1. Yes - Housing is a problem. I think it is a salary problem. As tech corps in US earns money from the whole world, most Chinese tech corps can only attract Chinese customers. So the value generated from a same piece of code, is better in US. This makes US engineers' salary and status relatively higher in the society than those in China.

2. Yes - people are working 996. But I won't blame the law. I'd blame the culture, or the competitive nature of Chinese tech industry. Union doesn't do anything in China, but labour law does. It is written in favor of workers and executed properly, ask any entrepreneur in China. The problem is, I never seen anyone sued their employer. And there are a damn lot of people that actually working 996 voluntarily without asking by their boss, making the normal ones less competitive if they don't do this.

3. No, I don't agree here. - In tech companies of both countries, I found no difference, relationship does not matter that much even Chinese employees do have a closer personal relationship than US employees. And in other industries like finance, there are no difference either, b/c both countries are 'relation-oriented' in these industries.

4. Yes - I would not say its cruel tho. India, Korea, Singapore are all like this. Its just very competitive due to the limited educational resource and the amount of people who wants to use it. But yea I wouldn't send my child there (If I have one).

5. Pollutions - Sad, Beijing is not a human-habitable place anymore... Shanghai is still okay.

Again, I think the facts you provided are main reasons that stop people going back. Those in the article are slightly wrong(Github, VPN .etc) or not important(foreign business entry barrier) for individuals like me.

1) pollution - Since the Disneyland has opened, things are improved. But above the regular days, it is depressing when finally the weekend came and you can't leave the 4 walls.

2) overpopulation - I don't mean the large population, but the overpopulation. There is no space for cars, yet everybody is buying, sometimes a two lane road becomes barely one, because one lane is completely blocked by parking cars and bikes going randomly. Parks are small and spare in the city. There is barely playground for children only expensive indoor ones.

3) People.. I know I know, but it drives me mad, you can only queue up like once in a year when nobody will come to the front to you. I can't count how many times I've seen that cars just blocking the ambulance in rush for no reason. When you stop with your car because the road is blocked, it's guaranteed sby from the back will try to overtake you either from left or right. My friend had a light accident with a motorcyclist (50%-50%), he brought him the hospital and paid everything. Few months later he was dragged to the court and was charged for 28K RMB (~$4K) (including the bills he paid in the hospital, fortunately he kept the cc receipts, the repair of the bike cost like a new one etc. even if it is mostly paid by the insurance, very depressing to see this amount of fraud). And so on.. Of course you can meet nice and good people, but still the daily routine will be different (also gave up counting how many times i was almost hit by a car or motor).

4) The first green is like 4 hours driving. And not easy drive but bloody fight. Have to be fully alert, people even overtake you on the shoulder of the road + I can't recall I ever could drive without seeing accidents, see barrels or other things on the road.

5) internet - after 7-8pm it is basically cut, so overloaded, no website loads that is not hosted in the country. You have to use some kind of vpn for everything! ... your gray hair is granted. No form of video-chat works beside wechat. Skype though exists, in the current year, was really painful communicating with my parents.. as my experience goes only works during working hours or on mobile net. In this year when i go home, I started to consider it as an offline zone.

.. sorry to be honest, no pun intended. It is how it is (My wife is Chinese so Im halfway there also :)... and things are improving with time, just way too slowly, Except 2. and 4. that can't be really fixed. (can't imagine anytime soon that it will be a dream destination..)

Is this really the case? I can't imagine a country having to limit educating students because of lack of resources. I hope they're not doing it artificially just to have a gradient.

Back to your question, China is not limiting education. But the education is limited by the nature of a lack of resources problem. Lets say we are in a university called US. We have 10 students and 10 Profs in US. Then every student could easily get into the course they want. An entry test might be placed only to make sure the student has knowledge required for this course. But in another university called China, they have 20 students but only 5 Profs. So a entry test is placed on those 20 to select the best 5 students for classes. So these 20 students need to study damn hard for the chance to get into the course they want. For here, prof is a 'limited resource.'

