http://news.echinacities.com/detail/72193

Forgot To put this in, sorry. 

I had a very passive aggressive parent to one of my students (also a teacher) make this suggestion to me just the other day actually. I guess I fit the description but then I think it's a very simplistic way of thinking, for one thing it presupposes that anyone who isn't making x amount of cash is a loser. It also presupposes everyone wants to stay put their whole life, I was bored with life in England, it didn't interest me anymore, I wanted out of my comfort zone. I was a hard worker in England but a shit education and an unwillingness to climb the corporate ladder left me with relatively limited options. I never had any interest in sales or marketing or a hundred other options open to anyone in choosing a career. My only real interest was music, and we all know how easy that is to make a career in. If I'd accepted a job that I hated and a wage that made life a struggle, would that have made me a winner? Anyway, long story short, took a trip around the world, met China and teaching along the way, decided to come here to live for a while, met my wife and settled. I work minimum hours for a good wage. That teacher I mentioned works five times as long for a fraction the money. I get to spend time with my kids, she's trapped in a class all day with someone else's. So who's the loser?

It depends of one's definition of success. A person's idea of what constitutes success tells a lot about him or her,  how deep the person is brainwashed by herd mentalities, or mass consciousness.  Take for example, one guy was reportedly to have said this more than two thousand years ago, "I am in the world but not of the world". This chap apparently didn't operate on herd mentalities. 

Calling a person Loser Back Home is a form of pain-point marketing. People who talk that way are selling themselves by mocking their competition. There are objective ways to evaluate the quality of a person's life, but they *should* be followed up with constructive criticisms and advice. If you get called a loser, you know there was an emotional assessment done ('all my friends have Porsches') rather than a rational one (inability to provide for future or family due to a pattern of lethargy, addiction or compulsion).

I wasted 6 years of my life studying useless Evolutionary Biology. I didn't get responsible advice, my single mother just said: "you are free to choose what you want to do". She was overjoyed when I was the first in the family to finish university, but in retrospect it would have been better if I had either studied something with job potential, or nothing at all. I ended up doing security for 12 years, which paid decently due to night shift bonuses.

I lost a great deal of savings in my first relationship, which may have been prevented if family and community were more involved, and advised me better. Nevertheless it is my own mistake, which I was free to make.
Now my family has more difficulties because we had to borrow money to start up everything. If I wasn't such a failure, our lives would be more comfortable.

I'm perfectly willing to discuss things with people who may have some objective views on the matter, since it could lead to advice. However when face monkeys get all giddy, point a finger and call me a loser, conversation stops. Not because I lose face, but because the intent of the discussion is not a productive one.

When I'm accused of being a Loser Back Home, I know that every ounce of energy I expend in reply, is wasted effort. Useless interaction with useless people I want to cut as short as possible.

Good question Spiderboenz, and this is slightly off topic so sorry...

I agree with mArtiAn, it's a very simplistic way of thinking.But I think there's more to it sometimes.

I hear this from time to time and see it on the internet all the time.

"Foreigners only come here because they can't succeed at home." 

Nine times out of ten the person saying it comes across as angry and bitter himself, or some barely educated peasant who doesn't understand life outside of his own village. Or both. They are not happy people. The guest14480640 guy is definitely one or both of these I'd say.

The thing with calling someone a LBH is that you are judging them by your own standards. Given that this is China those standards are usually purely materialistic and shallow... what do you own, how much money do you have, who do you have connections with..... 

So, if someone says they are here because they want to experience another culture, or they love teaching,or want to have a year off and spend it drinking and partying before starting a career,or get a job with low hours in order to study or write or something in their spare time or they just enjoy the lifestyle or whatever their reason is for being here, the simple mind can't understand that others wouldn't share the same values as him. Some people just don't care about making money so they can brag to the neighbors.

Or, it's just jealousy and insecurity and lashing out. Most foreigners (who get called a LBH at least) have a pretty good lifestyle here. Low hours, free time,a good salary, go on awesome holidays to cool places, have a fun lifestyle where they can eat out every night if they want, have little or no social pressures to 'conform' and get married have a kid etc, have girls throw themselves at them sometimes (if they're a guy) and, CAN LEAVE WHENEVER THEY WANT.

If you're making 3k a month here in China doing 50 hours a week in a job you hate with all sorts of pressure on you and see no way out, and you judge yourself only on how others see you,it must really piss you off when you see someone you consider a loser because their shoes are old and tatty having a great life and being happy and not giving a shit what anyone thinks of him. So you try to run him down online using a guest name because you're not brave enough to even use your anonymous ECC username, which must only add to your inferiority complex.

Yep!

Not married, no kids, usually no girlfriend, no house, second-hand car, low income, few personal possessions.

Well educated, though.

And yet - a loser like me can get a ton of respect here in China. Hmmm - what does that say???

(ok the above 'loserness' is all by choice! Low income, but I worked half the hours that others did, when I wanted. I'm not interested in marriage, and definitely not kids. And I've never wanted to be so focussed on money that I became obsessed about it! I had freedoms that most around me were jealous of! Not many have the money and time to sit in a cafe in the middle of the week or go for walks along the beach on a Wednesday afternoon....)

