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Comment by msvan | Hacker News Reader

I'm also a Swede who has also lived in SF and Beijing.

The social problems of SF are certainly a bit of a shock coming from Scandinavia, and I can understand the author's excitement about Beijing. But there are a couple of deal-breakers about China that would make it very tough for me to consider moving back:

* You'll always be an expat. You can become an American both legally and culturally, but you cannot become Chinese in either sense. As someone who grew up surrounded by US culture, it makes more sense to live in the US than in China.

* Your business is always going to be at a disadvantage compared to native businesses. I don't have any first-hand experience of this, but from what I understand, government connections are necessary to get anything going, especially in hyper-competitive China.

* There's no public debate. The government has little oversight. The internet is censored. There are plenty of policies that I consider indefensible. The US has plenty of flaws too, but at least there is an open discussion about these flaws and a pathway towards fixing them.

SF can be a bit insular and self-absorbed at times, but I felt more at home there than I did in Beijing.

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His emphasis on social justice (re: your fourth point) is what makes this article a bit confusing to read. I don't live in SF, but from a distance it certainly looks more liberal and progressive than China: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-35217218

Häagen-Dazs or no Häagen-Dazs, I feel that SF's moral compass is screwed in slightly tighter than Beijing's.

I have the impression that that compass is a bit too sensative. In theory that should be a good thing, but in reality is just results in being less useable because you never know if the direction it's pointing to is the one you want to go.

And some of the problems of SF (e.g. the homelessness, the mentally ill, the dirtiness & shabbiness of the city) are a direct result of its liberal & progressive government.

Can you define your use of liberal and progressive? From my point of view a liberal and progressive government would have the opposite impact on homelessness and mentally ill people: by providing social support and welfare to those in need.

So I got a bit confused by the usage of liberal and progressive on this sense as they're fuzzy definitions by themselves.

I think wtbob means either a) liberal & progressive government is inefficient and therefore things are bad, or b) homeless people move to SF because liberal & progressive government makes it better to be homeless there than in other places in the US. I am not sure which.

I really dislike the second argument (which I've read before). Effectively they're arguing for shifting the problem rather than actually solving it, we've literally seen states put mentally ill people on buses out of state(!).

Utah has a lot of problems (and is really conservative in most other ways), but you have to give them props for actually trying to solve the homeless issue[0] rather than hiding it or sending it out of town. Although the same state turned down Medicaid expansion funding which would have helped those with mental illness, so it isn't all rainbows and sunshine.

[0] http://www.npr.org/2015/12/10/459100751/utah-reduced-chronic...

I'm sure it doesn't compare to SF, but the "homeless issue" is hardly solved in SLC, Utah, from my anecdotal experiences living here. If the homeless population has been reduced "91%" as this article maintains, then I cannot imagine what it was like before.

> From my point of view a liberal and progressive government would have the opposite impact on homelessness and mentally ill people: by providing social support and welfare to those in need.

San Francisco does that, but it has also cut back on the most important social service for those who aren't impoverished: policing. By refusing to punish people for defecation in public, bathing in public fountains, panhandling &c., as well as by offering standard welfare service, SF has made life very easy for the homeless and mentally-ill. Unsurprisingly, there are many of them.

It's also made life not so nice for those who aren't homeless and/or mentally ill and aren't wealthy enough to afford to live above the mess, but I don't think the SF political class cares about them.

From what I've heard, SF's social services are good enough that other cities and states actively have their homeless people bused to SF on the grounds that SF will take better care of them (Nevada has actually been sued for this).

That argument would be more convincing if the original poster were not comparing SF to Sweden -- the country that essentially solved those problems in 1950-1980 by having the most liberal and progressive government in the world.

Those policies were both very expensive and caused a slowdown in economic growth. Sweden has rolled many of them back recently.

https://mises.org/library/how-modern-sweden-profits-success-...

How is that theoretical slowdown apparent in today's Stockholm?

The city is a buzzing growth center, as wealthy on the surface as San Francisco, but without any of the obvious problems with "homelessness, the mentally ill, the dirtiness & shabbiness of the city" (which the grandparent poster wanted to blame on liberal government).

You make it sound like Sweden in the '80s was a pseudo-Cuba. That was never the case.

A slowdown is a remark on a change in trajectory, not a change in absolute position.

Weird that a right-wing liberatarian organization is criticizing liberal social policies...