What I've heard about India is that there are a few (15, IIRC) prestigious Engineering colleges and everyone wants to go there. So high school students have to outdo each other to get a place, meaning a lot of study & completion. The gradient is not intentional

I tend to think that US is able to suck up of large portion of talent from all around the world like vacuum cleaner because laws are race and culture blind. When I look at winners of Nobel prize or Field medalists or Pulitzer price winners or popular movie directors or music performers or entrepreneurs, it doesn't escape to me that immigrants or their children make up disproportionate number of these people while all other countries bloodlet their talent.

China, or PRC, has issued fewer than 2000 green cards to foreigners every since its foundation, and most of them are issued to people who have Chinese ancestry.

Race. Chinese people are pretty...racist to TBH. But if you are White, it is probably going to benefit you. Good luck if you are people of colors. People hate PC here, but you will hate China for zero PC as well. A part that I really don't like about China, is a lot of people seem to judge others like it is their own damn rights, unacceptable.

Religion. Not really a lot people care, not even the government does, if you just practice yourself. But you are openly advocating about that, people will frown upon you, and will keep you distance.

Having lived in an oppressively religious area (in the American South) this is one of the things I like best about China. It's a relief, compared to how it is in super religious areas.

If I felt like talking to someone about religion I'd have to go out of my way to do it. The urban areas in the South are no more or less religious than the North unless you are in a few cities (portland).

The PRC on the other hand has actively persecuted religions/cults (the Falun Gong are a prime example).

But Falun Gong is 'persecuted'. It is different from other religions. Now, it seems to be an peaceful religion, but Back when it was operating in China, it is not. It seeks political status, motivate its people for illegal activities, and people lost they lives because of it.

I understand you cannot believe me. But ask other Chinese from mainland china, shouldn't be hard to find some if you are in tech industry. (They might refuse to share their opinion because they know the answer might offend you.)

Yeah... that definitely has not been my experience of urban areas in the South (mostly Atlanta, Dallas, and Galveston, assuming the latter two are considered "South").

It's subtle enough that I don't doubt that it isn't particularly noticeable from the inside, but as an outsider it was obvious to me.

Along with the general religiosity, there is also this pervasive assumption that everyone is a Christian that feels rather oppressive. I've only found Utah worse in that respect (the only state where I'm a gentile).

That said, Data is not the plural of Anecdote, and my personal experiences could certainly be far from representative.

Religion is not a taboo in China, as is not welcome.

[0] http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21710264-worlds-risin...

If you have the marriage visa you can do this after 3 years residence - it's 5 years residence with a work visa

https://taiwanease.com/article/46/Turning_Taiwanese_A_Step-B...

The US is headed that way. Uber, etc. Trump's new Secretary of Labor is a CEO from the fast-food industry and wants to abolish the minimum wage.

5. Pollutions etc.

Yes, China's big cities look like US big cities circa 1970. It took the US about ten years after the Clean Air Act to clean that up. Li Keqiang claims that fixing this is one of his top priorities. He has the authority, and the technology is known.

The other cultural and pay issues seem a bigger deal to me, if true. So many of the best people I've met over the 10+ years in the valley care about things other than owning a home, for example.

Owning a home is nice but it can't be emphasized enough that their heart was in the work, and everything else followed.

I understand that that attitude may be one of privilege but it is what it is.

What is tech culture — at least the bits that other people want to replicate? It's about being at the edges, pushing what's possible. Or the value-add, if you're an economist. :P It's worth noting that even in the Bay Area, it's just a minority of the scene that truly aspires to this ideal. There's a lot of hanger-ons, even here. What's different about the Bay Area is that non-conformism allowed those weirdos to actually lead.

