My Life in China, Part 18- Why we left

With all my fantastic experiences, adventures, and now, my strong family ties to China, why did we leave? That’s a complicated question. I should start by saying that initially, I only planned to spend six months in the country. As I’ve detailed in this series, I only signed a six-month contract with Hebei University. I had all the intention to use that time to study for the GREs and then enter graduate school to get a Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology that following fall. But as you’ve seen, the situation got complicated as so often happens in life. I fell in love with my wife and the country, and that six months turned into two years. We had a very comfortable life in China, and at that time, I could have easily stayed for much longer. So again, why did we leave?

There was no one reason for our decision to try our luck in the US, but needless to say, it was not an easy choice. It was a giant leap actually, the kind of jump that you can only do when you’re young. My wife and I have discussed this much over the years and it is not something we would be able to do today. We have too many attachments, and we are not as brave as we were then. But looking back now, I think there were ultimately five main reasons we made this decision.

First and foremost, it was a visa issue. Now that we were married, we thought it pretty important that my wife meet my parents and get a sense of where I grew up. The problem was that she couldn’t just get a tourist visa because she now had a strong attachment to the US- namely, she was married to a US citizen and therefore was a flight risk. So, to visit the US and meet my family, we had to apply for a Green Card. Let me dispel a myth right off the bat here, just because we were married does not mean my wife automatically becomes a citizen. This process was long and complicated, and although it would make a good blog post, I have no interest in revisiting that nightmare. But when it did happen, it happened quickly and very much forced our hand. Ultimately, it turned out ok, and my wife has been a US citizen for more than ten years.

Secondly, we both wanted to continue our education. My wife could have easily gone to graduate school in China, but my prospects were slim. My only option would have been to enter a Chinese language program. It would have been pretty awesome to master the language at that level, but actually, the job prospects for foreigners who can speak Chinese have turned out not to be as robust as many thought. Either I would earn a Chinese salary working crazy Chinese hours, or a company interested in doing business in China would just hire a native speaker due to the high English language proficiency in the country. That left us the option of graduate school in the US. It turned out to be the better choice. We found a program we were both interested in, applied, and were accepted. It started us on our journey to MIT, where we now both work.

Graduate school leads to the third reason we left, job prospects. We made a decent living in China, but there wasn’t a huge amount of room for growth, especially for me. Compensation as an English teacher was reasonable, but I had already reached the max, and to grow, the only option would be to take on more part-time jobs teaching English. I enjoyed the work, but it wasn’t what I wanted to do with my life and to be frank, I probably wasn’t very good at it. It just wasn’t my calling, and I couldn’t get passionate about it. The other option would be entrepreneurship, but as you will see below, starting a business in China could have easily gone south. I think my wife felt much the same, with the added complexity of being stuck in a contract. She could have quickly earned a graduate degree at Hebei University, but it wasn’t a top-tier school, and the degree probably wouldn’t have helped us much. Hebei recruited her to teach college-level courses right after earning her bachelor’s degree, which gives you an idea of their level. Secondly, her contract prohibited her from going elsewhere for another three years.

The fifth reason was probably not a game-changer as it alone wouldn’t have caused us to leave, but it was still a contributing factor. We just wanted to be a married couple. Intercultural marriage is not easy any place, but it was particularly challenging in China and especially problematic in the little city of Baoding. I’ve provided some details in this blog, but generally, we were getting fed up after two years of dealing with the looks, the hush whispers, and the discrimination. We wanted to hold hands without people staring, and we wanted to exist without people making assumptions and judgments of our relationship. This just wasn’t possible in Baoding. When we landed in the US and held hands without anyone noticing or caring, it was a breath of fresh air.

Lastly, the times were changing. Even back then, more than 15 years ago, relations between the US and China were uneasy, and the way China was dealing with foreigners was deteriorating. Racism and nationalism were taking hold. It was fine when you were single, but once married, these things get more complicated. I couldn’t just leave if things got tough. Working at Hebei as a foreigner also got tricky. If you had problems, there just wasn’t much recourse. I had a friend who got in a small disagreement with the administration, and they just canceled his contract and kicked him out. It was a bit of an eye-opener. In the last few years, especially under Xi Jinping, things have gotten much worse, as you can imagine. China has become much more authoritarian, and many of the freedoms available when I was there are, are no more. Take, for example, the internet. When I was in the country, Google, Youtube, Facebook, Wikipedia, and international instant messaging were all available. They are all banned now. China has also become much more apt to imprison or even disappear foreigners for minor transgressions. China is looking more and more like Chairman Mao’s China and the disintegration of relations under Trump and now Biden has led many foreigners to leave. For many of these people, they considered China to be their home. If we stayed, leaving under these circumstances would have been much more difficult and probably rather devastating.

Ultimately, we made the right decision. We have good jobs now, a house, and live comfortably. We left at just the right time, and I can look back on my experience there with great affection. Do I miss China? So very much. Especially with COVID and the travel restrictions. The last time I was in the country was in November of 2019 when I accompanied my wife to a conference in Hong Kong (pictured above). It was my first time in the city, and it was a lot of fun, but it was also during the peak of the protests, so it was a bit hairy and depressing, to be frank (I will talk more about that and my other journeys to China after we left in my next post). Nothing throws the reasons why we left above in better perspective than what has happened in Hong Kong over the last few years. It will never be the same. As for the Mainland, it has been years since I’ve been back, and I’m not sure when we will be able to travel there again. I will say that I hope it’s sooner rather than later.

Cheers!