Chinese level of school-work without considering the society around.
  - hackuser 10y ago
    > Thus it might be ignoring the context ... I agree to an extent, but ... > it was not really "cruel" when I was "in it" I can't speak about your particular experience, of course, but generally children tend to accept their experiences as the norm. They don't have other experiences, are naturally in a very subordinate position, and are powerless. They can't really deny or hate their parents: the child's actual survival, as well as their welfare and happiness, depends on their relationship with their parents. Consider how many adults won't challenge their bosses (the great majority); now imagine a child's powerlessness, lack of confidence, and even lack of understanding of their own situation matched up against the authority, capability, and power their parents. Even adults in such situations tend to accept their fate and deny the possibility of anything better. I also disagree that cruelty is just a relative term. It is to some degree, but pain and suffering have absolute values. When you break your arm or your loved one dies, the suffering is essentially the same whether you are in New York or Shanghai. I doubt you mean it this way, but claims that other cultures don't value life or suffering have been used as a justification of brutal treatment.
rahrahrah 10y ago
Yeah. I come from the academia, and I can't see a scientist not being able to do his job just because he has to take one extra hop by using a VPN.
- summarite 10y ago
  It's an arms race though. You'll never know when they start to block the VPN you're using. And then the one after that and then your internet access.
- uremog 10y ago
  Having a work-around to a bad situation still isn't "luring foreign tech talent", which is what the article is about.
suanmeiguo 10y ago
I'm a Chinese and I moved to US 5 years ago. Some of these are not true at least when I left China (I still go back every year and don't feel these at all). >BTW: you have very little chance to be able to get married without a property under your name in China. This is exaggerated. I've only seen such thing on news or from rumors. But in real life, a lot of my friends, classmates and colleges (both male and female) got married without owning a property. >Primary/secondary education in China is very, very cruel How can education be cruel? You may say it's hard or ineffective, but cruel?? What happened to you in your child life?
- Cerium 10y ago
  One way education is cruel is the one-shot at college thing. My wife's from China and her family is amazed that it is possible for her to go back to university in the USA.
  - fornever 10y ago
    Yes, presumably they meant cruel as in merciless or unforgiving (which is acceptable usage). This is a constant in everything from documentaries like the last train home or the biggest chinese resturant in the world and even a theme in major movies like aftershock. People say that China is 10 years in the future and 10 years in the past, but in many ways it's 50 years both ways.
- gaius 10y ago
  you have very little chance to be able to get married without a property under your name in China With the skewed male:female ratio, that would seem to be the least of your worries http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/8451289.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/8451289.stm
Animats 10y ago
2. There is no union nor labour law in China (well technically they both exist but..). So labour abusing is normal. Many tech workers are 'voluntarily' working 996 (which mean 9am-9pm, 6 days a week) on a 955 pay slip. The US is headed that way. Uber, etc. Trump's new Secretary of Labor is a CEO from the fast-food industry and wants to abolish the minimum wage. 5. Pollutions etc. Yes, China's big cities look like US big cities circa 1970. It took the US about ten years after the Clean Air Act to clean that up. Li Keqiang claims that fixing this is one of his top priorities. He has the authority, and the technology is known.
- lambdasquirrel 10y ago
  On point 2, a lot of startups run that way to their own detriment. The other cultural and pay issues seem a bigger deal to me, if true. So many of the best people I've met over the 10+ years in the valley care about things other than owning a home, for example. Owning a home is nice but it can't be emphasized enough that their heart was in the work, and everything else followed. I understand that that attitude may be one of privilege but it is what it is. What is tech culture — at least the bits that other people want to replicate? It's about being at the edges, pushing what's possible. Or the value-add, if you're an economist. :P It's worth noting that even in the Bay Area, it's just a minority of the scene that truly aspires to this ideal. There's a lot of hanger-ons, even here. What's different about the Bay Area is that non-conformism allowed those weirdos to actually lead.
- argonaut 10y ago
  None of which affects California and New York state labor laws.
amag 10y ago
Personally I would put pollutions as #1. IMO there's nothing that makes it worth exposing my family and me for any prolonged time to the often dangerous levels of pollution in major Chinese cities.
ocean86 10y ago
Thanks for saying these! As a Chinese as well, I agrees with you with these facts, they makes China less favorable to many of us. For some of your points, I'd share some different interpretations. 1. Yes - Housing is a problem. I think it is a salary problem. As tech corps in US earns money from the whole world, most Chinese tech corps can only attract Chinese customers. So the value generated from a same piece of code, is better in US. This makes US engineers' salary and status relatively higher in the society than those in China. 2. Yes - people are working 996. But I won't blame the law. I'd blame the culture, or the competitive nature of Chinese tech industry. Union doesn't do anything in China, but labour law does. It is written in favor of workers and executed properly, ask any entrepreneur in China. The problem is, I never seen anyone sued their employer. And there are a damn lot of people that actually working 996 voluntarily without asking by their boss, making the normal ones less competitive if they don't do this. 3. No, I don't agree here. - In tech companies of both countries, I found no difference, relationship does not matter that much even Chinese employees do have a closer personal relationship than US employees. And in other industries like finance, there are no difference either, b/c both countries are 'relation-oriented' in these industries. 4. Yes - I would not say its cruel tho. India, Korea, Singapore are all like this. Its just very competitive due to the limited educational resource and the amount of people who wants to use it. But yea I wouldn't send my child there (If I have one). 5. Pollutions - Sad, Beijing is not a human-habitable place anymore... Shanghai is still okay. Again, I think the facts you provided are main reasons that stop people going back. Those in the article are slightly wrong(Github, VPN .etc) or not important(foreign business entry barrier) for individuals like me.