Some more: 1. food security, this is also terrible 2. lots of people don't follow rules like run the red light and cutting into the line 3. Health care, it's cheap, but the quality is poor, especially in small cities.There's more than 10 medical accident among my relatives

Could you elaborate? Based upon what I see here in Canada, chinese immigrants maniacally push their children to all functions that can be found around. And it's considered good when there're many chinese children in your kid's class.

I live in the UK now. Something very odd to me at the beginning is that I can never know how good my kids are doing compare to their classmates. The teachers would politely refuse to answer such questions. And the 'parents meeting' is private to one pupil's parent(s) and the teacher.

In China things do not work this way. Every test - and there are a lot of them - is publicly ranked. There will be a very large poster at the back of the classroom with the ranking on it. The parents' meeting is a meeting for all parents of that class together. A teacher will read the ranking aloud on the stage to all parents. The top pupils will be invited onto the stage and receive praise, which is alright. But the bottom pupils will also be invited onto the stage and receive criticism - in front of all peers and their parents. The idea here is to motivate them work harder to avoid the shaming - or to motivate their parents to push them harder to avoid the shaming. It may work for some. But I see more harm done than good here.

There is nothing inherently in Chinese culture that prevents innovation. Innovated people gonna innovate, when they got the resources they need.

Poor country usually aren't very innovative, and China has become much richer at national level. To bet, there will be more innovations from China than not for the next several decades.

Maybe not Silicon-Valley-type innovation, but there have been plenty of innovations out of China's very long history.

Even in more recent times, I remember reading an article about Chinese research into floor tiles that can identify people as they walk via weight and shear. This was 6-10 years ago, I don't know whatever happened to that project.

Edit: I will posit that the people who take risks in the Valley do so not because of 'culture', but because they are well-off and/or well-connected and can afford to fail in terms of time and money.

Yes, I think that this is very counterproductive.

Finnish kids don't even go to school until age of 7 - and they do as well as the top chinese students.

And of course. Some teachers won't shame pupils at all. But the rankings are always public. No one can change that.

def: willfully causing pain or suffering to others, feeling no concern about it.

Shaming is undesirable, but I wouldn't say publicly knowing how you rank compared to others would constitute "cruel". Its really how the world works - in sports you see exact stats of how your do, publicly traded companies/CEOs are meticulously analysed publicly on how they perform etc. etc.

There does need to be a balance btwn hypercompetiton, and "everyone gets a trophy" mentality. I feel like the US has swung far to one side and china the other. Best would be some where in the middle. Maybe have a live list of the top 10-15% of student scores.

I am a parent, and don't want to hurt my daughter, but at the same time a little pain and suffering makes you stronger.

Yes. Praise can be more damaging than criticism in many cases.[1][2] Certain types of praise in the form of encouragement can be very good things. Certain types of constructive criticism can be empowering.

> a little pain and suffering makes you stronger

What is "stronger"? More emotionally resilient? In my opinion, suffering just results in risk aversion. There is not a lot of positive that emerges from it. Note that I'm not referring to establishing boundaries, which may be what you're referring to with your daughter.

[1] https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/smart-moves/201411/the-...

[2] http://www.parentingscience.com/effects-of-praise.html

This is not true.

A) It's ludicrous to wrap 'personhood' and 'identity' out of how well someone is able to study and write arbitrary tests. Completely wrong.

What if some kid learns better visually, than orally? And he's actually much smarter?

What about the kids that are smart, but poor at taking tests?

What about the kids who have massive advantage over others (i.e. tutors) - does that make the other kids dumb?

'In the real world' - there's no such thing as 'someone being better at taking a test' than others. It makes no difference in the 'real world'.

A) That's only the tech world, which is not 'the world'

B) White board interviews are not 'contrived' - they are reasonable. They just are not perfect.

C) I'll bet that whiteboard interviews and academic success are only somewhat loosely correlated.

Executive jobs wherein you can get fired for losing to your competitors compensate you for this risk by paying fuck-you money on a yearly, sometimes even daily basis. If the CEO of Exxon is fired for failing to overtake BP, he could never work again and still die with more in the bank than I will ever earn.

