re: #85 HappyWarrior

I am not surprised. A lot of the Chinese students at GMU were economics students or involved in something different than my history program so I really didn’t see a lot of them in my classes outside the Gen Eds but I liked them. Hopefully they can come here. This is a good place to live despite what Trump does and I don’t see the PRC going democratic in our lifetimes. Anyhow, I have this memory of stopping by my dorm to pick something up, gosh it had to have been during Thanksgiving break because it was long enough that those who lived out of state could go home but it would be expensive for a foreign student to fly home. I remember them playing games in the common area in the dorm. I don’t know what these men and women have done since they got their degrees but I hope we made them feel welcome here.

I’ve had some students participate in a sketchy “work-study” summer program in the States, where they work for shit wages in menial jobs for three months and have another month to travel. Even the ones who had abysmal work experiences with bad employers say their interactions with Americans were overwhelmingly positive. None gave me the impression those bad experiences colored their attitudes toward the USA in general. I suppose Chinese are used to having shitty bosses.

What they appreciate most is not just the personal freedom to do what they like, but also the general American attitude of not judging someone because of his or her family background or the quality of his or her connections (guanxi). Here in China, family background, guanxi and one’s university are all grounds for prejudicial treatment in the workplace. IOW, kids who attended a key university, who are not from rural areas, or who have family connections with someone in a company have a better chance of getting a job than anyone else.