- radicsge 10y ago
  As a foreigner who lives in Shanghai for almost 8 years, the list would be a bit different: 1) pollution - Since the Disneyland has opened, things are improved. But above the regular days, it is depressing when finally the weekend came and you can't leave the 4 walls. 2) overpopulation - I don't mean the large population, but the overpopulation. There is no space for cars, yet everybody is buying, sometimes a two lane road becomes barely one, because one lane is completely blocked by parking cars and bikes going randomly. Parks are small and spare in the city. There is barely playground for children only expensive indoor ones. 3) People.. I know I know, but it drives me mad, you can only queue up like once in a year when nobody will come to the front to you. I can't count how many times I've seen that cars just blocking the ambulance in rush for no reason. When you stop with your car because the road is blocked, it's guaranteed sby from the back will try to overtake you either from left or right. My friend had a light accident with a motorcyclist (50%-50%), he brought him the hospital and paid everything. Few months later he was dragged to the court and was charged for 28K RMB (~$4K) (including the bills he paid in the hospital, fortunately he kept the cc receipts, the repair of the bike cost like a new one etc. even if it is mostly paid by the insurance, very depressing to see this amount of fraud). And so on.. Of course you can meet nice and good people, but still the daily routine will be different (also gave up counting how many times i was almost hit by a car or motor). 4) The first green is like 4 hours driving. And not easy drive but bloody fight. Have to be fully alert, people even overtake you on the shoulder of the road + I can't recall I ever could drive without seeing accidents, see barrels or other things on the road. 5) internet - after 7-8pm it is basically cut, so overloaded, no website loads that is not hosted in the country. You have to use some kind of vpn for everything! ... your gray hair is granted. No form of video-chat works beside wechat. Skype though exists, in the current year, was really painful communicating with my parents.. as my experience goes only works during working hours or on mobile net. In this year when i go home, I started to consider it as an offline zone. .. sorry to be honest, no pun intended. It is how it is (My wife is Chinese so Im halfway there also :)... and things are improving with time, just way too slowly, Except 2. and 4. that can't be really fixed. (can't imagine anytime soon that it will be a dream destination..)
lacampbell 10y ago
Another thing is that it's practically impossible for a non-chinese person to get citizenship or even permanent residency - even if you marry a chinese citizen. At the end of the day the Chinese government (and maybe its people as well) does not want foreigners living their long-term.
- gbraad 10y ago
  There has even been a recent circular to not issue indefinite contracts to foreigners works. They are only allowed to employ the person for a maximum of 5 years (although extension of contract is possible). Not so sure what the deal with this is.
sytelus 10y ago
How much is race or religion factor as well? I'd read somewhere that it is nearly impossible to immigrate to East Asian country if at least one of your parent wasn't native born of that country. The laws around citizenship simply doesn't allow that. In some East Asian countries (perhaps Japan?), someone outsider can't get citizenship even if married to citizen of that country. Wouldn't lack of long term future prevent talents from other countries migrate in first place? I tend to think that US is able to suck up of large portion of talent from all around the world like vacuum cleaner because laws are race and culture blind. When I look at winners of Nobel prize or Field medalists or Pulitzer price winners or popular movie directors or music performers or entrepreneurs, it doesn't escape to me that immigrants or their children make up disproportionate number of these people while all other countries bloodlet their talent.
- eva1984 10y ago
  True. China, or PRC, has issued fewer than 2000 green cards to foreigners every since its foundation, and most of them are issued to people who have Chinese ancestry. Race. Chinese people are pretty...racist to TBH. But if you are White, it is probably going to benefit you. Good luck if you are people of colors. People hate PC here, but you will hate China for zero PC as well. A part that I really don't like about China, is a lot of people seem to judge others like it is their own damn rights, unacceptable. Religion. Not really a lot people care, not even the government does, if you just practice yourself. But you are openly advocating about that, people will frown upon you, and will keep you distance.
  - gaoshan 10y ago
    >But you are openly advocating about that, people will frown upon you, and will keep you distance. Having lived in an oppressively religious area (in the American South) this is one of the things I like best about China. It's a relief, compared to how it is in super religious areas.
    - eva1984 10y ago
      Agree, for me this is not a bad thing either, just a fact. Religion is not a taboo in China, as is not welcome.
songco 10y ago
1. Part, When compared with average salary. Some of my friends spend 3 hours on the way between home and office everyday...even they worked in big tech companies like Baidu. For marriage, most of my classmates without house get married, this is a problem but not "little chance". 2. Yes. 3. Part. 4. Don't know, it's OK in my opinion. 5. Yes, it terrible..air/water/land Some more: 1. food security, this is also terrible 2. lots of people don't follow rules like run the red light and cutting into the line 3. Health care, it's cheap, but the quality is poor, especially in small cities.There's more than 10 medical accident among my relatives

