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The Real High-Tech Immigrant Problem: They’re Leaving

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Re: The Real High-Tech Immigrant Problem: They’re Leaving

#101

Post by poutine »

garply wrote: post #10

I'm a US citizen in the SF bay area, bootstrapping a web company by myself, and I'm heading out to Beijing this summer. PG talks a lot about reaching 'ramen profitability' and there's no easier place to hit that than China. It's going to cost me about $400 a month to live (frugally), and if I needed to, I could teach English for about $60 / hr. Worst case scenario, a native English speaker could dedicate one or two d…

Worst case scenario? Your numbers seem a bit wrong. $60/hr is incredibly optimistic as is $400/mo in expenses. Think more like $10-15/hr as an english teacher and $700-$1200/mo in expenses as a base. You will not be able to support yourself for a day or two a month, more like 20hrs a week and you're going to take a serious hit in quality of life from the US.

Fresh graduates from good universities in Beijing and Shanghai will typically be from 2000-5000RMB per month ($4k-$10k USD per year). There are some nasty Chinese labour laws you should be aware of if you want to hire people. They are also not as good for software development positions in a startup as a graduates from Stanford or MIT, that's pure fantasy.

Additionally you can't really set up a proper company in China as a foreigner the way you could in the US. There's a couple structures you can use but they take time to setup and have some tricky considerations.

That being said, Beijing is good to bootstrap an Internet startup. I did it and it's going well. There's a whole host of pitfalls and it isn't all roses but still a great experience.

Re: The Real High-Tech Immigrant Problem: They’re Leaving

#102

Post by poutine »

donw wrote: post #32
garply wrote: post #10

I'm a US citizen in the SF bay area, bootstrapping a web company by myself, and I'm heading out to Beijing this summer. PG talks a lot about reaching 'ramen profitability' and there's no easier place to hit that than China. It's going to cost me about $400 a month to live (frugally), and if I needed to, I could teach English for about $60 / hr. Worst case scenario, a native English speaker could dedicate one or two d…

I'm also going to Beijing, albeit for a short trip, this summer -- my business partner is there right now doing a year of study abroad, and I've been thinking along the same lines as you. Although I don't think you get $60/hr for teaching English, unless you mean the equivalent of that in local wages. That said, how do you plan on coping with the Great Firewall? We've had nothing but problems with connectivity outsid…

The bigger problem with the Chinese Internet is that it's just slow. Foreign links to the Internet are often congested and will slow down incredibly at times. It sucks.

The Great firewall is mostly just a pain in the ass. However, it's easy to get around. Use FoxyProxy and OpenVPN to a server in the US (or one of the hosted VPN companies). I end up tunneling all my traffic most of the time.

Except for this post, let's see if it works...

:)

Re: The Real High-Tech Immigrant Problem: They’re Leaving

#103

Post by garply »

poutine wrote: post #101
garply wrote: post #10

I'm a US citizen in the SF bay area, bootstrapping a web company by myself, and I'm heading out to Beijing this summer. PG talks a lot about reaching 'ramen profitability' and there's no easier place to hit that than China. It's going to cost me about $400 a month to live (frugally), and if I needed to, I could teach English for about $60 / hr. Worst case scenario, a native English speaker could dedicate one or two d…

Worst case scenario? Your numbers seem a bit wrong. $60/hr is incredibly optimistic as is $400/mo in expenses. Think more like $10-15/hr as an english teacher and $700-$1200/mo in expenses as a base. You will not be able to support yourself for a day or two a month, more like 20hrs a week and you're going to take a serious hit in quality of life from the US. Fresh graduates from good universities in Beijing and Shang…

I've lived off of these numbers in BJ before, by splitting a 2 bedroom apartment and rarely buying anything beyond essentials. Aside from the pollution, I felt that my quality of life actually went up compared to living in the states because, although I go out to eat with friends very rarely in the US, I go out slightly more in China. Also, the women are very friendly :)

We'll have to agree to disagree on the talent issue - I'm a Stanford CS grad and I've experienced no quality difference working with Qinghua CS grads.

Can you explain what problems you've encountered regarding having a corporation in China? I'm also setting up a dessert cafe in BJ with a Chinese co-founder. We've registered it as a Nevada LLC and we have had to jump through a few additional hoops because it's a restaurant, but nothing related to the actual corporation part. And my software company is a Nevada S-corp - my understanding is that I'll pay taxes to the Chinese gov't for operating a company in their territory (I have yet to learn how much), but the first $80k or so won't be taxed by the US due to a trade treaty.

And can you be a little more specific about the nasty labor laws? This is an area that I'm still looking into.

