More overseas Chinese students look for jobs at home

[Brainsucker]

That is the reason why 2000 dollars life there is secondary compared to life here. 6 yuan Lanzhou noodle is sold 10+ dollars there. To me that is fast food, to locals there they call it a treat. I saw family got together to eat pho on a Saturday night. What kind of low-life family in China would have their family's little treat outside at a low-end eatery which is supposed to be low-wage people's no-choice on workdays.

So, it is because the Chinese Food there is expensive?

 

[AndrewJin]

So, it is because the Chinese Food there is expensive?

No, those r just simply decorated eatery to me.
Dining in cheap eatery there is considered not so cheap life.....
Dining in middle/high-end restaurants there is out of touch for the ordinary family.
50 yuan per person in my hometown can enable you to eat BIG MEAL in a fashionably designed place.
50 yuan there is just a bowl of fried rice, very nasty taste.
(What kind of family in China will eat fried rice together outside at night? Yes, they do in Australia)

Well, I can tolerate absence of food culture there, but what I cannot tolerate is a kind of very primitive 20th century life style. Their infra remains in 20th century, so is their mind.

 

[TaiShang]

Nation’s ‘great revival’ depends on all Chinese
Shanghai Daily | February 18, 2017, Saturday |

CHINA’S leader wants all Chinese, at home or abroad, to unite toward achieving “the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.”

President Xi Jinping made the remarks in a written instruction delivered at a national meeting on overseas Chinese affairs.

It has been a key task for the Communist Party of China and the state to encourage overseas Chinese as well as returned Chinese to play a positive role in realizing the great revival of the nation, said Xi.

Party committees, governments and authorities working for overseas Chinese affairs at all levels played a key part in protecting the rights of such groups, as they support the nation’s development and cooperation between China and other countries, he said.

 

[TaiShang]

US universities alarm at declining Chinese graduate enrollments
By Richard de Grijs
China.org.cn, February 19, 2017

Graduates seek job opportunities during a job fair in Tianjin, north China, Feb. 10, 2017. Job fairs are held across China after the Spring Festival holiday. [Photo/Xinhua]

A graduate degree from an American university used to guarantee a well-paid, stable job back home for many ambitious young Chinese.

Huge numbers flocked to the other side of the Pacific to pursue their dreams. They still do, but the year-on-year double-digit growth of Chinese graduates of the past that American schools have come to expect may be over, says a report by the Council of Graduate Schools released on February 9.

Although Fall 2016 applications from prospective Chinese graduates to the 500 American and Canadian Council members still grew by 4 percent, actual enrollments flattened out; importantly, these numbers do not yet include the potential downward trend expected due to a Trump presidency.

Chinese students comprise the largest national subgroup of first-time graduate enrollments. Any downturn is of serious concern to U.S. university administrators.

However, the trend should not be a surprise. Double-digit annual growth of student numbers from a single country, even one as populous as China, was simply unsustainable in the long run. Yet, the current slowdown is more complex than simple demographics.

Statistics released by the Chinese Ministry of Education in 2016 show that, of all students enrolled in foreign degree programs at any tertiary level, some three-quarters returned to China upon completion of their education. Of those returnees, 80.7 percent held a Master's degree, while 9.5 percent held a foreign doctorate.

Perhaps surprisingly, the U.S. is not the top choice for the majority of Chinese Master's students. Instead, more than 40 percent of returnees with Master's degrees got them at a U.K. school, double the American figure.

Experts confirm the prime factor is that Master's courses only take one year in the U.K., which saves time and money. The U.S. remains the prime destination for doctoral degree programs, however.

Indeed, in the current international higher education landscape, many non-traditional destinations are catching up. Northern and western European university systems are particularly keen to attract Chinese graduates, highlighting their course offerings in English.

In recent years, education fairs across China's megacities have witnessed increasingly aggressive marketing and recruitment efforts by German and Dutch universities, among others, which are positioning themselves as viable and often lower-cost alternatives to the traditional destinations in the English-speaking world.

In a domestic environment defined by somewhat stuttering economic growth, lower-cost options are becoming increasingly popular. Undoubtedly, this combination of external factors has already caused many U.S. graduate programs to suffer.

But financial considerations are not everything. The graduate premium associated with a degree from Stanford University or the Massachusetts Institute of Technology remains a strong attraction; however, many prospective Chinese applicants have started to take a rational approach to the investment value of a degree from less prestigious American school.

China's significant, continuing investment in its graduate education and the rapidly improving academic research infrastructure are transforming the country's universities into increasingly competitive rivals to overseas counterparts.

Many faculty members are themselves returnees, used to running their labs as they were trained to do overseas. For access to a world-class graduate education and state-of-the-art equipment, it is no longer necessary always to go overseas.