ar15saveslives 10y ago

> Primary/secondary education in China is very, very cruel Could you elaborate? Based upon what I see here in Canada, chinese immigrants maniacally push their children to all functions that can be found around. And it's considered good when there're many chinese children in your kid's class.

TACIXAT 10y ago
By all accounts I've read, it is an incredibly intense amount of work. Far more than I would subject a child to. From a quick search [1]. 1. http://hechingered.org/content/a-day-in-the-life-of-chinese-students_3826/ http://hechingered.org/content/a-day-in-the-life-of-chinese-...
yzard 10y ago
As a Chinese, Chinese culture think taking the education is the best way to be success. Honestly, most think that's the only way to do it, no matter they are poor/rich, or even under educated. if they(including me) want their kids to live better in the future, the fundamental thing is education. I attended a very competitive high school in China, and under pretty high peer pressure, books were stacking up on my desk. The final goal is getting high score in "SAT" like test(also much harder) and attending good university. Some of my classmates get medal from International Olympiad and have higher chance to get in to good universities. I think the historical reason for putting education in such high level is this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_examination https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_examination.
- justicezyx 10y ago
  > books were stacking up on my desk That's a common situation in Chinese high school. I'd say most Chinese high school are equally competitive. I am in a not so high-ranked school in Shanxi. And I literally have less than 1 day of rest each week. Each day it's from 6am to 9pm. Early self-study, day lecture, and night self-study, all in classroom...
  - fil_a_del_fee_a 10y ago
    Serious question from a concerned American.. How much are you learning and more importantly, are you retaining this information? What subjects / topics are you studying? The reason that I ask, is that I work in IT. If you spent this amount of time devoted to learning a programming language, web design, etc... you would be in an excellent position to work remotely for a company like mine. If you spend 6-9 learning everything under the sun, I think it is kind of a waste.
    - s4vi0r 10y ago
      Whatever it is they learn/how they learn/etc it seems to be grossly inefficient. I noticed literally no difference between my Canadian students and Chinese/Korean students as a TA at a top university here, other than the international students being more likely to plagiarize/copy work. Also, the international students were way more likely to be smokers - not sure if that's a cultural thing, or if it's caused by being stressed the fuck out because of the ridiculous education system there.
      - argonaut 10y ago
        While I agree with your observations, there is also some element of selection bias. Most Chinese students that are able to make it to the US come from rich families since most internationals don't get financial aid (so maybe they're more likely to be spoiled/entitled). Also, depending on how "top" your university, it may have been easier for these students to get into your university than the top universities in China (e.g. they have lower test scores than their peers at the top unis in China).
blacktulip 10y ago
It would be a book. There are of course extreme workloads from both the schools and the parents. But to me there is something worse - the public shaming culture. I live in the UK now. Something very odd to me at the beginning is that I can never know how good my kids are doing compare to their classmates. The teachers would politely refuse to answer such questions. And the 'parents meeting' is private to one pupil's parent(s) and the teacher. In China things do not work this way. Every test - and there are a lot of them - is publicly ranked. There will be a very large poster at the back of the classroom with the ranking on it. The parents' meeting is a meeting for all parents of that class together. A teacher will read the ranking aloud on the stage to all parents. The top pupils will be invited onto the stage and receive praise, which is alright. But the bottom pupils will also be invited onto the stage and receive criticism - in front of all peers and their parents. The idea here is to motivate them work harder to avoid the shaming - or to motivate their parents to push them harder to avoid the shaming. It may work for some. But I see more harm done than good here.