"The Mises Institute, founded in 1982, teaches the scholarship of Austrian economics, freedom, and peace... Accordingly, we seek a profound and radical shift in the intellectual climate: away from statism and toward a private property order."

So if one concluded, based on an impartial examination of economic facts, that free market economics is indeed the best way to foster economic development and standard of living gains, how should one promote such views without become an advocate of free market economics (and thus become discredited in your eyes)?

"based on an impartial examination of economic facts".

That's a bold assumption to make.

Facts are objective by definition, but their interpretation it's often not.

The moment you state your objective if promote free market economics it's clear that you will give an interpretation of facts that goes towards validating that view.

You can promote your views this way, but cannot expect people not to take a critical view of them.

Just read anyhting from Paul Krugman on the NYT, and you will see equally partial interpretations of facts that come to very different conclusions.

So promoting any economic view discredits someone? Or just those you personally disagree with?

No, have you read my post ?

No problem in promoting your views, just not expect people to take them at face value, or as an "impartial examination of facts", when they are not.

>just not expect people to take them at face value,

Of course not. But no one asked you to take the views of the Mises Institute at face value. It appeared to me that you were implying they were biased, meaning not credible, based on the fact that they have endorsed free market economics since the 1950s. Which is an assumption that a group that regularly endorses a particular school of economic thought is biased toward that school of thought for reasons other than sound and impartial economic analysis.

If I was misreading what you were implying, then I of course take my previous comments back.

True, Sweden is clean and has no homelessness issues.

But it is now quite segregated (not unlike France with its banlieus) full of not-homeless, but, unfortunately, un-assimilated population.

A blog written by an American living in Sweden (check out the other posts on the blog as well):

https://swedenreport.org/2015/05/18/police-yes-there-are-no-...

I'm not sure if "segregated" is the right word. The economic gap between Stockholm downtown and a suburb is smaller than, say, the gap between Washington D.C. and a small town in West Virginia.

Does that mean the United States is hopelessly economically segregated, with permanently unassimilated redneck populations that refuse to join the urban mainstream? If that's an unfair interpretation, why make the same kind of rhetorical leaps about European cities?

The US is segregated with ghettos in NY, Chicago, Detroit, etc. But I was making a point about Sweden.

If you checked the blog I referred to, entitled "Police: Yes, there ARE No-Go Zones in Sweden" you would learn that there are essentially lawless areas where the police concedes that they have indeed lost control.

So "segregated" is the right word.

You linked to a blog post with a large illustration depicting a "typical leftist Internet troll".

I've spent over 30 years of my life in Nordic countries. These stories of embedded lawless mini-Afghanistans ruled by local Sharia tyrants don't reflect any reality I've ever seen.

No one is claiming that they are "lawless mini-Afghanistans" in Sweden, as you stated. (from the article I linked to: "To the best of my knowledge, there are no Shariah patrols in Sweden.")

But there is enough evidence to state that there is segregation.

"Segregation (noun): the action or state of setting someone or something apart from other people or things or being set apart."

It depends to whom you ask.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No-go_area

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/01/par...

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-01-14/debunking-...

The source article from the blog states "In the autumn of 2014 reported the National Police for 55 neighborhoods in 22 cities around the country where "local criminal networks is considered to have a negative impact on the local community." It's about neighborhoods that are characterized by "open drug sales, criminal dealings that manifests itself in serious violence in a public place, various forms of extortion and unlawful influence and acting out grievances against society."

The blog post you mention (the author makes no mystery of his ideas), and the source article, seems to take an official report stating that 55 zones have seen a worrying rise in crime and mixing it with anecdotal evidence and unrelated quotes to come to the conclusion that there are 55 "no-go" zones where "swedish law no longer applies", to spin a particular story for their readers.

Mind, I'm not claiming liberal leaning press is any different and, as with everything, the truth probably stands somewhere in between.

I have traveled all over europe ON FOOT, which usually means i walk trough all sorts of hoods, never ever even once i was in place where i would say its a No-Go, then i visited my aunt in florida for a month and experienced robbery at a gun point, prostitute harassing me, and 'what u looking at' comments, from my experience usa is worse than third world as iv been to morocco and mauritania and senegal and had great experience with free hospital care.

Stockholm is not entirely free from homelessness issues; there are lots of people - largely Roma, according to relatives and my own judgement - begging on the streets and in the train and metro stations. This is not something I used to see there.

