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China won't be luring foreign tech talent any time soon

bloomberg.com

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Re: China won't be luring foreign tech talent any time soon

#61

Post by louhike »

laurent123456 wrote: post #22

The article doesn't mention that but another possible factor is that life is not that great over there either. If you are not Chinese, you'll always be a foreigner there, even if you spend ten years in the same city, so that makes it difficult to integrate. You'll also have to deal with the Chinese administration for the visa, residence permit, etc. which is quite a pain. It's definitely a great place to visit or eve…

The american administration is bad too for foreigners, so I think it can be summarized by how attractive the country is.

Re: China won't be luring foreign tech talent any time soon

#62

Post by officialjunk »

laurent123456 wrote: post #22

The article doesn't mention that but another possible factor is that life is not that great over there either. If you are not Chinese, you'll always be a foreigner there, even if you spend ten years in the same city, so that makes it difficult to integrate. You'll also have to deal with the Chinese administration for the visa, residence permit, etc. which is quite a pain. It's definitely a great place to visit or eve…

A minority in the US could make that same exact argument...

Re: China won't be luring foreign tech talent any time soon

#63

Post by jasshiru »

raverbashing wrote: post #7
inputcoffee wrote: post #2

I believe the author should have explored another reason: English. One of the legacies of the British Empire is that a lot of the educated people in the world use English. Even in Europe, it is the lingua franca for business and academia. (In mighty Germany, the top institutions publish in English). I think the applications and work would have to be done in English for China to effectively attract global talent.

Correct The problem would be much smaller if they used a non-tonal language with a manageable alphabet or abjad (like Cyrillic or Arabic)

Having tones does not make a language inherently easier to learn, nor does having ideographs. If China would truly be better off using a non-tonal language with an alphabetic script, it's only because the language of the British Empire was non-tonal with an alphabetic script.

Actually, the mess that is English orthography is hardly more "manageable" than Chinese script. There are loads of phonetic elements in Chinese characters.

Re: China won't be luring foreign tech talent any time soon

#64

Post by cjslep »

s4vi0r wrote: post #49
Symmetry wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is learning tones much harder than learning all the weird vowel and consonant sounds that English has? I'd always though of English and China as examples of hard languages in terms of sounds and languages like Spanish and Japanese as easy in terms of sounds.

Just curious, what are some examples of difficult/weird vowel or consonant sounds that you think English has? And why do you think Spanish is easy in terms of sounds? IMO Mandarin is pretty difficult since it has both tones and weird vowels/consonants - I feel like in English most people struggling tend to only have significant trouble with articles and the "th" sound.

In English in The South in the USA, often "can" and "can't" are pronounced the same ("can") with a minor difference in the way the "a" and "n" are held.

Re: China won't be luring foreign tech talent any time soon

#65

Post by hosh »

There are some good points in that article, but the narrative doesn't include the Chinese view of this. China doesn't necessarily have to lure non-Chinese. They can do well welcoming back the Chinese who came to America to earn a Ph.D., only to find they don't get the respect or the better life they expected.

I'm not sure why the Bloomberg article started from quoting a Chinese person about immigration and then shift into talking as if China is going to recruit non-Chinese. Maybe it was taken out of context, maybe it doesn't fit the narrative the author wants to convey.

My family came from Taiwan, and my father and my mother earned their Ph.Ds in the 90s. My father was one of the top scorers on the Taiwanese National Exams. Yet here in America, the only people who respect that are other Taiwanese (and other Chinese if both groups remembered this used to all be one culture). My grandparents are proud of my father; they were farmers. Growing up, there was always an anxiety about having to leave the US because the student visa is up. You can't work in the US with a student visa. Things only got better when US-based company owned by Taiwanese offered to hire him and pay for getting him a permanent residency. That gave him the negotiating leverage to get help with that in his postdoc position. Even so, he stayed as a post-doc for a long time (which, I get that right now, that's the way it is for a lot of academics, immigrants or otherwise), before becoming a professor for a short time. He was never on the tenure track.

People came here because they didn't want to be back in their birth country. I can tell you, if he had been offered a position in Taiwan with a research budget, that would have very tempting.

So when the Bloomberg author was quoting the Chinese guy about being able to recruit more people, having this background, I know the Chinese guy is likely talking about being able to recruit Chinese ex-pats who earned advanced degrees in American universities, and not feeling welcomed here.

Re: China won't be luring foreign tech talent any time soon

#66

Post by appleiigs »

The bankers that I've talked won't go (back) to China because of the pollution, specifically the smog. They refuse to put their children in that environment.

Cultural, social, language, and food differences are all superficial reasons not to go to, or stay, in China. They can be dealt with an open, understanding mind. However, the salary or career benefits don't make up for it when your children and spouse are breathing that air.

Re: China won't be luring foreign tech talent any time soon

#67

Post by venomsnake »

billconan wrote: post #17

this is very much true. Outside censorship, the working culture of China is also quite different. It's quite common to do overtime in China. work-life balance is less respected. People accept it as the normal and are proud of it. My friend worked for an accounting company. In busy season, she had to work till 5a.m. in the morning of the next day and present her report to her supervisor at 8 a.m. she took her toothbru…

In the western game industry this is called slow week.

Re: China won't be luring foreign tech talent any time soon

#68

Post by blacktulip »

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.

Re: China won't be luring foreign tech talent any time soon

#69

Post by ommunist »

Well, the only way for China is to create tech incubators in the West with their investment arm, and build additional facility in Shanghai to interface English outcome to Chinese lore. I think they are effectively doing that. Volvo, Opera Software are recent examples.

Re: China won't be luring foreign tech talent any time soon

#70

Post by aub3bhat »

laurent123456 wrote: post #22

The article doesn't mention that but another possible factor is that life is not that great over there either. If you are not Chinese, you'll always be a foreigner there, even if you spend ten years in the same city, so that makes it difficult to integrate. You'll also have to deal with the Chinese administration for the visa, residence permit, etc. which is quite a pain. It's definitely a great place to visit or eve…

I agree, having arrived in USA 7 years ago, I have seen that its much easier to integrate in United States, especially if you live on East Coast or SF/LA. Sure there are visa and green card hurdles, but as a society Americans are probably more accepting of immigrants than any other country, except maybe Canada. Of course my experience is as a relatively well-off indian studying in United States, other will have a different experience.
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