Re: The Real High-Tech Immigrant Problem: They’re Leaving

#104

Post by chiffonade »

thras wrote: post #82
andreyf wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're looking to compare the psychology of adopted Asian-Americans and un-adopted Asian-Americans? This is definitely a place where correlation can be a million things other than causation. I'm no social scientist, but two things come to mind right away: Consider the financial situation of a household which adopts children - adoption is a very expensive and rigorous process, so adopted children of any nationality ar…

Okay, you have a hypothesis. It seems a little unlikely, but I agree that it could be true. Now, let's get to the proof side of things. What evidence makes you think this is a good explanation for the range of phenomena that you see? What else does it explain? Why can we discount other explanations, etc.

You sound exactly like someone who has been in college for 2 or 3 years and thinks he now knows all the answers to every problem.

Wait until you try to get a job. Then the real fun begins.

Re: The Real High-Tech Immigrant Problem: They’re Leaving

#105

Post by andreyf »

thras wrote: post #82
andreyf wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're looking to compare the psychology of adopted Asian-Americans and un-adopted Asian-Americans? This is definitely a place where correlation can be a million things other than causation. I'm no social scientist, but two things come to mind right away: Consider the financial situation of a household which adopts children - adoption is a very expensive and rigorous process, so adopted children of any nationality ar…

Okay, you have a hypothesis. It seems a little unlikely, but I agree that it could be true. Now, let's get to the proof side of things. What evidence makes you think this is a good explanation for the range of phenomena that you see? What else does it explain? Why can we discount other explanations, etc.

I'm not sure what you are referring to.

When it comes to social science, there is no one single comprehensible good explanation for the vast majority of phenomena - what I was pointing out is that there are systematic biases when comparing "adopted Asian Americans" and "Asian American immigrants". These biases - financial, psychological, etc - will have a significantly larger influence on how children perform than what you're testing for (genetic differences).

Re: The Real High-Tech Immigrant Problem: They’re Leaving

#106

Post by poutine »

garply wrote: post #103
poutine wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Worst case scenario? Your numbers seem a bit wrong. $60/hr is incredibly optimistic as is $400/mo in expenses. Think more like $10-15/hr as an english teacher and $700-$1200/mo in expenses as a base. You will not be able to support yourself for a day or two a month, more like 20hrs a week and you're going to take a serious hit in quality of life from the US. Fresh graduates from good universities in Beijing and Shang…

I've lived off of these numbers in BJ before, by splitting a 2 bedroom apartment and rarely buying anything beyond essentials. Aside from the pollution, I felt that my quality of life actually went up compared to living in the states because, although I go out to eat with friends very rarely in the US, I go out slightly more in China. Also, the women are very friendly :) We'll have to agree to disagree on the talent…

Beijing has gotten quite a bit more expensive in the couple years that I've been there. On top of that the currency exchange rate has gotten considerably worse. Probably in total a 25% difference since I arrived in 2006.

Most people reading this would not be happy at all living off of $400 per month, that's noodles for lunch every day. I'm in my late 30's and don't feel like living like a student nor having to, I spend $2k USD per month for a very comfortable lifestyle, $1k in rent and $1k on food/misc, about 25% less than what I'd spend back home.

In China it is not legal to employ Chinese people as a foreigner operating a business in China unless you're a Registered Office (RO) or a Wholly Foreign Owned Enterprise (WFOE). It is not legal to draw a salary personally unless you have a Z visa (not L or F), you need an RO or WFOE to get a Z. Furthermore the RO can not invoice Chinese customers, it is only an expense center (and is taxed on expenses). A WFOE requires registered capital typically between $10K USD to $100K USD depending on the business. Setting up one of the two can take several months depending on your luck with the government. As I understand it your LLC would be illegal to operate in China without either being an RO or WFOE (or a JV which is unlikely). You may be able get away with ignoring all this and many people do but if you're caught you can face stiff penalties and be ejected from China and are going to have a hell of a time getting more than $50K USD per year in or out of the country.

The labour laws basically require you to provide contracts to all of your employees or face stiff penalties. There's a number of pitfalls. See http://www.chinalawblog.com/ for more details, there's lots of discussion.

The women are very nice indeed, I'll never go back to American women...

Re: The Real High-Tech Immigrant Problem: They’re Leaving

#107

Post by garply »

poutine wrote: post #106
garply wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've lived off of these numbers in BJ before, by splitting a 2 bedroom apartment and rarely buying anything beyond essentials. Aside from the pollution, I felt that my quality of life actually went up compared to living in the states because, although I go out to eat with friends very rarely in the US, I go out slightly more in China. Also, the women are very friendly :) We'll have to agree to disagree on the talent…

Beijing has gotten quite a bit more expensive in the couple years that I've been there. On top of that the currency exchange rate has gotten considerably worse. Probably in total a 25% difference since I arrived in 2006. Most people reading this would not be happy at all living off of $400 per month, that's noodles for lunch every day. I'm in my late 30's and don't feel like living like a student nor having to, I spe…

Thanks a lot for the very informative legal info. Looks like I have more digging to do.