- cesarbs 10y ago
  Are test scores calculated relative to the top performer - so that there will always be bottom performers - or is there a bar that everyone could clear so no student would be shamed?
  - blacktulip 10y ago
    That's the teacher's call. If consistently underperform pupil once underperformed less he/she may even get praised. On the other hand. If a top 3 pupil ranked 10 once, he/she may receive some shaming. Different teachers have different styles And of course. Some teachers won't shame pupils at all. But the rankings are always public. No one can change that.
  - xiaoma 10y ago
    There are always bottom performers.
  - Cerium 10y ago
    Doesn't matter which way they are calculated. Names are listed in order of performance. Additionally, at least some schools place students into classes based on previous years rank.
runeblaze 10y ago
Just to add an alternative viewpoint here. It was "cruel" retrospectively and perhaps from the point of American society. Yet it was not really "cruel" when I was "in it". It was not a burden entirely carried by individual students. The entire class was working hard. Everyone was more-or-less tired after class. Teachers and parents accommodated my needs and gave encouragement as long as I was striving to do well in school. Thus it might be ignoring the context to simply push one child in the US to Chinese level of school-work without considering the society around.
- hackuser 10y ago
  > Thus it might be ignoring the context ... I agree to an extent, but ... > it was not really "cruel" when I was "in it" I can't speak about your particular experience, of course, but generally children tend to accept their experiences as the norm. They don't have other experiences, are naturally in a very subordinate position, and are powerless. They can't really deny or hate their parents: the child's actual survival, as well as their welfare and happiness, depends on their relationship with their parents. Consider how many adults won't challenge their bosses (the great majority); now imagine a child's powerlessness, lack of confidence, and even lack of understanding of their own situation matched up against the authority, capability, and power their parents. Even adults in such situations tend to accept their fate and deny the possibility of anything better. I also disagree that cruelty is just a relative term. It is to some degree, but pain and suffering have absolute values. When you break your arm or your loved one dies, the suffering is essentially the same whether you are in New York or Shanghai. I doubt you mean it this way, but claims that other cultures don't value life or suffering have been used as a justification of brutal treatment.

rahrahrah 10y ago

Yeah. I come from the academia, and I can't see a scientist not being able to do his job just because he has to take one extra hop by using a VPN.

summarite 10y ago
It's an arms race though. You'll never know when they start to block the VPN you're using. And then the one after that and then your internet access.
uremog 10y ago
Having a work-around to a bad situation still isn't "luring foreign tech talent", which is what the article is about.

suanmeiguo 10y ago

I'm a Chinese and I moved to US 5 years ago. Some of these are not true at least when I left China (I still go back every year and don't feel these at all). >BTW: you have very little chance to be able to get married without a property under your name in China. This is exaggerated. I've only seen such thing on news or from rumors. But in real life, a lot of my friends, classmates and colleges (both male and female) got married without owning a property. >Primary/secondary education in China is very, very cruel How can education be cruel? You may say it's hard or ineffective, but cruel?? What happened to you in your child life?

