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Leaving China

persuasion.community

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Re: Leaving China

#481

Post by dandy23 »

jasonjei wrote: post #63

I used to travel to China all the time for work during my first job in 2008. Those times were super optimistic. Hong Kong was filled with Chinese pride, and it seemed inevitable that China would absorb Taiwan. China had just hosted the Olympics. I visited Hong Kong late 2018 after many years of not having been there. It was a very different place from the Hong Kong I had visited in 2009-2011. The energy was a bit dar…

Your comment is not that relevant to the article as you talk about Hong Kong and the article about mainland China.

Of course there might be similarities, but the Hong Kong story is still completely different.

Re: Leaving China

#482

Post by [deleted] »

hayst4ck wrote: post #222
nitwit005 wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How accepted you are has nothing to do with you being an immigrant or not. You immigrated. It's the act of living permanently in a foreign country.

We're talking about a colloquial understanding and use of those words, not a technical definition.

[deleted]

Re: Leaving China

#484

Post by roenxi »

petesergeant wrote: post #475
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.cs.mcgill.ca/~rwest/wikispeedia/wpcd/wp/b/Bangko... > As of the 2000 census, there were 6,355,144 registered residents in the city. However, this figure does not take account of the many unregistered residents and daytime visitors from the surrounding metropolitan area. More than 50% of Bangkokians have some Chinese ancestry. They are still Thai, they often don’t even speak Chinese, just ethnically Chines…

You don’t see a significant difference between “is mostly” and “a small majority have some trace of”? This is like saying “most English people can speak French” vs “a majority of English people learn some French at school”

England has a long and proud history of being invaded, colonised and overbred by the French. Anglo-Saxon isn't exactly an English pedigree. It isn't French either, but "French" doesn't have an etymology that originated in France.

So it is quite possible that the argument of Thai people being Chinese would parallel more strongly; English people don't just speak a bit of French, they have the same ancestors and may as well be French. Hopefully the ethnic Chinese entered Thailand under more rosy circumstances!

Re: Leaving China

#485

Post by mstaoru »

xiaolingxiao wrote: post #2

Can other expats who has since left, or have decided to stay, share their experience as well?

I lived in China since 2008 (Beijing, Shenzhen, Suzhou, Hangzhou, Shanghai), left Sep '22. The way the pandemic was handled in Shanghai was absolutely dehumanizing, and it became the last drop after which we just decided to GTFO and never come back.

We (myself and my wife, who is Chinese) moved to Bangkok and I can confidently say it is a much happier and healthier place in every aspect.

Many things about China are amazing:

- e-commerce speed and proximity of everything, I work in SW/FW/HW intersection (IoT) and the ability to prototype things within a week was liberating,

- public transportation and infrastructure is amazing, perfect roads, huge subway systems, CRH,

- completely cashless society.

Many things are not so amazing:

- stifling censorship of everything even slightly critical,

- food is just not good in Shanghai, quality- and taste-wise, Bangkok is much, much better,

- terrible, overcrowded, dehumanizing healthcare,

- outside of city center the city is rather gray and ugly,

- everything is gargantuan in scale and feels built for aliens,

- rudeness, constant shoving, spitting, loud speaking, smoking everywhere,

- in Shanghai downtown every sidewalk is completely lined with rental bikes, scooters, people's bikes, often there's nowhere to walk but the street,

- everything "historical" is fake,

- terribly overpriced real estate,

- the fact that after 15 years in China as an expat with an own house and Chinese family you still get nothing, no PR, no citizenship, nothing,

- 996 is real, everybody is always stressed and overworked,

- no real justice system, there is no attorney-client privilege,

- entire industries can be decimated overnight by some new policy,

- everything is "chabuduo", faucet leaks, chabuduo, just tape it with scotch tape,

- complete lack of empathy to animals, don't watch Chinese tourists in the zoo (and don't go to local zoos),

- there's a single purpose in life — make money,

- no diversity, everyone is Han, everyone thinks pretty much the same,

- no real religion, temples are there to gather money and bless your new business or a car,

- if you drive a Bentley, you're a king of the road, yield only to Rolls-Royce,

- ...I can continue, but probably this is enough :D

Re: Leaving China

#486

Post by coupdejarnac »

fortuna86 wrote: post #382
coldtea wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's just an ex-dictatorship with a progress towards a democracy and skeletons in its closet...

You aren't refuting what he's saying you're just trying to change the subject.

This guy pops up in many China threads to regurgitate CCP talking points.

Re: Leaving China

#487

Post by concordDance »

dumpster_fire wrote: post #127
duxup wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Chinese diaspora I had no idea how wide it is until a family member married someone from Asia and he explained ot me that his family thinks of themselves as ethnically Chinese, although they're totally disconnected from China.

Wait why is that a problem? Nationality and ethnicity are two different things.

They have the same name, which makes it confusing. E.g. if someone is French does that mean their ethnicity or their nationality?

Re: Leaving China

#488

Post by concordDance »

refurb wrote: post #312
duxup wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Chinese diaspora I had no idea how wide it is until a family member married someone from Asia and he explained ot me that his family thinks of themselves as ethnically Chinese, although they're totally disconnected from China.

It's actually pretty fascinating if you spend time in SE Asia. Chinese have been immigrating to all the countries for centuries. There are super old communities of Chinese in Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, everywhere in fact. And they are often a distinct community, with their own language (a dialect from where they came from in China). They were often economic migrants, so tend to be seen as a "merchant cla…

It's odd that they've managed to avoid assimilation for so long. Bodes ill for countries that rely on long term assimilation for stability.

Re: Leaving China

#489

Post by bjord »

shell0x wrote: post #139

Lots of people used to go to China for work and could do pretty much anything they want, but since Jinping took over it went downhill fast. Most people in the expat community I know went to Hong Kong and Singapore instead for the following reasons: 1) Easy to do business 2) Easy to get your money in and out . 3) Low taxes 4) Central travel hubs in Asia 5) Less backwards mindset as these cities feel more cosmopolitan…

What's your definition of a "decent quality of life," out of curiosity?

Re: Leaving China

#490

Post by coupdejarnac »

photochemsyn wrote: post #207
ren_engineer wrote: post #64

>But in order to live everyday life, most people living in China find it necessary to turn a blind eye until it affects them directly. That became impossible during the Covid-19 pandemic, when the force of China’s technocracy was on full display it's amazing how people were able to delude themselves for so long, Tiananmen should have been enough to make people and governments realize things weren't going to change

It's not that amazing, it's just that American investors wanted to cut labor costs in the late 1990s and China was offering dollar-a-day workers. The claim that opening up trade with China would have a 'liberalizing influence on the country' was one of the key selling points back in 2000-2001, pushed by both Clinton and GW Bush: https://edition.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/asiapcf/east/09/18/china.... See Clinton's Mar 2000 sp…

Bingo. China joining the WTO also had the side benefit of delaying direct military confrontation with the US.
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