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Chinese choose to live abroad for income and recognition
By Tseng Tan |
May 10, 2010, Monday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
I was scanning the sports section of a newspaper the other day and chanced upon the results of the European table tennis championship.
It seemed that the major winning teams have a number of players with Chinese-sounding names. It is certainly not the case of Europeans adopting Chinese names now that the economic power is shifting eastwards, compared to Asians using Caucasian names for social reasons.
These are Chinese players in their adopted homelands, playing for principally two reasons - recognition and economic stability.
Had they remained in China, they would have been just faceless individuals competing intensely for the few top places in order to represent China.
In these European states, it is easier to achieve recognition and be paid well for their contributions. This is not just a phenomenon in Europe but also among richer nations in Asia, to use imported talent for national glory.
When Singapore won the silver medal at the Beijing Olympics, some Singaporeans ungraciously called it "China's B team" for obvious reasons. They do not appreciate the fact that foreign talents have to endure, accept and maneuver through different cultural elements in order to live their dreams.
My golfing friend, Boon, has a different explanation of this situation. He came to Singapore at the age of 9 to join his father and managed to graduate from the local university as an engineer in the 1960s. After working in a government establishment for some years, he started his own civil and structural engineering consultancy, assisting small and medium enterprises in a niche market.
Today, with married children, he is comfortably well-off and can indulge in golfing pursuits in other countries. He said that his mantra for being successful is, "Be a big fish in a small pond."
It has been reported that a growing trend among young job-hunting Chinese is to move to smaller cities (avoiding over-crowded Shanghai) where conditions are less stressful and the environment more conducive to better living conditions.
It seemed that the major winning teams have a number of players with Chinese-sounding names. It is certainly not the case of Europeans adopting Chinese names now that the economic power is shifting eastwards, compared to Asians using Caucasian names for social reasons.
These are Chinese players in their adopted homelands, playing for principally two reasons - recognition and economic stability.
Had they remained in China, they would have been just faceless individuals competing intensely for the few top places in order to represent China.
In these European states, it is easier to achieve recognition and be paid well for their contributions. This is not just a phenomenon in Europe but also among richer nations in Asia, to use imported talent for national glory.
When Singapore won the silver medal at the Beijing Olympics, some Singaporeans ungraciously called it "China's B team" for obvious reasons. They do not appreciate the fact that foreign talents have to endure, accept and maneuver through different cultural elements in order to live their dreams.
My golfing friend, Boon, has a different explanation of this situation. He came to Singapore at the age of 9 to join his father and managed to graduate from the local university as an engineer in the 1960s. After working in a government establishment for some years, he started his own civil and structural engineering consultancy, assisting small and medium enterprises in a niche market.
Today, with married children, he is comfortably well-off and can indulge in golfing pursuits in other countries. He said that his mantra for being successful is, "Be a big fish in a small pond."
It has been reported that a growing trend among young job-hunting Chinese is to move to smaller cities (avoiding over-crowded Shanghai) where conditions are less stressful and the environment more conducive to better living conditions.
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