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Is living in the West better than China?


Johnny20270

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Objectively, quality of life (health, environment, education, salaries and many other measurable metrics)  is still much better in the West.

There seems to be a consensus about this on both sides, few Westerners would move to China, whereas many if not most Chinese would move to the West if given the chance. 

 

And so I think with that in mind many Westerners in China enjoy benefits that are not normal in the country, that an average Chinese does not enjoy. That could be a much higher salary, a higher status, more opportunities and so on. I will not deny that there are many subjective quality of life metrics (interest in the culture, language, curiosity, etc)  that heavily influence someone's decision to live in a country, but without these benefits much, much fewer Westerner would choose to live here in China. Try to pay them local teacher's salaries and all the teachers are gone. Try to make them apply for Universities like the locals do and there are no more foreign students. So in short in order to attract people to China the country has to offer Westerners more than it offers its own people. I think that answers the question.

 

Therefore I think it's helpful to answer this question not from the viewpoint of yourself (in most cases white male) but from an average Chinese citizen, with an average job in an average city. For such a person the West offers a hugely better life than China still - regardless of where you feel at home or are more attracted to.

 

This might change of course, graduate salaries in Beijing (6000-8000 for top graduates) are not much lower than in Italy (some 10'000 for top graduates) despite the lower living costs. Many things could improve in the next 10-20 years, who knows, but currently there is still a massive gap, and most people not just in the West, but also in other Asian countries would not want to live in China.

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For whom, at what time in their life?

I work with Chinese people preparing to go to the West, so this is the kind of question I am often asked. At first I would simply say that China was 好玩兒啊, but that proved hard for others to understand so I went back to the drawing board for a more acceptable answer.

Now I say that becoming familiar with another culture and country and language is a great adventure. It's not about which of the two is better. It's about getting out of your comfort zone and stretching yourself. What's better than always living in the West, or always living in China, is having lived in *both* the West and China.

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Most Chinese are completely baffled that I and other foreigners have come to China. Despite being extremely patriotic, the sooner out of the country, the better!

 

I used to say 因为我爱中国. But that's hard to say some days. So I sometimes say 因为我对中国很感兴趣. As if living in China was comparable to say... stamp collecting. It also makes me realise, that despite being interested in China, it's easier to find out more about it when outside of the country.

 

So maybe I'll change it to 因为来所以在。

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There is enough architecture and untouched land in China for me.

 

A small town or village would be my choice, I would leave the city behind and live the life of a scholar in a courtyard house with loads of cats and time to study.

 

Oh to dream, the impossible dream :)

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I absolutely agree, but to me this is a definite benefit. Not all benefits are financial. See my example: " or hardships in exchange for contact with their children."

But I feel that you've made a big change in (the way you present your) argument.

There is a difference between saying that people only move to a country if they consider it to be better than some other country (# 8 ) and saying that some people will move no matter what, out of a sense of wanderlust (#15).

To me, living in the same country your whole life is a lot like eating your favourite food every day of the week. It gets boring quickly. There is nothing wrong with eating your second favourite food for a while, or even third. Not because they're better, but because there is great benefit in variety, and it's healthier. :)

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Most Chinese are completely baffled that I and other foreigners have come to China

 

Yes, I've witnessed lots of this. And then the assumption that all foreigners in China are losers; the only reason they'd come to China is because they can't get a job in their home country. I remember a specific time I was asked about my background. When I said what I used to do in my home country, the job that I gave up, and my qualifications, they assumed I was lying and got quite angry.

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Yes, I've witnessed lots of this. And then the assumption that all foreigners in China are losers; the only reason they'd come to China is because they can't get a job in their home country.

 

Because of the way guanxi works, it's almost always easier for any persistent and capable foreigner to get a better job back home than out here.

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But that's just not always true. In Beijing I used to run into tons of foreign architects who had come to China because there was more left to be built there. As one of them told me, in Europe you're pretty much reduced to designing house remodelings while in China you can work on a new opera building. There are lots of opportunities in China that don't exist in the West and that scream for persistent, capable people. I knew a guy who had come to China to set up the Chinese branch of an upmarket shoe brand. That's probably a more interesting job than anything he could have found in Holland, capable and persistent though he was.

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There is a difference between saying that people only move to a country if they consider it to be better than some other country (# 8 ) and saying that some people will move no matter what, out of a sense of wanderlust (#15).

I don't think I said people will move no matter what, what I say that to satisfy wanderlust is a benefit too. Even people that only move to satisfy their wanderlust rarely pick a completely random place to go. They go somewhere where they expect to get good value.

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Identikit cities in an identikit world. It'll be really nice when China really develops its own style again.

I think part of my viewpoint comes from living away from the power centres.

You can say a lot about architecture in China these days, but as far as I've seen it's no longer all identical. Or perhaps I'm misunderstanding you. I don't like most of the new 高楼大厦, but uniform they aren't.

Silent: perhaps people need to clarify what 'better' means. A better life, better opportunities? A more interesting life? Lots of adventures? A friend of mine spent two years in Ghana. She wanted more adventure, more space to develop herself, and she could do that there. She could get a decent job in the healthcare-related field she had been trained for, but there was not really any room for her to do more than exactly that. But in Ghana she could pretty much do the groundwork for her field for the whole country, educate people, help them set up their own things, etc. Does that make Ghana a better country than Holland? On the contrary, and I'm quite sure she also doesn't think it's 'better'. But for her it was a great opportunity and she cherishes the time she spent there.

