Sunday evening — just a casual chat.
Since the middle of this year, some truly “remarkable” things have been happening around me. Several friends who had emigrated to the US, Canada, Australia, or New Zealand a couple of years back all quietly chose to come home, one after another, in recent months.
There’s no need to say anything unnecessary here — everyone makes their own choices, and none of them are wrong.
But their feedback, when you put it all together, was strikingly consistent: the beauty you see from a distance often fades when you’re actually living it. Once you’re truly inside that environment, you realize there is no perfect place on earth.
Whatever else you might say about China, the overall public safety, everyday conveniences, and value-for-money healthcare are real, tangible advantages.
Even in basic education — whether public schools or international schools in China — the campus culture tends to be noticeably better than overseas name-brand institutions.
In the West, the progressive and diversity craze these past couple of years has gone absolutely off the rails. Bathrooms used to be divided by gender; now they’re forcibly adding a “gender-friendly” third bathroom that anyone can walk into.
And even in relatively safe neighborhoods, the area around schools reeks of weed. Drive past and you’ll consistently see four or five teenagers smoking hand-rolled green stuff in rough cigarette papers.
You thought your kid would open their eyes to the world — and open their eyes they did. Especially once they hit Grade 7 and above: not turning in homework and disrespecting teachers is just a normal Tuesday.
During exams, some kids hand in a completely blank paper, and the teacher still has to give them a B+ — 70 or above — otherwise the kid goes straight to the principal to report the teacher for suppressing minorities or stifling diverse thought.
Then comes the Instagram-plus-X combo move, slick as you like, forcing teachers who just want to keep their jobs to smile and applaud the blank-paper heroes.
These past two years, the global economy has been rough, and most of those who made the trendy move to emigrate are finding themselves grinding just like everyone else.
I have one couple — both former senior executives at major Chinese tech companies. They had lined up positions abroad, ready to enjoy a relaxed, high-paying tech career and finally experience the work-life balance capitalism promised.
Then, first year on the job, they watched wave after wave of entry-level roles get outsourced to Southeast Asia and India. The water suddenly felt like it was rising above their ankles, and the anxiety hit hard.
They consoled each other: getting “optimized out” at 35 was a local Chinese specialty, surely not something golden-haired, blue-eyed Western bosses would pull. But those bosses didn’t build empires through kindness — they got there through decisive, ruthless action.
By the second year, within the span of a single month, the young couple had both packed their bags and come home. Parents sighed deeply — turns out it doesn’t matter whether you’re in China or anywhere else on earth. Cattle and horses, in the eyes of capital, get optimized and replaced once they reach a certain age. Doesn’t matter the country.
Career setbacks aside, the bigger headache was public safety — it gave them no peace of mind either.
The hardest thing for Chinese people living abroad isn’t the inability to hold a fluent English conversation. It’s that the entire lifestyle just doesn’t match their rhythm.
I’ve personally advised no fewer than four or five couples: when you’re living in an English-speaking country, do not live in what looks like a vibrant, bustling city center.
Nobody listened. Nobody believed me. They figured: city center, police cars patrolling right outside your building — the safety must be good — and they all bought downtown apartments.
Sure enough, within six months, barely had their cars warmed up — ten trips to the supermarket, two smashed car windows.
The repair shop owner shook his head in disbelief: “Why do you Chinese people always drive flashy, showy cars? And every single one of you steps out decked head-to-toe in designer brands? How much do you actually trust the safety here?”
Don’t you know that theft and robbery cases now don’t even get a proper case file? They just log the officer’s arrival and move on.
Those officers rolling by in Dodge Challengers? They’re just tired of the coffee in their own precinct and came over here to try a new sushi set.
And you can’t even vent about this stuff to your new Western friends, because the moment you do, you get a well-meaning reminder: “You know the real middle class and rich guys only live in the suburbs, right?”
Why? Because poor people can’t afford cars — or the insurance to keep one. So the farther you get from the city center, the safer it is.
