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In simple terms , home is where the heart is and that is Asia. The West including the USA is where the wallet resides. For many Asians, and with due consideration, they can afford to go back now. Not too many ties here, with the exception of families that can move with them. Truly the advantage of an ethnocentric group of people. Highly mobile in that regard.
Now, it is without a doubt Asian people are measured and thoughtful in this land of outward madness. The time is beginning to arrive where there may be some cracks in Chinese/USA relations, spilling over to other Asian nations and it will only get worse. Why stay on when you have finished your studies here, made some money and the quiet yearning to return to the land of your ancestors seems a more and more viable option.
Lastly, the Asian American community has not really embedded itself in American society in the ways of Europeans and others. Still a mystery to many and not always visible in terms of sports, entertainment, politics etc. Is the feeling of being not really belonging finally dawning on many Asians
Well, to me, America is home. I resent and fight the image that Asian Americans are perpetual foreigners.
We've been here for 100+ years and we're not "embedded in American society?" C'mon now.
I can sort of see this, or at least I used to, but my understanding from emigres is that Asian education institutions especially in China and Taiwan have improved a whole lot, and now offer more options for exploring creativity and critical-thought skills in example of Western institutions, some even follow Germany's apprenticeship system. Also the main problem is cost, US universities are extremely expensive right now and can drain a person's assets and savings, or cause a lot of debt. If an Asian person wants to go overseas, there are strong universities in Europe (especially Germany, France, Belgium and Scandinavia) as well as South America (Chile, Brazil, Ecuador, Colombia, Argentina) that also offer top education but they do it nearly for free, basically the costs of education are more than paid back by all the international students who stay there afterward and start business to hire local people, and feed a lot more into the economy, or otherwise start business relationships with German export companies. I realize I'm coming at this from a businessperson's standpoint, but it just sounds idiotic to me to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on a foreign education with no guarantee at all anymore for return on that investment, when more and more there are quality schools at home or in other countries. that cost virtually nothing, and allow you to save hundreds of thousands of dollars you can use for other things, like starting a business.
We've actually looked hard at this and concluded that it would not be ideal for us to return to HK where my wife has family, because of our daughter not being able to fit into the local schools society, as well as the really high costs of international schools here.
While things may have improved educationally, on a superficial basis, you're still have a lot of Chinese students who are studying in the US to avoid their infamous gaokao examination system.
But I don't think most people are going to those cities, I think it seems like it's more the up and coming and fast growing but as yet not established cities that are attracting the emigres. For example on my associates business trips to Asia in past 5 years, most of the joint projects (with Asian-Americans emigres who've moved to Asia) have been in the supposedly less tier cities in China, places like Kungming and Shenzhen, Shujou (sorry not sure about the spelling, I didn't go there), Tangshan, Fushun, Yantai plus a ton of cities in western China that are boomtowns. And this is just off the top of my head from assignments I can remember, I haven't personally been to most of these but my understanding is that this is where the expats and emigres are going, and they're both high tech and very entrepreneurial but also very cheap to live in. Korea in general seems to be affordable despite the very high tech modern standards there, same with much of Taiwan, even Japan outside of Tokyo and Kyoto seems pretty affordable.
You're talking about the Tier 1 cities in China. Actually, from the standpoint of lifestyle and amenities, they are the most attractive for foreigners in general, and will carry of course a higher price tag. I can say that if I were to settle in those places, I would want to go to the major metropolitan areas for culture, for the people, amenities.
If they're returnees, that will depend on their individual situation - if they're local - they may go to their hometown, which may be less costly in terms of COL. But they're less attractive from a lifestyle standpoint for an expat. But yes, they're uncharted or less developed so there is that.
Call it a tradeoff.
I wouldn't call Seoul particularly affordable especially for housing.
We've actually looked hard at this and concluded that it would not be ideal for us to return to HK where my wife has family, because of our daughter not being able to fit into the local schools society, as well as the really high costs of international schools here.
While things may have improved educationally, on a superficial basis, you're still have a lot of Chinese students who are studying in the US to avoid their infamous gaokao examination system.
To be fair: your kid is "anglo white" in culture; she's NOT Chinese despite being of Chinese family. It'd be the same thing in Ireland; I'd be tagged as a "Yank" like as in yesterday cause I was born here and so were both of parents and, I think, 3 of my 4 grands as well.
Kyle Le has been teaching American History in Vietnam for the past 6 yrs. He is originally from Southern California. He is quite popular with youtube and growing.
Mark Weins is a popular full time food blogger in Asia who travels daily. He is from Phoenix, Arizona with almost half a million subscribers on youtube.
