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Q: Do the "If you don't like China why don't you leave" people actually have a point?
We're seen it time and time again on ECC. There is a lot of complaining about the difficulties of living in China and dealing with Chinese and inevitably someone will say something along the lines of "If you don't like it here why don't you leave? No one ever invited you or asked you to stay." These people get shouted down as a lot of people respond that it's not as simple as that, they have family obligations, financial goals and other reasons to remain in China. At the risk or generalizing I'm going to try to categorize expats based on their attitudes towards China.
1. The complete sinophiles - people who love China and inherently prefer China over their home country. I've only met one foreigner who truly fell into this category - he believed that China was basically superior to his home country (the USA) in most ways - he praised Chinese education, believed his Chinese co-workers were superior to his foreign co-workers, ate dog regularly, and chastised any China bashing. These people don't complain because for whatever reason they just love it here.
2. The otherwise happy venters - people who have settled down happily in China but take to the internet to vent from time to time. Maybe they have no other outlet to voice their frustrations so they come to ECC. But these people basically like China or at least see a bright future here. They have no reason to leave as they are happy here despite the occasional complaint.
3. The people who see China as a deeply flawed place but are happy with their own life here - these people are fully aware of the massive problems with the environment, education, healthcare systems and the society as a whole. They have long since thrown away their rose tinted glasses. They would certainly not want to raise a family in China but might end up doing it anyway. They would rather live somewhere else but they've built a good life for themselves in China so it makes more sense to stay than leave.
4. The people who have come to despise China and are planning their exit - these people wish they could leave tomorrow but can't due to family and work related obligations. They are saving money, helping loved ones apply for visas and dealing with the logistics of leaving China. They complain because they hate China but they can't get out yet.
5. The people who hate China every bit as much as those in cateory 4. but stay year after year. They complain incessantly on echinacities and other forums, spend most of their time with fellow expats talking about how shitty China is and basically hate their lives here. Yet they never leave. These are the people for whom the advice of "why don't you leave China if you hate it so much" really makes sense. No one forced these people to come here. They are deeply unhappy with their own life in China and likely hate the society too. So why stay? Often they don't have high paying jobs in China or other major ties to the country. I get that planning to leave takes time but I'm talking about people who might claim they're planning to leave in theory but never actually get around to doing anything about it. They have a vague idea of studying back home or finding a job as a mechanic or something but put no effort into making that happen. Now I fully understand that some of these people might not have many options back home and a comfortable life as a teacher (or other job) might be better than their alternatives. But it's pretty ridiculous to blame the Chinese for getting into a pretty awful situation. These people willingly came to a Communist third world country with a reputation for horrible pollution, human rights abuses, lack of basic personal freedoms, shoddy counterfeit merchandise and widespread corruption. They wanted an adventure but never bothered to leave. Now they hate their lives. So why don't they just leave? Or if they have no better options, why blame the Chinese for putting themselves in such a predicament?
As for me, I was in category 2 for my first 2 years here and really liked China as a place. I saw the flaws but envisioned a bright future here of China as the world's foremost superpower. But now I'm drifting between 3 and 4. I have built a comfortable life here but I am more than aware of China's problems. In fact, I spoke to my father last night and he asked me why I'm still in China if I have so many complaints. I basically answered that 1. I am planning to leave soon and 2. Most of the problems don't affect me. I don't have kids in the education system, I'm young and healthy and I can basically put up with a lot of the other annoyances of daily life without getting too down on my situation. What really scares me is I sometimes feel myself creeping into category 5. They day I'm one of those guys is the day I'll consider myself a loser. If I become completely miserable here, I sure as hell hope I can man up and get the hell out of China.
So, how about you? What category are you in? Do you know anyone in category 5? And by the way, none of this post was directed at any particular forum member.
I think there's a flaw in the categorisations - and it's a flaw that would be appropriate to any and all countries (and workplaces, cities, etc).
There's a difference between 'China' the land, "China" the environment, "China" the people, "China" the culture, 'China' the government, 'China' the society, 'China' the history .... etc etc.
Obviously, putting them all together into one simple category can make it hard to make a clear call.
I'd say for most/many of us, things like pollution will be at Cat 5, government is also about Cat 5.
People could be anywhere from 1-5 depending on your interactions with them.