Ranking in academia does not reflect real-world conditions.

I have the same feelings about the UK public education. Competition is basically non-existence. I wonder why people can't settle in a middle ground.

I was just pointing out that cruel has a very negative connotation ie - inhuman, barbaric, sadistic, evil, abominable etc. Applying it in the previous use case seemed excessive and implied a more radical tone than I believe the author (as he mentioned) wanted.

I attended a very competitive high school in China, and under pretty high peer pressure, books were stacking up on my desk. The final goal is getting high score in "SAT" like test(also much harder) and attending good university. Some of my classmates get medal from International Olympiad and have higher chance to get in to good universities.

I think the historical reason for putting education in such high level is this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_examination.

That's a common situation in Chinese high school. I'd say most Chinese high school are equally competitive. I am in a not so high-ranked school in Shanxi. And I literally have less than 1 day of rest each week. Each day it's from 6am to 9pm. Early self-study, day lecture, and night self-study, all in classroom...

How much are you learning and more importantly, are you retaining this information? What subjects / topics are you studying?

The reason that I ask, is that I work in IT. If you spent this amount of time devoted to learning a programming language, web design, etc... you would be in an excellent position to work remotely for a company like mine. If you spend 6-9 learning everything under the sun, I think it is kind of a waste.

I noticed literally no difference between my Canadian students and Chinese/Korean students as a TA at a top university here, other than the international students being more likely to plagiarize/copy work. Also, the international students were way more likely to be smokers - not sure if that's a cultural thing, or if it's caused by being stressed the fuck out because of the ridiculous education system there.

Also, depending on how "top" your university, it may have been easier for these students to get into your university than the top universities in China (e.g. they have lower test scores than their peers at the top unis in China).

NCEE is an exam, which means you get one shot, offline, off books.

Now imagine you need to write a website, with pen and paper, without internet or reference books.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Higher_Education_Entr...

1. http://hechingered.org/content/a-day-in-the-life-of-chinese-...

It was "cruel" retrospectively and perhaps from the point of American society. Yet it was not really "cruel" when I was "in it". It was not a burden entirely carried by individual students. The entire class was working hard. Everyone was more-or-less tired after class. Teachers and parents accommodated my needs and gave encouragement as long as I was striving to do well in school. Thus it might be ignoring the context to simply push one child in the US to Chinese level of school-work without considering the society around.

I agree to an extent, but ...

> it was not really "cruel" when I was "in it"

I can't speak about your particular experience, of course, but generally children tend to accept their experiences as the norm. They don't have other experiences, are naturally in a very subordinate position, and are powerless. They can't really deny or hate their parents: the child's actual survival, as well as their welfare and happiness, depends on their relationship with their parents. Consider how many adults won't challenge their bosses (the great majority); now imagine a child's powerlessness, lack of confidence, and even lack of understanding of their own situation matched up against the authority, capability, and power their parents. Even adults in such situations tend to accept their fate and deny the possibility of anything better.

I also disagree that cruelty is just a relative term. It is to some degree, but pain and suffering have absolute values. When you break your arm or your loved one dies, the suffering is essentially the same whether you are in New York or Shanghai.

I doubt you mean it this way, but claims that other cultures don't value life or suffering have been used as a justification of brutal treatment.

>BTW: you have very little chance to be able to get married without a property under your name in China.

This is exaggerated. I've only seen such thing on news or from rumors. But in real life, a lot of my friends, classmates and colleges (both male and female) got married without owning a property.

>Primary/secondary education in China is very, very cruel

How can education be cruel? You may say it's hard or ineffective, but cruel?? What happened to you in your child life?

People say that China is 10 years in the future and 10 years in the past, but in many ways it's 50 years both ways.

With the skewed male:female ratio, that would seem to be the least of your worries http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/8451289.stm