This logic is a complete blindspot for Chinese people who grew up believing “subway lines are gold lines.” Nobody ever told them this.
So you finally steel yourself, sell up, and move to a suburban house. And a whole new set of problems arrives.
All those details you’d only ever seen in Hollywood movies suddenly become your three-dimensional reality.
Why is the dad in every American film always pushing a lawnmower around? Why is the mom juggling a giant dog and a houseful of kids? Why do the husband and wife always have scenes together painting the house or doing DIY renovations?
Not romantic. Not charming. Pure survival.
Unlike China, the moment you’re living in a country where English is the default, anything you need someone else to do for you will make you appreciate every skill you’ve ever learned.
Just weekly lawn mowing — blink and it’s $60–80 gone. If they clean the pool too — scoop out the rotting leaves, scrub the algae — that’s a clean $200.
And that cleaning needs to happen every two weeks. Let the garden weeds run wild and you’ll get fined.
Then, if your house has even a minor leak and you need a little polyurea coating applied, the white contractor — professional, responsible — climbs up to the first-floor roof. Full protective gear on. Electronic liability forms filled out. Prep work done. Two hours have already passed before he’s even started. He gets up there, looks here, looks there, dabs on a tiny bit with the care of someone doing embroidery.
Comes back down sweating, tells you the problem is complicated, can’t fix it in one go — and then opens his mouth: $600.
Fine. White contractors are precious. Let’s hire a Chinese contractor then — surely a fellow countryman won’t screw you over.
You send a message. They show up. They spend a long time analyzing the problem, chatting you up, building rapport — and by the time the job’s done, they’ve somehow discovered four or five brand-new problems on your roof, and “sincerely” inform you that it’s a good thing they found them, because otherwise the consequences would’ve been unthinkable.
You look closer and realize the guy literally pried open your roof tiles. Of course there are new problems now.
By then it’s getting dark — can’t climb back up tonight — but tomorrow they’ll bring five or six workers to do a thorough job and fix everything properly.
Fellow Chinese, nothing to say — they’ll only charge you $6,000. Come on, buddy!
You realize you’ve been played. So you try Indian contractors instead — transparent hourly rates, surely no surprises.
A few tiles. Ten hours should be plenty.
You agree: job starts at 9am. They show up at 11. Shortly after arriving, they retreat into the truck for lunch. At 2pm they finally get going — but once the guy’s up on the roof, you notice he’s as still as someone in deep meditation.
He stares at the tiles. The tiles stare back. His hands are moving, but you have no idea what his hands are actually doing.
Six o’clock in the evening. The hardworking contractor comes back down and informs you: he fixed one hole today.
Oh, and today’s total: $980.
You do a double take. Wasn’t it $18 an hour? He shakes his head. “Don’t forget the materials and the high-climbing fee.”
No tears left to cry. Might as well do it yourself.
You’re used to online shopping in China, so you just order materials and brushes off Amazon. First delivery takes five days — then tracking shows the package is lost.
You call customer service, furious. The rep is extremely pleasant, assuring you: as long as you haven’t received it, they’ll keep sending, over and over, until you do.
Sustained saturation delivery — no problem! You finally let out a sigh of relief.
Six days later, the Amazon delivery arrives. The delivery guy, from beyond the fence, hurls the package onto your porch from a distance.
You come home to find the broken packaging has hemorrhaged waterproofing material all over your porch.
Eventually, you learn to go to Home Depot yourself. You finally understand why everyone here drives a pickup truck. And you’ve picked up a solid set of construction and renovation skills along the way.
Two years later, sitting on your balcony sighing about how hard life is, your kid walks up and says: “Mom, Dad — I want to go back to China. It’s so boring here. There’s nothing fun to do. I even have to use a VPN to play games.
“And nothing’s convenient here. Can’t even order food delivery. This place is such a drag.”
And suddenly, a question forms in your mind: why did you come here in the first place?
For a moment, that question stopped you cold.