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Ma Jolie's avatar

So two main things that made me want to emigrate from China to the US 10+ years ago now were 1) the one-child policy. As an only child myself I vaguely knew even as a teenager that I definitely wanted to have multiple children, and a society with such draconian rules to punish desire for more children just won’t do. 2) the lack of freedom of speech. I need to watch YouTube!! I cannot live in a country where I can’t access YouTube!! The US also produces the best TV, movies, music, etc. It sounds dumb now but to an 18-year-old it’s just such a big draw. Of course the content on Douyin or weibo is highly regulated, I personally don’t use these platforms just because as a result they become soooo boring.

Anecdotally, the best and smartest of my high school class all went to American universities and later landed jobs at major tech companies (yeah the h1bs). For China it’s actually bad news because these people often take their families resources with them and it’s also just such a brain drain for the native country. But now the US is solving this problem for China by eliminating the h1b visas I guess? Anyway, always glad to see a China episode because China is just so vast and strange and interesting. Always trying to understand wtf is going on there.

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Simone Collins's avatar

That is so interesting! I've been wondering whether people growing up having normalized to heavily regulated media would ultimately resent it or not noticed it at all. I'm also dying to see side-by-side comparisons of China's ticktok versus that in the United States.

It will indeed be interesting to see how the United States shifting immigration policy mixes with that of other countries and affects brain drains in China and in other places.

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Ma Jolie's avatar

Ha, so China just started this new K visa on 10/1 to attract foreign STEM talent. The netizens of China seem to hate it, much like how people are reacting to the h1b workers in the US. This should be interesting…🤦‍♀️

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Simone Collins's avatar

How intriguing! Keen to see if it catches on.

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Eric Krieg's avatar

Shocking. But that free thought repression is an opportunity for America to poach high value intelligent business minded Chinese people to help us. Hey, my wife and I were thrilled to see Tex out of intensive care and into your arms at home.

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