I see plenty of homeless Swedes every day when I walk from the Stockholm Central Station to my work in Stockholm City - at least five, everyday - and that's a short walk. Sure, it's not San Francisco - but it'd be an incredible lie to say there are no homeless, like the previous comment before you said

I'd say that this is not really a Sweden thing as it's an EU thing. The come mainly from Romania and stay in Sweden for a few months begging for money, then they go back home. As they aren't Swedish citizens, and don't aim to be, (they often got family back home) the systems in place to handle homeless aren't working for them. Really it's countries like Romania that aren't handling it's Romani population very well and tend to have quite unhelpful racist attitudes towards them, making the issue worse.

There are also a few homeless people of Swedish origin, but they are mostly either drug addicts or otherwise mentally ill, making them unable to keep an apartment. Money shouldn't be a big issue as you qualify for social security payouts that cover essentials and rent if you can't get it by other means. However, mentally ill might fail to get this money, it requires a monthly visit at the local social services office and they can require participation in activities as job training as well as accepting any job you can get.

Im homeless and im not ill or anything, i enjoy freedom, i would rather die than have a job or a house or even a car. People assuming all hobos are mentally fucked is same as me assumimg all domestic people have a ferrari, those r just more flashy visible cases...

Sorry, I did not mean to offend anyone. The point wasn't to smear those who are homeless, rather to point out that it's not simply because they are just poor. As poverty can be the reason in other parts of the world.

>>But it is now quite segregated (not unlike France with its banlieus) full of not-homeless, but, unfortunately, un-assimilated population.

I'm not convinced that having everyone "assimilated" is a realistic goal. People of different social classes tend to not want to associate themselves with one another. And social class is about more than just income.

Sick and tired of non-swedes thinking socialists ever did anything for this country. Nothing was "solved" by politics in those years. Quite the opposite, our lean and mean economy faltered until the socialists became fiscally conservative in the 90s.

The sheer arrogance of Swedes dissing US is also annoying. Go to our new ghettos and inspect the great equity the progressives have established lately.

Fiscally conservative ... socialism?? Huh. Now that would be something I'd like to see tried here in the United States!

Waste is treated like an benign abstraction here: an assumed given of "bureaucratic overhead" that nothing can be done about except occasionally talk and handwave over.

I'd guess you'd need to have a culture that encourages whistleblowing, snitches, and oversight to make fiscally conservative socialism work. Such a culture doesn't exist here in the US.

Um, hm? I don't know how you get to "Fiscally conservative socialism". The previous comment said that the socialists (ie. Social Democrats, Left Party - previously known as The Communist Party) became somewhat fiscally conservative.

There is a huge difference in how you would read that. The interpretation that you should go for is "The socialist being less socialist for the time being". In other words, they toned it down briefly. They're certainly at it again now.

That said, there is plenty of waste and bureaucratic excess/largess in Sweden - and it's very hand-wavy and nothing can apparently be done to reduce it when you start talking about it.

The last part of your comment I did not quite understand. What do you mean by having a culture that "encourages whistle blowing, snitches and oversight"? You mean that in order to have some kind of socialism to be fiscally conservative - you'd need whistle blowers that would rat out largess and snitch on people who waste State resources?

If that is what you mean, we have some of that (whistle blowers) - but we also have way more waste than what covers whatever gets surfaced. They're also few and far between..

You injected the "somewhat", not grandparent. But I see that you corrected me because you were nonplussed with the fiscal conservatism at the time it was tried. I don't follow European socialist gyrations, so I'll take your word for it.

> What do you mean by having a culture that "encourages whistle blowing, snitches and oversight"? You mean that in order to have some kind of socialism to be fiscally conservative - you'd need whistle blowers that would rat out largess and snitch on people who waste State resources?

Yes, precisely. The culture of the US still favors lawlessness, and I don't mean that negatively. Unfortunately, for us all to get along in such an unregulated environment, we have to be civil with one another, be fair dealing, and be intolerant of corruption.

But the US system has grown too fat, and too many selfish and corrupt people are taking advantage of the good graces of the rest of the populace. And the corruption is allowed to run unchecked.

Also, the regulations and bureaucracies and debt and corporations have all crept up on us. So the system is no longer operating to spec, and no major redesigns are planned. I just don't see where we go from here. The presidential candidates we've selected are indicative of system failure.

American progressives tend to use Sweden (and Scandanavia generally) as models of how socialism can succeed, probably unaware that Sweden is a highly-productive, modern, capitalist society with capiitalist notions free trade, property rights, investment freedom, and monetary policy. In other words, socialists love to provide examples of socialism that are pretty devoid of actual socialism. Sweden has high taxes and a generous welfare regime, but it doesn't have government ownership of the means of production ("socialism"). That's why Sweden is Sweden.

