71–80 of 178 posts
Like bamboo ceiling is a thing in US, similar ceiling will be put upon foreigners in China, unless it is your own company.
China executes thousands of political prisoners per year to harvest thier organs on an industrial scale.
Some facts that increase the plausibility of the claim:
1) China has among the shortest wait times in the world for organ transplants
2) China has little public engagement for voluntary organ donation. There were 373,536 registered organ donors nationally at the end of 2017. That number of donors would equate to 29 donations annually, going by US rates. Let's be generous and grant that 100 or so donations come from a voluntary donor.
3) Officially, the government of the PRC says that around 10k organ transplants happen per year. Most outside observers claim this is a significant undercount, but let's go with it.
4) The PRC claims that most of its organs come from voluntary donors.
Where do the rest of the organs come from? There's a huge discrepancy here. You can find plenty of people who attest that they've witnessed them coming from Falun Gong practitioners. I don't find individual accounts of anything that compelling, but they're easy enough to find. Plus, any mention of any particular individual would bring in a large number of accounts dismissing and attacking that individual, derailing the conversation.
If someone responds complaining that a lot of this is ultimately speculative: sure. The government of the PRC could easily address and dismiss this issue by offering transparency into its organ donation system. This is low risk and shouldn't undermine the PRC's informational priorities, as there's no reason for it to be a heavily politicized area of discussion (aside potentially from some class issues involving Western medical tourists).
For a well sourced overview, see https://www.chinaorganharvest.org/app/uploads/2018/06/COHRC-... . Yes, the domain name seems sensationalist, but it's appropriate.
Haven't moved my career here but am working remotely for a couple of months. All of my work is European and I'm on the verge of leaving due to how bad the internet gets at night. Throughout the day you've got ExpesssVPM and Shadowsocks but at around 7pm every night there's a huge crackdown on foreign traffic where even obscure sites fail to load. It's probably fine if your work is 9-5 but outside of then the internet…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thanks for the insights, much appreciated! To be clear, are you a westerner who made this move, or a Chinese native? If the former, how did the startup culture compare to the US startup culture? >of Chinese descent and speak the language What about westerns who speak mando? Is it workable or still too much of a culture shock? Is racism abundant?
>mando Is it a regional norm around you to refer to Mandarin as "Mando?" Never heard of this in my life...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would like to add: Even if you are ethnically Chinese and speak the language, don't go back to China unless you really cannot find a decent job in the west. Especially if you are young and educated in the west, here are the things to consider: - It is not very hard to find a STEM job in the west, and the pay is good. - Your parents are healthy now, not much to worry. It's better to get a green card before they get…
Care to expand on your last point? I haven’t heard that before.
It's already pretty bad in the US, but it's nothing compared to China (or Asia in general.)
I’ve sort of done the move. If you are not ethnically Chinese and speak the language, there will be a few things to get used to. The degree will depend a bit on where you end up. For example: - pollution can be a big problem. - if Chinese company, work culture can be very different. More top down, longer hours etc. - noisy. Most places you go in big cities you are surrounded by noise. Cars, people, construction. It d…
This would already be a showstopper for me. I have spent a week in Mumbai and never want to be in such an environment again.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's a great point about access to Shenzhen from HK. How's the language barrier been? Have you had to learn both Canto and Mando and read both simplified and traditional? Is there a distinct advantage to living on one side of the border over the other?
HK has uncensored and fast internet. The language barrier can be a issue but English is still widely spoken, even in remote areas of HK like where I live. I know enough Canto for numbers, food and the rare times I get a taxi. I can't ready anything though. There's a big question mark as 2047 looms closer, which is till when China promised to keep HK the way it is now (capitalism, different currency, open, legal syste…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Hong_Kong_protests
They're not going to wait until 2047. Already many (most?) elementary schools in HK speak Mandarin instead of Cantonese.
Personally, I think how much you enjoy it will depend on how much you enjoy Chinese culture. From my experience, expats who stays "expats" forever, only hang out with other foreigners and don't learn the language, are less satisfied than people who integrate more, have local friends, learn the language, and enjoy things like KTV and hotpot. The locals are generally quite pragmatic and in some sense libertarian, in that many will do what they can to skirt laws and regulations that get in their way (which at least in past was perhaps necessary for survival in the corrupt, oppressive conditions there). So if you like "hustle", you'll like it, but if you think Uber are monsters, laws are made to be obeyed, or principles trump pragmatism, then you probably won't have a good time. Also if you're insecure about your appearance you may not enjoy it there; people can be very frank (like, a colleague might observe "wow, you've gotten fatter, what did you eat?"), and many job listings require a photo attached to the resume. Similarly people are more comfortable mentioning racial stereotypes than Americans are, so if (often well-meaning) racism bothers you then again, maybe better not to go.
Reasons to work there? The food is amazing and there's so much variety, the sheer number of people and opportunities is greater than almost anywhere else due to the population size (more people --> greater absolute number of people at the tails of any distribution --> there are some really awesome people there), and it's extremely safe. Things like delivery and transport are excellent due to economies of scale. There's also a lot of personal freedom there; the government aside, normal citizens will generally leave you alone and mind their own business, and won't e.g. call the cops or child protection when you let your child play alone outside. If you have kids there they're also much less likely to develop a drug or alcohol problem, should that be a concern; drug use is much less common there, and although the legal drinking age is something like 13 there generally isn't a binge drinking problem (maybe because the kids have too much homework).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>for lower pay How is it when adjusted for cost of living though?
What adjustment for cost of living? Assuming living in a Tier-1 where the tech-hubs are (Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen), rents for a 2/3 bedroom apartment somewhat centralish (these are vastly larger, more populous, and higher density than most American or European cities) will be at least USD 2000, possibly 4000 depending on taste (apartment, not house). Pension may need to be privately paid, and tax-band will be abov…
There's your problem, LOL.
Why would anyone willingly move to an authoritarian dictatorship?
For me it was the money and opportunities. I turned a blind eye to the power abuse, human rights violations and corruption, and moved to the US anyways.