Cerium 10y ago
One way education is cruel is the one-shot at college thing. My wife's from China and her family is amazed that it is possible for her to go back to university in the USA.
- fornever 10y ago
  Yes, presumably they meant cruel as in merciless or unforgiving (which is acceptable usage). This is a constant in everything from documentaries like the last train home or the biggest chinese resturant in the world and even a theme in major movies like aftershock. People say that China is 10 years in the future and 10 years in the past, but in many ways it's 50 years both ways.
gaius 10y ago
you have very little chance to be able to get married without a property under your name in China With the skewed male:female ratio, that would seem to be the least of your worries http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/8451289.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/8451289.stm

Animats 10y ago

2. There is no union nor labour law in China (well technically they both exist but..). So labour abusing is normal. Many tech workers are 'voluntarily' working 996 (which mean 9am-9pm, 6 days a week) on a 955 pay slip. The US is headed that way. Uber, etc. Trump's new Secretary of Labor is a CEO from the fast-food industry and wants to abolish the minimum wage. 5. Pollutions etc. Yes, China's big cities look like US big cities circa 1970. It took the US about ten years after the Clean Air Act to clean that up. Li Keqiang claims that fixing this is one of his top priorities. He has the authority, and the technology is known.

lambdasquirrel 10y ago
On point 2, a lot of startups run that way to their own detriment. The other cultural and pay issues seem a bigger deal to me, if true. So many of the best people I've met over the 10+ years in the valley care about things other than owning a home, for example. Owning a home is nice but it can't be emphasized enough that their heart was in the work, and everything else followed. I understand that that attitude may be one of privilege but it is what it is. What is tech culture — at least the bits that other people want to replicate? It's about being at the edges, pushing what's possible. Or the value-add, if you're an economist. :P It's worth noting that even in the Bay Area, it's just a minority of the scene that truly aspires to this ideal. There's a lot of hanger-ons, even here. What's different about the Bay Area is that non-conformism allowed those weirdos to actually lead.
argonaut 10y ago
None of which affects California and New York state labor laws.

amag 10y ago

Personally I would put pollutions as #1. IMO there's nothing that makes it worth exposing my family and me for any prolonged time to the often dangerous levels of pollution in major Chinese cities.

ocean86 10y ago

Thanks for saying these! As a Chinese as well, I agrees with you with these facts, they makes China less favorable to many of us. For some of your points, I'd share some different interpretations. 1. Yes - Housing is a problem. I think it is a salary problem. As tech corps in US earns money from the whole world, most Chinese tech corps can only attract Chinese customers. So the value generated from a same piece of code, is better in US. This makes US engineers' salary and status relatively higher in the society than those in China. 2. Yes - people are working 996. But I won't blame the law. I'd blame the culture, or the competitive nature of Chinese tech industry. Union doesn't do anything in China, but labour law does. It is written in favor of workers and executed properly, ask any entrepreneur in China. The problem is, I never seen anyone sued their employer. And there are a damn lot of people that actually working 996 voluntarily without asking by their boss, making the normal ones less competitive if they don't do this. 3. No, I don't agree here. - In tech companies of both countries, I found no difference, relationship does not matter that much even Chinese employees do have a closer personal relationship than US employees. And in other industries like finance, there are no difference either, b/c both countries are 'relation-oriented' in these industries. 4. Yes - I would not say its cruel tho. India, Korea, Singapore are all like this. Its just very competitive due to the limited educational resource and the amount of people who wants to use it. But yea I wouldn't send my child there (If I have one). 5. Pollutions - Sad, Beijing is not a human-habitable place anymore... Shanghai is still okay. Again, I think the facts you provided are main reasons that stop people going back. Those in the article are slightly wrong(Github, VPN .etc) or not important(foreign business entry barrier) for individuals like me.