And, all of these depend on which affect your life the most!
And, also, the above will also depend on one's basic personality. I met a woman from NYC who shouldn't have been anywhere... she was going to bitch and complain about everything, everywhere...
I'm probably a 3 - for now... could go to 4 with the right cash flow/business plan 
dongbeiren:
Totally agree - placing people into such categories can never present a totally accurate picture but when averaging all of the factors you mentioned I think most people can still put themselves on the basic spectrum. The point being - when everything is a 5 it's time to get out.
Hmmm...
I am a category 6. Everywhere has things to hate, and the only way to "fix" it is with total human extinction.
I don't know where I fit. I came to China because it will be ground zero for something big soon. Something historical. I can't say I like it here and I certainly don't want to raise my family here. But China is interesting and my stay here has been very educational. I've made myself as comfortable as I can reasonably expect and I have an exit plan. Maybe I am closest to #3.
Where do I come in the scale? The category that doesn't make me an asshole. Don't you understand if you hate the country, hate the people, yet insist on staying here, it makes you a loser and a weirdo. Some of the posters sole motivation for posting is to say something bad about China. They must walk around with an angry racist attitude in their head all the time. Not healthy. Some posters would not say anything nice even if you put a gun to their head. Sometimes I vent when I have a bcd but I am capable of saying nice things about China when it is deserved. It is an inescapable logic if you don't like somewhere go somewhere else. Try defeating this logic. These weirdos post after post say something bad about China. It's tedious. I like reading the posts of more positive people who are not totally ethnocentric.
this is my 15th year in China,I am a 2 and a 3,I have good days and bad days in China.sometimes I hate being here and some days I like being here.
my (Chinese) wife and my almost 2 year old boy makes it better being here.
I'm probably between a 2 and a 3. For people in category 5, then yes they should gtfo because they're not happy here and no one appreciates them being here. They probably had a superiority complex when they first arrived and fell hard early on.
I'm a 3 but, nevertheless, will be leaving sometime. I couldn't be a 4 because I don't despise China. Don't despise anyone, not even the filthy spitters, as they know not what they do. Some do, and maybe I despise those ones.
I think there's a flaw in the categorisations - and it's a flaw that would be appropriate to any and all countries (and workplaces, cities, etc).
There's a difference between 'China' the land, "China" the environment, "China" the people, "China" the culture, 'China' the government, 'China' the society, 'China' the history .... etc etc.
Obviously, putting them all together into one simple category can make it hard to make a clear call.
I'd say for most/many of us, things like pollution will be at Cat 5, government is also about Cat 5.
People could be anywhere from 1-5 depending on your interactions with them.
And, all of these depend on which affect your life the most!
And, also, the above will also depend on one's basic personality. I met a woman from NYC who shouldn't have been anywhere... she was going to bitch and complain about everything, everywhere...
I'm probably a 3 - for now... could go to 4 with the right cash flow/business plan
dongbeiren:
Totally agree - placing people into such categories can never present a totally accurate picture but when averaging all of the factors you mentioned I think most people can still put themselves on the basic spectrum. The point being - when everything is a 5 it's time to get out.
you've resorted to putting various people with various backgrounds from various countries into a 1-dimensional ranking system. i'd be a 3 or 4 just like most, but is the category really that important?
making categorization top-5 lists where the top looks best for Chinese, might signify it's high time you left China too. What do you think?
dongbeiren:
No, the categories are not important and obviously it's a gross oversimplification. The point was to explain that there is a spectrum of expats' general feelings towards China and I think the categories provide a basic framework for that discussion. But the point of my post was not to place people into rigid categories - rather to say that people who are miserable in China for extended periods of time but don't bother to leave probably should get out and if they don't, they have nobody but themselves to blame. I'm not sure how creating the OP signifies that it's time for me to leave but I can make a strong argument that it is in fact time for me to leave - I came here for a 1 year adventure, got married, increased my income significantly but don't really see a long term future here. I should go to grad school as that would be best for my future life and career. So yes, I should leave because I can always come back to China with a master's degree and be more employable rather than having to bust my ass grinding to make a decent living. That is why I should leave.
dongbeiren:
And I'm not saying that people in category 1 are any better than people in the other categories - I could have called category 5 the sinophiles. I was just differentiating people based on THEIR opinions of China, not my own personal opinions.
coineineagh:
I see major problems all over the world, so I guess no place is safe from my attempts at constructive criticism. I'm trying to get Scotty to beam me up to the Enterprise, but I can't seem to find my com-badge.