Large-scale graduate education is relatively new to the Chinese education system. The implementation of policy reform and opening up in 1978 and the introduction of the Regulations of the People's Republic of China on Academic Degrees in 1981 were instrumental in allowing a massive increase in the number of domestic graduate student enrollments.

At the present time, more than 2 million graduate students are pursuing higher degrees at Chinese universities. Every year, more than 600,000 new graduates join domestic institutions, with some 500,000 graduating with Master's degrees and 70,000 defending their doctoral thesis each year.

Given this enormously improved research capacity, the premium of overseas degrees is being reduced. Overall, there are more returnees than the number of graduate-level jobs available to them, which causes downward pressure on the range of starting salaries.

Ministry of Education statistics show that close to 50 percent of Master's degree holders make less than 5,000 yuan a month, while those with doctorates make between 5,000 and 10,000. And in a tightening job market, it pays to stay closer to home to maintain professional networks.

U.S. universities' annual budgets may therefore soon need further diversification, with less reliance on Chinese graduate students. They'd better get used to the new normal in international higher education, it seems.

Richard de Grijs is a Dutch professor of astrophysics at the Kavli Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics (Peking University) in Beijing.

Opinion articles reflect the views of their authors only, not necessarily those of China.org.cn.

 

[jhungary]

So, it is because the Chinese Food there is expensive?

Chinese food is not at all expensive.

You can go yum cha for under A$100 a night for the whole family, many Chinese Restaurant have $88 or $99 set dinner for Family during the weekend.

The food is not expensive, but also not as cheap as China, because well, Australia is not China, we have cheap steak, kebab, beer, fishs and chips, but if you want to eat Chinese in Oz, it's kind of stupid to complaint about the price as they are not very common, i mean Aussie Family will goes out to yum cha every once in a while, in China, you probably go to a Chinese restaurant every weekend.

It's like you complaint how expensive Italian restaurant in China. And say they are more expensive than in Italy......
But in all, they are not "Not atainable"as someone put it.

 

[AndrewJin]

US universities alarm at declining Chinese graduate enrollments
By Richard de Grijs
China.org.cn, February 19, 2017

Graduates seek job opportunities during a job fair in Tianjin, north China, Feb. 10, 2017. Job fairs are held across China after the Spring Festival holiday. [Photo/Xinhua]

A graduate degree from an American university used to guarantee a well-paid, stable job back home for many ambitious young Chinese.

Huge numbers flocked to the other side of the Pacific to pursue their dreams. They still do, but the year-on-year double-digit growth of Chinese graduates of the past that American schools have come to expect may be over, says a report by the Council of Graduate Schools released on February 9.

Although Fall 2016 applications from prospective Chinese graduates to the 500 American and Canadian Council members still grew by 4 percent, actual enrollments flattened out; importantly, these numbers do not yet include the potential downward trend expected due to a Trump presidency.

Chinese students comprise the largest national subgroup of first-time graduate enrollments. Any downturn is of serious concern to U.S. university administrators.

However, the trend should not be a surprise. Double-digit annual growth of student numbers from a single country, even one as populous as China, was simply unsustainable in the long run. Yet, the current slowdown is more complex than simple demographics.

Statistics released by the Chinese Ministry of Education in 2016 show that, of all students enrolled in foreign degree programs at any tertiary level, some three-quarters returned to China upon completion of their education. Of those returnees, 80.7 percent held a Master's degree, while 9.5 percent held a foreign doctorate.

Perhaps surprisingly, the U.S. is not the top choice for the majority of Chinese Master's students. Instead, more than 40 percent of returnees with Master's degrees got them at a U.K. school, double the American figure.

Experts confirm the prime factor is that Master's courses only take one year in the U.K., which saves time and money. The U.S. remains the prime destination for doctoral degree programs, however.

Indeed, in the current international higher education landscape, many non-traditional destinations are catching up. Northern and western European university systems are particularly keen to attract Chinese graduates, highlighting their course offerings in English.

In recent years, education fairs across China's megacities have witnessed increasingly aggressive marketing and recruitment efforts by German and Dutch universities, among others, which are positioning themselves as viable and often lower-cost alternatives to the traditional destinations in the English-speaking world.

In a domestic environment defined by somewhat stuttering economic growth, lower-cost options are becoming increasingly popular. Undoubtedly, this combination of external factors has already caused many U.S. graduate programs to suffer.

But financial considerations are not everything. The graduate premium associated with a degree from Stanford University or the Massachusetts Institute of Technology remains a strong attraction; however, many prospective Chinese applicants have started to take a rational approach to the investment value of a degree from less prestigious American school.