Source: Heritage foundation's economic freedom index (Sweden does very well: http://www.heritage.org/index/country/sweden)

And Sweden's economic growth rate stagnated after it adopted large social welfare programs in the 1970s, and only somewhat recovered when it instituted market reforms in the late 90s and 2000s, including reductions in social benefits and income tax cuts.

That seems quite unlikely since Sweden had right wing governments during 76-82 and 91-94.

All it takes is an Olof Palme... :P

> That argument would be more convincing if the original poster were not comparing SF to Sweden -- the country that essentially solved those problems in 1950-1980 by having the most liberal and progressive government in the world.

You will find that this type of governance only works in homogeneous societies - where the people can agree and identify with one another (and also have qualities such as good work ethic, social responsibility, love for their country or place, etc).

Once you bring in variously diverse groups into the picture, half of which are only seeking benefits, those same polices tend to produce the opposite effects.

Sweden solved those problems by keeping those people out of the country, relegated to the south of Europe.

That is the difference between Sweden and SF. SF allows unrestricted migration from the rest of the continent, Sweden does not.

Sweden received many immigrants from Greece, Turkey, Italy and Yugoslavia during the 60s.

Yes, and Canada received many refugees from Syria. That's a far cry from allowing unrestricted migration which is what SF does. There are no border patrols outside the city. You do not need a passport to get in. Other cities literally pack up their homeless and give them free bus tickets to SF!

Sweden, on the other hand, forces people to learn the language before they can even get a job. Those who won't or cannot do that end up in Germany instead.

Sweden has a higher percentage of English speakers than Canada. Germany not so much.

I'm not sure how cutting back social services points to a liberal and progressive government at all. If anything it points to a more conservative one. Most progressives simply call themselves that but, like the Clintons, their actions are the exact opposite.

Which social services do you believe we are cutting back in SF/Silicon Valley?

Clinton has the most progressive platform to be nominated in many decades, if not all of American history. They were also behind welfare reform in the 90s. You certainly have a selective view of them.

It's very doubtful her platform would be so progressive had she not just fought a brutal primary battle against Bernie Sanders, no doubt the most liberal and socialist-democracy leaning candidate to win popular support in the United States, ever.

As for what the Clintons did in the 90s, not everyone has a rosy picture of their work. They weren't beacons for progressivism except maybe in education, and many of their reforms including the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act are still very controversial on the left. Other reforms like the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act are widely reviled. The Clintons have always been centrists, that's how they got where they are today, and calling them progressive because they have to appease an anti-establishment wing in their party is extremely disingenuous.

Well, I think the way to look at Clinton is that she works hard and she can adjust her worldview to fit her constituency. I'm happy to vote the platform and judge her actions. Her motivations aren't necessary to discern if she executes the platform well.

What a great euphemism for calling her a shameless opportunist (I say this as a Clinton supporter). If you're happy to judge her actions, then do so because her actions have been very, very clear! You are not voting for the platform, you are voting for the Clinton dynasty and the predominant wing of the Democratic party at the expensive of true progressive reforms that would bring us more in line with European social democracies.

She is an opportunist—like all politicians—but I can't speak to her shame. I don't care, just like I don't care if Trump is "really" racist. If they look like a racist, walk like a racist, and quack like a racist....

> You are not voting for the platform, you are voting for the Clinton dynasty and the predominant wing of the Democratic party at the expensive of true progressive reforms that would bring us more in line with European social democracies.

There's no other option. I voted and campaigned for Bernie, but he didn't make the nomination. I could vote for a third party, with the same issues (Jill Stein is an anti-vaxxer, the libertarian party is too idealistic to see reality). But there's a time for campaigning for personal issues and a time for campaigning for votes, and I've moved from the former to the latter. I still call my representatives, but I don't think pushing my ideal platform is going to help with the presidential election.

So, maximizing my vote means evaluating and voting for the platform I prefer because the alternative is to become apathetic. Nobody wins then. Clinton has a long history of campaigning hard for things, and I don't think her platform is a bad fit for that type of work ethic.

I think we're mostly in agreement: Clinton is the way forward because our other choices are an infantile megalomaniac at worst and a protest vote at best (which risks splitting the liberal vote bringing us back to the worst case scenario).