radicsge 10y ago
As a foreigner who lives in Shanghai for almost 8 years, the list would be a bit different: 1) pollution - Since the Disneyland has opened, things are improved. But above the regular days, it is depressing when finally the weekend came and you can't leave the 4 walls. 2) overpopulation - I don't mean the large population, but the overpopulation. There is no space for cars, yet everybody is buying, sometimes a two lane road becomes barely one, because one lane is completely blocked by parking cars and bikes going randomly. Parks are small and spare in the city. There is barely playground for children only expensive indoor ones. 3) People.. I know I know, but it drives me mad, you can only queue up like once in a year when nobody will come to the front to you. I can't count how many times I've seen that cars just blocking the ambulance in rush for no reason. When you stop with your car because the road is blocked, it's guaranteed sby from the back will try to overtake you either from left or right. My friend had a light accident with a motorcyclist (50%-50%), he brought him the hospital and paid everything. Few months later he was dragged to the court and was charged for 28K RMB (~$4K) (including the bills he paid in the hospital, fortunately he kept the cc receipts, the repair of the bike cost like a new one etc. even if it is mostly paid by the insurance, very depressing to see this amount of fraud). And so on.. Of course you can meet nice and good people, but still the daily routine will be different (also gave up counting how many times i was almost hit by a car or motor). 4) The first green is like 4 hours driving. And not easy drive but bloody fight. Have to be fully alert, people even overtake you on the shoulder of the road + I can't recall I ever could drive without seeing accidents, see barrels or other things on the road. 5) internet - after 7-8pm it is basically cut, so overloaded, no website loads that is not hosted in the country. You have to use some kind of vpn for everything! ... your gray hair is granted. No form of video-chat works beside wechat. Skype though exists, in the current year, was really painful communicating with my parents.. as my experience goes only works during working hours or on mobile net. In this year when i go home, I started to consider it as an offline zone. .. sorry to be honest, no pun intended. It is how it is (My wife is Chinese so Im halfway there also :)... and things are improving with time, just way too slowly, Except 2. and 4. that can't be really fixed. (can't imagine anytime soon that it will be a dream destination..)

lacampbell 10y ago

Another thing is that it's practically impossible for a non-chinese person to get citizenship or even permanent residency - even if you marry a chinese citizen. At the end of the day the Chinese government (and maybe its people as well) does not want foreigners living their long-term.

gbraad 10y ago
There has even been a recent circular to not issue indefinite contracts to foreigners works. They are only allowed to employ the person for a maximum of 5 years (although extension of contract is possible). Not so sure what the deal with this is.

sytelus 10y ago

How much is race or religion factor as well? I'd read somewhere that it is nearly impossible to immigrate to East Asian country if at least one of your parent wasn't native born of that country. The laws around citizenship simply doesn't allow that. In some East Asian countries (perhaps Japan?), someone outsider can't get citizenship even if married to citizen of that country. Wouldn't lack of long term future prevent talents from other countries migrate in first place? I tend to think that US is able to suck up of large portion of talent from all around the world like vacuum cleaner because laws are race and culture blind. When I look at winners of Nobel prize or Field medalists or Pulitzer price winners or popular movie directors or music performers or entrepreneurs, it doesn't escape to me that immigrants or their children make up disproportionate number of these people while all other countries bloodlet their talent.

eva1984 10y ago
True. China, or PRC, has issued fewer than 2000 green cards to foreigners every since its foundation, and most of them are issued to people who have Chinese ancestry. Race. Chinese people are pretty...racist to TBH. But if you are White, it is probably going to benefit you. Good luck if you are people of colors. People hate PC here, but you will hate China for zero PC as well. A part that I really don't like about China, is a lot of people seem to judge others like it is their own damn rights, unacceptable. Religion. Not really a lot people care, not even the government does, if you just practice yourself. But you are openly advocating about that, people will frown upon you, and will keep you distance.
- gaoshan 10y ago
  >But you are openly advocating about that, people will frown upon you, and will keep you distance. Having lived in an oppressively religious area (in the American South) this is one of the things I like best about China. It's a relief, compared to how it is in super religious areas.
  - eva1984 10y ago
    Agree, for me this is not a bad thing either, just a fact. Religion is not a taboo in China, as is not welcome.

songco 10y ago

1. Part, When compared with average salary. Some of my friends spend 3 hours on the way between home and office everyday...even they worked in big tech companies like Baidu. For marriage, most of my classmates without house get married, this is a problem but not "little chance". 2. Yes. 3. Part. 4. Don't know, it's OK in my opinion. 5. Yes, it terrible..air/water/land Some more: 1. food security, this is also terrible 2. lots of people don't follow rules like run the red light and cutting into the line 3. Health care, it's cheap, but the quality is poor, especially in small cities.There's more than 10 medical accident among my relatives