I'm famous in my home city just because I'm so long in China, working as an English teacher. Had offer for some job in 2014, which I declined with: 'I'm waiting till Henan Uni book my return ticket.'

After I received the ticket and announced my departure, I had to show ticket to few people, because they didn't believe School in China would purchase return ticket for me. 

My mom's apparently telling to other people I'm in China with similar tone as I just landed on some outer planet. With my bicycle.

 As soon as private student in Dalian saw my brick, he commented: 'Only losers in China have such phone (the cheapest Nokia)'. 

I am a LBH then. I.e: Left over women in China even the fact is I have refused so many rich Chinese chasers.

i do have a good financial situation but being brought up poor makes you believe your always poor, so your thinking is a little off, mine definitely is, so people may think im a loser and i dont give a dang at all,

i had houses and i prefer to rent, taxes, maintenance and female bed partners wanting you to get a bigger one or redecorate every 4 years. had horses but monthly expenses and no time to enjoy them, had an airplane but parking and maintenance going up every year and no time to enjoy it, had a nice boat, had a few nice convertibles, the more crap you have the more headaches you have,

so my xwives think im crazy for not wanting material things but they did not complain when i paid cash for my step daughters college tuition or paid for the weddings. the power of money and no debt is much more fun, i will keep my 200 rmb nokia phone and keep getting those dividend checks on my apple stock.

buying houses in down markets because of demographics, buying something that you never really own, no thanks, i will just rent and invest the difference so i can travel and enjoy my life as a happy loser.

I just wanna say to all the guys here, if you are here, you're making it, even day by day, you're investing, you're saving, you're helping your family or building one or even just enjoying your life and you are a LBH than you've done a great job staying out of trouble making a new life for yourself. Back home might have more temptation that could make you a LAH Loser at home because being stable with a job keeps young people more mature and helps them make better choices in life, it isn't a so called LBH fault that jobs suck in their home country,  but I'm proud of you guys that came out here tried your best to get a job and stay stable rather then just sitting at home on debt & school loans.

So don't buy that sh*t about LBH talk, if you're working and staying clean than you're doing just fine, keep it going.

Good question.

Personally, I may be considered LBH, left Aust over 10 yrs ago, was a teacher/driving instructor/owned antique shop...etc. but never seem to make ends meet. Must say, am a drinker/smoker, some time gambler.

After a nasty divorce, found my way to China.It opened a new world to me, like esl teaching, the cost of living & met some great people.

A new experience, not always good, but one I won't regret.I'm in my late 50s, & going back to OZ is not an option.

I agree with previous posters here, we all have our reasons...but my big gripe is with the LBH liars!!

Have lived in BJ & Qingdao, met too many lying foreigners, who pretend not what they are!! Simply cos we dont know their history & they say what they like. In the end they do get get busted....somehow. They really piss me off! Have you met any??

ok ok ,,,we have all heard it!    It's basically a child like comment that occurs on a school playground.  It's fighting words with the intent to make you mad, like calling a black person a nigger. 

I told a student if he continued to talk and disrupt students it would be best if he left the classroom, as he had done this daily without a care.

Yep, parent said I must be a teacher who has no where else to go but China.  

Interestingly, I'm not an English teacher but a single subject teacher with a Ph.D..

Just tell them in Chinese that they are jealous and they have already lost face too many times to keep talking in that manner.

Just mentioning losing face causes them to feel bad.  That should shut them up!!!

Loser Back Home, Loser Back in School, Loser back in the 80s...... the operative word here being------Back.

And anyone who would call someone a loser back when & where is indeed a loser in the present.

And imperfection is part of being human, we all lose and win at certain point, nothing to be shamed about, plus no one really loses unless they give up.

It is when someone calls you a loser that you should be bothered about, unless that someone is me.

Coz behind every successful man, there is a brilliant woman rolling her eyes.

What is that?  A 'loser'?  When I was in Australia last summer I at one stage backed fifty consecutive losers.  Did even that make me a loser?  Well, yes it did.  But then I backed something at 10's which bolted in and I wasn't a loser any more.  You see, life's like that.  And now I'm married to a top notcher who couldn't give a fig about my previous trials and tribulations.  She just loves me and I love her.  If anyone draws the conclusion I'm a loser they'd have to be a Chinaman and I couldn't give a rats arse.  Now, here's Elvis...Har!  Cheers!  

to tell the truth i am my own worst critic
and enemy . Im lucky i have a good lady that stands by me .
in Australia im mr average in China ...well at least in our city im the Australian who visits every year .
i will write a piece and post it when i give this some more thought
as this is not as staight forward a question as it looks like
(great post by the way )

in the consolidation of powers: china takes "winners back home" and turns them into "losers" in china and takes "losers back home" and turns them into "winners". 

As stated before it is the collective agenda of pain-point marketing.

in a recent news article, around 62 people have the same combined wealth as the lower 50% of the global population. So, would that mean around 3.5 billion people are LBH then ?  Wow, thats alot of folks.