This i disagree with completely, and I think the earlier poster right on target. I've personally known dozens of people, including close friends and family be absolutely ruined by the insanity and unbelievable costs of the US legal system. Especially those who've been involved in divorce, or business lawsuits which can cripple small businesses completely, one of the ways big firms exercise their advantage and crush the small fry before they have a chance to get bigger. I've seen multimillionaires absolutely ruined by divorce, losing everything from their homes to their businesses to all their assets, even some getting jail time when they couldn't keep up with spousal support payments because the family courts in the USA have a crazy amount of power, and the lawyers and system make a ton of money from it. I've never seen this level of craziness in other countries, even in Australia, Canada and UK where they do have similarly wrenching divorce courts but at least don't throw you in courthouse or jail-- everywhere else, certainly in Europe and South America, it's much lower key, all mediation, you don't lose your assets and they don't allow things like alimony at all, and they set it up so that the divorce lawyers and courts can't make money off the process, so less exploitation. I don't know as much about Asia but it seems like their legal system is not inclined to follow the US model here, and is probably more like Europe with mediation. And for small businesses, I haven't seen other countries allow the big fish to crush the smaller fry like in the US, there's more control over the system. You may have avoided the litigiousness because you haven't had to deal with divorce or losing a small business, fortunately I haven't personally but it's hit a lot of people in my circle and it's awful. Not to mention the terrible costs and breakdowns in US healthcare, which I guess technically isn't a problem with the legal system but is also bankrupting and a product of terrible policy.
Most of your comments center on divorce and the court system. I don't know too many people moving to Asia because of the divorce laws there, nor how is this relevant with regards to job creation or employment.
On another topic, I've heard about tort reform being touted as a solution to lowering costs for consumers and business, for example, in the health industry and insurance industry. They've done this in Texas and it's had no effect in lowering costs in the healthcare industry for consumers there.
To be fair: your kid is "anglo white" in culture; she's NOT Chinese despite being of Chinese family. It'd be the same thing in Ireland; I'd be tagged as a "Yank" like as in yesterday cause I was born here and so were both of parents and, I think, 3 of my 4 grands as well.
Correction - she's "American" in culture and orientation. Otherwise I agree with you on this (which is rare).
In simple terms , home is where the heart is and that is Asia. The West including the USA is where the wallet resides. For many Asians, and with due consideration, they can afford to go back now. Not too many ties here, with the exception of families that can move with them. Truly the advantage of an ethnocentric group of people. Highly mobile in that regard.
Now, it is without a doubt Asian people are measured and thoughtful in this land of outward madness. The time is beginning to arrive where there may be some cracks in Chinese/USA relations, spilling over to other Asian nations and it will only get worse. Why stay on when you have finished your studies here, made some money and the quiet yearning to return to the land of your ancestors seems a more and more viable option.
Lastly, the Asian American community has not really embedded itself in American society in the ways of Europeans and others. Still a mystery to many and not always visible in terms of sports, entertainment, politics etc. Is the feeling of being not really belonging finally dawning on many Asians
This is true, even among my own close friends and my Fil-Am extended family I've seen this a lot, and the discrimination comes from both "liberal" and "conservative" types so those labels don't really seem to mean much. I've been to events and job interviews with my Fil-Am cousins, and been pretty shocked by the openly discriminatory and mocking things said about them and their background (said with a lot of candor since they didn't realize I was family) Even sometimes from other minorities and even Asians making the decisions, it's like they were trying to prove they belonged by making other Asians feel unwelcome. Ironically one of my Fil-Am cousins spoke decent enough Spanish that he eventually had success in the Latino market, and I have seen a lot of Fil-Ams in many industries embraced by the Latino community as one of their own. But the "mainstream" recruiters and decision makers often treat them like they're from another planet, and certainly not American. It really is crazy to see, he and his relatives in all kinds of businesses had all been born in the US, some served in the military and yet in one way or another, it was made clear to them they didn't belong.
On another topic, I've heard about tort reform being touted as a solution to lowering costs for consumers and business, for example, in the health industry and insurance industry. They've done this in Texas and it's had no effect in lowering costs in the healthcare industry for consumers there.
This I've heard too, I just think the problems with US healthcare are so much deeper than this and potentially not solvable w/o radical reforms in general. The malpractice system abuse is one of them (most other countries have something like a "no-fault" system that just compensates people) but my read on it is this just a tiny part of a much bigger problem, the more fundamental problem is the costs for healthcare are way too high and it's predatory for patients who have to use it. This is probably what drives some to make malpractices suits, the general manner in that the docs and patients are set against each other when the real problem is more structural-- the crippling costs of insurance, hospital admin, overhead and drug costs. Like I said I don't know much about Asia, but practically all of Europe has universal healthcare without needing extra taxes for it because health care costs so much less yet they get better results. And since the US always ranks at the bottom in those healthcare rankings in terms of both affordability and results, I'd imagine most Asian countries are closer to the European coverage model than US. It' just bizarre that so many Americans get bankrupted by healthcare bills even if they're insured, and that insurance these itself can be bankrupting by the premiums, coinsurance and deductibles alone, whereas this just doesn't happen in Europe. It's a deep deep problem crying otu for solution.
They don't go into too much detail but I suspect a major source of the enrollees being unable to pay the premiums consists of small businesses owners and entrepreneurs. It's absolutely impossible to cover the costs of those increasing premiums (let-alone deductibles) when your income isn't increasing with it, simple econ. Especially for a small business when you don't even know what your income will be from year to another year. This is why other countries simplify the system so that they don't wind up with a Frankenstein-style monster like what we have here, forcing people into ruinous debt for a necessity like healthcare. I get the sense Asia is a lot smarter about this too.
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