China's significant, continuing investment in its graduate education and the rapidly improving academic research infrastructure are transforming the country's universities into increasingly competitive rivals to overseas counterparts.

Many faculty members are themselves returnees, used to running their labs as they were trained to do overseas. For access to a world-class graduate education and state-of-the-art equipment, it is no longer necessary always to go overseas.

Large-scale graduate education is relatively new to the Chinese education system. The implementation of policy reform and opening up in 1978 and the introduction of the Regulations of the People's Republic of China on Academic Degrees in 1981 were instrumental in allowing a massive increase in the number of domestic graduate student enrollments.

At the present time, more than 2 million graduate students are pursuing higher degrees at Chinese universities. Every year, more than 600,000 new graduates join domestic institutions, with some 500,000 graduating with Master's degrees and 70,000 defending their doctoral thesis each year.

Given this enormously improved research capacity, the premium of overseas degrees is being reduced. Overall, there are more returnees than the number of graduate-level jobs available to them, which causes downward pressure on the range of starting salaries.

Ministry of Education statistics show that close to 50 percent of Master's degree holders make less than 5,000 yuan a month, while those with doctorates make between 5,000 and 10,000. And in a tightening job market, it pays to stay closer to home to maintain professional networks.

U.S. universities' annual budgets may therefore soon need further diversification, with less reliance on Chinese graduate students. They'd better get used to the new normal in international higher education, it seems.

Richard de Grijs is a Dutch professor of astrophysics at the Kavli Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics (Peking University) in Beijing.

Opinion articles reflect the views of their authors only, not necessarily those of China.org.cn.

Real jobs are mostly found in China and other fast-growing regions.
Especially those jobs in manufacturing, design, innovation, science and technology.
But there are more jobs related to intangible economy like finance and banking in the west, you know what I mean, the part that produces the most fake GDP.

 

[Brainsucker]

Chinese food is not at all expensive.

You can go yum cha for under A$100 a night for the whole family, many Chinese Restaurant have $88 or $99 set dinner for Family during the weekend.

The food is not expensive, but also not as cheap as China, because well, Australia is not China, we have cheap steak, kebab, beer, fishs and chips, but if you want to eat Chinese in Oz, it's kind of stupid to complaint about the price as they are not very common, i mean Aussie Family will goes out to yum cha every once in a while, in China, you probably go to a Chinese restaurant every weekend.

It's like you complaint how expensive Italian restaurant in China. And say they are more expensive than in Italy......
But in all, they are not "Not atainable"as someone put it.

I think the problem is because the only food service business that serve Chinese Food in Aussie is restaurant. In Indonesia, the price of Chinese Food is comparable to the local one. Because they are not only serve Chinese Food in expensive restaurants, but also in cheap food stall. The reason is because for us, both Chinese Food and traditional food are eaten daily. Not like in a special family dinner during the weekend. It is the eating habit that make the price difference.

 

[jhungary]

I think the problem is because the only food service business that serve Chinese Food in Aussie is restaurant. In Indonesia, the price of Chinese Food is comparable to the local one. Because they are not only serve Chinese Food in expensive restaurants, but also in cheap food stall. The reason is because for us, both Chinese Food and traditional food are eaten daily. Not like in a special family dinner during the weekend. It is the eating habit that make the price difference.

well, there are Chinese food outside Yumcha, it's exist in a way of 冰室 or 茶餐厅, but mostly in Chinese dominated neighbourhood (not just China Town). They serve exclusively to Chinese mostly, not too many aussie go to these place and order, part of it is because they usually don't have English name for what that serve or they were badly represented.

Beside the eating habbit, you also need to count the cost of the chef and kitchen staff, usually these chef are hired directly from somewhere specific, and only for these purpose, and they are quite expensive where as you have a lot of Chef that can cook normal day to day Chinese food in China. How many people do you think can cook a full menu in any sort of Chinese Restaurant in Australia?

Of course, the daily eating habbit is different too. In Australia, Chinese food is like delicatessen, I mean, if a normal family in Australia is going to have dinner, your first option is cook it yourself, then bistro, then country specific crusin. Then if all else failed, you have fastfood.

 

[TaiShang]

Real jobs are mostly found in China and other fast-growing regions.
Especially those jobs in manufacturing, design, innovation, science and technology.
But there are more jobs related to intangible economy like finance and banking in the west, you know what I mean, the part that produces the most fake GDP.

It is good for some to make a decent saving in the West in those service industries and then go back home to invest and become an entrepreneur.

A senior PhD classmate of mine had worked in the US finance industry for 15 years and then returned to Taiwan to establish a young incubator center with the money she earned in the US.

But that is also becoming a diminishing opportunity. China is picking up. Services is already more than half of the GDP.