It depends...
For China the land I am a category 2-3 (many beautiful places, many polluted places)
For Chinese the people, I am a category 3 on average but can drift into 4 and very rarely (BCD) 5
For the Chinese government... I would say category 5. But most governments suck anyway.
On Average, I am about a 3-4. I can see the good and the bad... but that's fine because what I seek, most importantly, is the truth.
I agree with you though... if someone finds themselves at category 5 for the majority or all of the time... they need to get out before they do something they highly regret.
I like your question but i find it flawed. It is a loaded question where you know going in you are not going to get honest answers.
The same people who have never said a nice word in their lives are going to categorize themselves as a 3. Its human nature. No one will say they are a loser 5 even though it is plainly the case.
You might have well just asked who is pathetic.
Ill be honest though, as usual.
Im a firm 3. I love my life here. And i wouldnt make as much money as back home. Seems everyone else can make 6 figures. I guess thats why Americans are so poor, all the rich ones came to China. I might make the same salary but the higher costs of living would kill any chance to look down on people and who wants that?
I love my family and friends here deeply and am completely content. Yet i pretty much despise 80 perccent of the population. They suck and the culture sucks. If i was handed a job that paid more in pretty much any other country id take it. But im not really willing to look for it and i wouldnt except less or even the same.i have adapted , and now have around one BCD per month but boy its a doozy!
MissA:
Everyone's convinced they could make a boatload of money at home, they're just choosing not to...honest... I DO make more money at home but the vastly higher costs wipe out the difference, as I suspect it would for most people.
You forgot category zero ( the newly arrived AAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!)
I moved from cat zero to cat three very quickly (never had any use for rose tinted glasses) and when my partner started to hate China, we left. Nonetheless, I think the "if you don't like it, leave" advice is mostly useless. Most people complaining have Chinese families and commitments or have been sent by work to achieve specific goals. Not everyone finds it so easy to just drop everything and go home as we did.
yongge:
Not all instantly hate China. You can call me a recently arrived, as I am working in China for the first time and really enjoying it. However, I had been here before many times and speak the language. In coming here I did thorough research on where I want to be and what I want to do, and I am exactly doing that, exactly in the place I chose. Most people are unhappy because they are not properly prepared and do not know what to expect. You can't blame it all on China.
MissA:
A few points; never said that I hated China, my partner did. I did say I had and I still have no call for rose tinted glasses and that's definitely true. The initial resppnse to the mental headfuck that arrival and immersion entails has nothing in common with hatred or even negativity.
I think they do.
It puts us all in a bad light. Tars us with the same brush.
Some guy spouting off in a bar, about how much he hates China, and how he cant go home because there are no jobs for him... it paints a not too pretty picture.
Same with the criticals. The people who tell everyone how bad China is compared to the west, but are still here. Why are they here? Because the money is good?
Combine the two cases above into one, and you have the absolute should go home case.
We all know them. We have all met them. And we are all aware we may become them.
I know guys who are making a load of money here. Some are corporates on expat deals. They will go home, and take their pretty wife with them to be the envy of their friends. I know guys with companies in China, some with pukka visas, some without. Some are loaded, some live hand to mouth.
The stayers all have one thing in common... we will stay. Come rain, shine, new visa policy, we will do our best to be here. Legal or not.
I got a fright a few months back. Wow. My wife decided we should move to the UK.
"Bugger", I thought, " I like it here".
I thought long and hard for a few weeks. I was coming home from work to suffer earache. She said " Why stay in China when we can go to the UK, you can earn more and we get free health and education?". That flummoxed me. How to deal with this?
I formulated a plan.
"I want a D visa !" I declared.
"Give me two more years of paying tax, let me meet all the criteria required to get the D, and then let me go out and make money, in the meantime I build our Guanxi".
She agreed. she said "OK".
It was at that point that I realized I have one of the best wifes in the world. She is Cantonese to the core. She wants to be here, and she knew straight away that the deal I offered gave her face. Rather than her lose face by not moving to the UK.
I want to be here. My wife wants to be here. My mother in law wants us here.
