To return or not to return: that is the question

• Source: Global Times
• [10:55 June 18 2009]
• Comments

By Tang Renqiu

As the West is struggling through the worst economic crisis in half a century, the motherland has suddenly become more appealing for overseas Chinese students. Whether you have to come back to “serve the country” depends mostly on who’s paying your tuition. If it’s the government, you have an obligation to return; but if you are paying out of your own pocket, it’s your choice. It seems shallow, but when a country isn’t strong enough and only a handful of people are studying abroad, returning to your country is laden with many other meanings.

There are basically two theories. The first one is that overseas returnees are hailed for their patriotism as they turn down million-dollar salaries or refuse their teachers’ earnest invitation to stay. The other theory is that if an overseas student comes back, the neighbors might gossip and consider it a disgrace that this student isn’t good enough to stay overseas and make big bucks.

I can’t say that everyone doesn’t return out of patriotism or incompetence, but it’s rare as far as I can tell. What matters most for the majority of overseas students is money. Return or not depends on their prospects, or income. It has nothing to do with patriotism. But if you must equate returning home with patriotism, then I must say that the men are more patriotic than the women.

Among the Chinese studying in the US universities in earlier days, men outnumbered women, often by a ratio as high as 10:1. Since the Chinese men tended to have a hard time going after foreign girls, they desperately chased the few girls who came to study from China, which ultimately led to a lot of unsatisfied men.