"Most people reading this would not be happy at all living off of $400 per month, that's noodles for lunch every day."

I did say I was talking about ramen profitability :). I'm in my early-mid twenties and at this stage in my life am accustomed to plowing every penny into investments.

Re: The Real High-Tech Immigrant Problem: They’re Leaving

#108

Post by david927 »

jerf wrote: post #79
david927 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait a minute! Media disinformation campaign? So you are saying that there never existed a camp in Guantanamo Bay where the prisoners waited eight years without right to trial, placed in Cuba to avoid U.S. constitutional law? I've never used the word Nazi in an argument, so I won't start now, but it's really difficult.

If you actually examine the legal issues in depth, it's way more complicated and nuanced that what you imply; that simplifies the problem to the point of falsehood. Something that the Obama administration has actually flat-out said (or "admitted", if you prefer), albeit not to anywhere near the media blitz of the accusations, when they said they need a year to look at the issues involved with closure, because it's no…

If you murdered someone, that would be a simple act; the legal process, though, would be complicated. I'm sure there are aspects of the legal process in terms of repatriating the inmates, for example, that are complicated. What is not complicated is the violation of human rights they suffered.

I apologize for the "Nazi thing". I lost my temper; I'm sorry. But that brings up an interesting point: the holocaust was legal. Some did "not like it," but it was legal. So in 1948, the entire world came up with a set of guidelines called the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights that gave everyone -- Jews, Blacks, Muslims, everyone -- basic rights, regardless of what a country currently wants to make legal to "expedite its security".

You talk about propaganda, so let's talk about facts that no one disputes: More than 90% of the inmates in Guantanamo Bay were sold into captivity, most were never even charged with any crime let alone given a trial, and they were tortured. For eight years. Don't you see? If that's legal in any way, it can't be. The minute we make an exception for a dark-skinned Afghani, we send ourselves back to the time when exceptions were made for Jews and Gypsies, and we undo all the good work that was accomplished in the shadow of our shame.

Re: The Real High-Tech Immigrant Problem: They’re Leaving

#109

Post by thras »

chiffonade wrote: post #104
thras wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, you have a hypothesis. It seems a little unlikely, but I agree that it could be true. Now, let's get to the proof side of things. What evidence makes you think this is a good explanation for the range of phenomena that you see? What else does it explain? Why can we discount other explanations, etc.

You sound exactly like someone who has been in college for 2 or 3 years and thinks he now knows all the answers to every problem. Wait until you try to get a job. Then the real fun begins.

Oh hey, I remember you from last time. No, I'm a number of years past that age.

I am a little depressed to be arguing with people who think that calling names is a valid way to argue this sort of thing. The closest I've gotten to a real intellectual response is someone who claims that thinking you're Asian will make you better at math (alert the schools of this discovery!).

I thought that Hacker News was a place where intelligent people were willing to hold intelligent discussions. If you're going to talk about immigration (which HN wants to talk about a lot) you have to consider this sort of thing at least.

Instead, what I see is the view: "On this subject it's okay to turn off our reasoning facilities." Why? I guess because thinking about it would be wrong. You'd have to be a Nazi to know about the Hapmap data or brain genes that vary across population groups like ASPM and microcephalin. Ah well.

Maybe I should begin attacking people for being dirty culturists instead. Attacking African culture, claiming that it causes IQ drops, is a terrible slander against what are sometimes a very beautiful set of social systems. Only evil people could claim that.

Re: The Real High-Tech Immigrant Problem: They’re Leaving

#110

Post by thras »

andreyf wrote: post #105
thras wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, you have a hypothesis. It seems a little unlikely, but I agree that it could be true. Now, let's get to the proof side of things. What evidence makes you think this is a good explanation for the range of phenomena that you see? What else does it explain? Why can we discount other explanations, etc.

I'm not sure what you are referring to. When it comes to social science, there is no one single comprehensible good explanation for the vast majority of phenomena - what I was pointing out is that there are systematic biases when comparing "adopted Asian Americans" and "Asian American immigrants". These biases - financial, psychological, etc - will have a significantly larger influence on how children perform than wh…

Only they don't, because when you measure it, you can predict 80% (studies differ on the exact number) of IQ from parent's IQ. The rest is mainly unshared environment (what we don't know how to fix).
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