If you don't want to be here... go home. Or go somewhere else. Keep looking for what you seek. It's not China's fault you did not find it here.
The ones who shack up with a Chinese partner and possibly have children? Who have some reasonable level of Chinese and never really make any comments about anything. The NEUTRALS. Often wear jeans, long sleeved shirts and shoes and are over 30.
Mr_Sausage:
often look faded, greying. the clothes the hair the ambition...fading away...
ScotsAlan:
The under 30s are the ones giving us grey haired ones our collective bad name :)
I can go home and get a job which pays much more than China, but my partner has been begging me to patiently wait for her to finish her study for just one more year. We've also got two dogs which we need to take through New Zealand customs. We might have to give them up. I've rescued three abandoned dogs in the past year and found families for them, but I almost gave a little white mongrel to a family whose children grabbed their previous pet by the tongue and yanked it out by gripping hold of it and spinning the animal around while the father stood there and watched. I've seen local people here cut out a dog's heart while holding a three year old, so I'm not leaving my children behind.
I could go to almost any region in the country I'm from (except Auckland, Christchurch and Wellington) and lay down a deposit on an actual house with land comprising of 70% of the value of the property. No need to purchase a concrete bunker in an ugly nouveau riche tower which is already looking dilapidated despite being about 4 years old.
Why am I here? Well I love my Chinese girlfriend and I care about my pets. I need to save a lot of money so we can shift back home together and the completion of her studies means a lot to her family, even though the objective value of her qualification is less than another type of paper given the disadvantage it has to actual dunny roll of giving me a rather severe sphincter cut if I use it in the sole way it could ever be useful. In some ways it will assist her into getting into some kind of study like nursing much more than having no degree at all.
Funny how I can't just take her back on a partnership visa, which almost all western and developed countries participate in, except for communist China which wants to maintain the "integrity" of the bourgeois institution of marriage.
I've too many brain cells and not enough Hongbaos for this place. Sorry, locals but I'm not enjoying myself. Many of you are nice people, but too many of your compatriots are scummy shites and you nice folks need to push them back or fight for a fair piece of the pie in a sensible way instead of using Mao's bitchy guerilla tactics.
MissA:
I'm confused. Why does the CCP's opinon of your relationship affect your ability to sponsor her into NZ? Is it a matter of your partner exiting China? I'm currently acting as sponsor to my fiance in Oz and it's entirely decided by Australian authorities, the only documentation required from his home country is a police check.
laowaigentleman:
The partnership visa ordinarily offers her both work and study rights in New Zealand, but because the Chinese government doesn't participate in the program, she can get sponsored into the country as you say, but she can either work in a low end job or become a student. It would be ideal if she could work in a low end job whilst studying something like nursing, which I think she would do well in studying but because she can only choose the work option or the study option, from her point of view going to NZ is a path to menial employment not much better than China because her university is so shitty despite being being so highly ranked.
Believe me, it is hard to make Chinese people realize how bad something all of them do when all of them are doing it.
laowaigentleman:
Wait, how about your fiance's Australian work rights?
MissA:
No conditions on employment once papers were lodged and we were accepted, prima facie, as being reasonable claimants. He's a few months away from full PR, and has a full-time, professional job. He did, however, find it tough to get a permanent job before the first stage of residency came through.
laowaigentleman:
Not as much as me, but I think our problems are similar. My girlfriend needs to have a job offer to get the work visa, just as your partner did.
We haven't lodged any application yet, I'm looking at everything based on policies, it isn't that restrictive, it's just that a lot of the options available to us are at the discretion of the immigration department, but the good news is that they're generally quite lenient in comparison to anytime someone in this country is allowed to exercise discretion.
If the partnership program were available she could simply obtain a visa and enter the country as a permanent resident and two years later apply for citizenship.
MissA:
Hmmmm, that sounds unneccesarily complicated. Good luck.
One thing, though, I was a little unclear. He did not need a job to get residency, he was fully allowed to work while the decision was pending. What I meant was that he found it tough to get a permanent job before he had permanent residency as employers were put off by the lack of PR (so he worked on a casual basis until the decision was made). From memory, the Australian gf/bf/fiancee/spouse has to promise to support the person they're sponsoring, but ultimately finances and income don't play a role in the decision in the same way they do in the UK or the US.