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I don't think I said people will move no matter what

No, I said that, citing myself as an example, and you agreed.

I personally consider this a very different reason for moving than thinking a country better than some other country.

Some people certainly move out of an economic motive and after a careful deliberation, others move for the hell of it, just to see what it's like.

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Sometimes people move away from their home town/city/country/continent to a new place, not because of what is there, but because of what they leave behind.

 

I can understand this having been born in Canada, lived in Scotland, then USA and then UK. Each time I arrived in a new country I had the opportunity to leave the old me behind and become a completely new person.

 

Not that this was in anyway a bad thing it was in fact good, I was able to change my teenage rebellious phase into a studious student without having to put up with the taunts and jeers of my peers at school as I went from rebel to bookworm.

 

This was a change i had wanted to make but felt under pressure not to change.

 

I also know of a friend who went to Australia after a breakup with a partner, they ended up spending the best part of 10 years there and then they realized that it doesn't matter where you are you are still you. They have now returned to the UK and are at peace with their lives

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But for her it was a great opportunity and she cherishes the time she spent there.

For me this is what it's all about. She had a great opportunity that for her was worth more then the disadvantages. So for her, for that time it was better. If you move you get the whole package of material and immaterial consequences and generally that whole package will be better otherwise people will move on. Picking out a few items from the package and then stating based on the selected items it's better/worse is pretty meaningless. You can't get those selected items separate from the complete package.

 

If you're not willing to compare on the complete package one should define what 'better living' means.

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Here is my take on the original question: 

 

When I first came to China, I really thought that living here was not so bad. And mind you, not just for me, but also for an average Chinese guy. Sure, they might not have Western salaries and commodities, but people seemed to get along quite well. If nothing else, they always had their families and good food. Heck, a country where aunties gather to dance in public cannot be that bad. 

Now that I have left China, I think my perspective was being skewed by the good life I was having. It may always be the case that some individual like me might have a better life abroad because his skills are more valued there for example, but for the average individual in China life is definitely worse than for his counterpart in the West. 

Why? 

If you look at Chinese society from a distance, the drawbacks are not only appearent, but also rather objective (in my opinion at least ;)

Although also important in the West, money and material wealth is the foremost measure of success. While not bad in itself, this feature, coupled with greater acceptance of cheating and lying, makes you really distrust people sometimes, hence the importance of guanxi in China. 

 

Corruption that runs through the political system to the point that it is not even a big deal that politicians send their children abroad to study at universities which charge tuitions larger than their annual salaries. 

 

While everbody knows food might be polluted, you cannot make a hundred percent sure to avoid it. Not only small street restaurants, but also big chain stores use substandard food (see the latest McDonalds scandal). 

 

Compared to the West, the social security system is non existent, Chinese education is hypercompetitive, and society in general just seems cold. 

 

If you follow some stories, you realize what could happen to you if you are unlucky:

 

Unless you belong to at least the middle class, you better make sure to never get seriously sick. If you do, try to bribe some doctors into giving you a treatment worth that name. 

If you are old and weak, do not fall down on the street, people will not pick you up for fear of being extorted later on. 

If a fire breaks out in a shop, better pay for your stuff quickly, otherwise the boss will not let you out. (Has happened before, a guy locked his internet bar to prevent people from leaving without paying, a fair amount of people died) 

 

The more you live in China, the more you realize that it is a  dangerous place to live. Most of the time everything is ok and people are nice, but in case you need help you might not get it. You never know when somebody might cheat you, or when the law or some police officer wants to run over you.  (Then again, you just might get mugged in Brooklyn)

 

Hence why so many people want to leave China, hence why, statistically speaking, China's experienced well being is so low (around 4.7, while western countries tend to have something like 6.5), lower than countries like Palestine or Cuba. 

 

It all boils down to what many people have said before: China is a great place for adventure and gaining experience in young age but it is not the ideal place for getting old or raising children. 

 

Just my two cents

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Not only might you get mugged in Brooklyn, you might get detained by the police & frisked for no other reason than your skin color. The NYC police have maintained the position that it is perfectly acceptable for male police officers to frisk female citizens, given that a policeman isn't obliged to show probable cause anymore in order to search the person of any random citizen he finds walking down the street and get away with it, gee whiz I wonder what kind of abuses might possibly result? But no one gets run over by the law or police here in the West, now do they?

Also, based on your comment about healthcare, perhaps it's safe to assume Deremifri that you're not from the US, although in that case it's a bit surprising that you bring up Brooklyn, of all places. US healthcare fun facts: the top third income-wise in the US live shorter lives than the bottom third in the UK, not to mention the fact that Cuba has a better infant mortality rate, all this while we're spending more per capita than any other country on earth--twice as much per capita as the next highest spender (Canada--whose citizens of course enjoy far superior care).

--Another Brooklyn, NY fun fact--it was the first US locale I know of where surveillance cameras were installed in a public place (corner of Atlantic & Pennsylvania Aves. if memory serves), of course back then every time they installed new ones again someone shot them out again. Places like the Brooklyn of my youth are generally the preferred location for trial runs of this sort. The first civilian area the US Gov't. has chosen to fly drones over, the place I live now, is demographically similar to Brooklyn when I was born (back when Bedford-Stuyvesant was still called Bedford-Stuyvesant & not "Park Slope")

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