All I'm saying is let's not be disingenuous. Not all politics are opportunists, her primary opponent is a case in point, but the Democratic party electorate chose and so we are stuck with her.

Also, to be clear, the DNC official platform is the most progressive on record in large part because of Bernie's "revolution". Whether or not Clinton backs the platform on a point by point basis is entirely unclear. If Trump doesn't help the Democrats carry at least one chamber of Congress, then we'll have a centrist warhawk in another appeasement loop with an obstructionist legislature. I don't see a way through this where we actually get anything done for the next four years, whether it's Trump or Clinton, unless the Democrats take control of everything and Clinton is forced to truly court the left of left constituency.

> Other reforms like the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act are widely reviled.

Sorry to comment again (I can't edit anymore)—but it wasn't an absurd law to begin with. Much of the black community was in support of such laws, and the only controversy around Hillary specifically of which I am aware was the "superpredator" comment. Bill's another story yelling at BLM supporters for being ungrateful, which was stupid but understandable given the crime rates of the early nineties that millenials never saw.

That said, you're absolutely correct, they're centrists to the core. She's a warhawk who worked to censor violent video games and Eminem. I'll be watching her like a hawk.

Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act [1]

Are we talking about the welfare reform that put 5 year absolute limits on public assistance? Does that sound progressive to you?

It also has many ongoing consequences. Poor, working class mothers have to choose between accepting assistance or living with their child's father. If neither made enough to live on the father was forced to leave the household. I don't see anything progressive in destroying poor families.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_Responsibility_and_Wo...

Its a conservative problem actually. We can all (especially Californians) blame Reagan for that one http://www.nytimes.com/1984/10/30/science/how-release-of-men...

Tack economic in front of the two words and they make sense in the context. economic liberal (aka, lets private business do their thing unchecked) and economic progressive (everything is a exchange).

Basically take terms we are used to see used in a social context, and reframe them to a economic context without informing the reader/listener.

> I'm not sure how cutting back social services points to a liberal and progressive government at all. If anything it points to a more conservative one. Most progressives simply call themselves that but, like the Clintons, their actions are the exact opposite.

That depends on which services are being cut, and why.

If policies do not achieve liberal goals, even if those policies were initiated by liberals at some point in the past, it makes sense for today's liberal politicians to modify or eliminate those policies.

For example, if a welfare program is keeping people in poverty indefinitely, it doesn't work. A liberal or progressive would want a program that lifts people out of poverty. That was Bill Clinton's argument for welfare reform.

Not quite -- look up deinstitutionalisation. Many varied forces at play here, most unrelated to liberal or conservative ideology.

>are a direct result of its liberal & progressive government.

This is true of all large cities as most in the US lean liberal. A lot of social programs are targetted at the homeless and poor, panhandling isn't illegal, easy access to transportation makes getting around easy and cheap, popular tourist areas make it easy to find suckers, etc make it attractive to them. I'm not in SF, but I work in downtown Chicago and see this everyday.

Meanwhile in autocratic police states these people are just tossed in jail or put in work camps or something no liberal would ever approve. Yet we have a Swede liberal here who sees a police state oppress its people thus no signs of discord and thinks everything is honky-dory, instead of realizing that the boulevards are kept clean via beatings and jailings. Reminds me of how the US communist party would talk about how clean and efficient communist cities were. Well, when you have gulags for "undesirables" and jail everyone who isn't at work (not working was illegal), yes, I imagine they are clean and orderly.

I don't see the homeless as an SF problem but an American problem. SF is just where they gravitate. Same with the mentally ill. I certainly don't begrudge them the streets.

SF is the most disgusting city I've ever seen. The smell of human shit is a block by block experience. Nobody makes any effort to pick up trash on the ground. It's shameful. People just blame the homeless when nothing's stopping them from pitching in themselves.

Don't want to? Don't complain; just pretend it's not a problem, that you don't see it, or even that it gives the city character. That's certainly the norm.

With almost 800 homeless people per 100,000 in SF:

http://abc7news.com/news/data-shows-sf-has-2nd-highest-homel...

... and property values rising near $1,000.00/square foot does indeed seem screwed on very tightly excepting for a few percentage points at the top.

So I have a hard time understanding what compass you are speaking of exactly.

Any morality issues in SF are going to be tech oriented (or derived, like the housing market). I wouldn't look for an objective discussion here.

One of the short term advantages of an authoritarian state is that problems can be swept under the rug and hidden. In the longer term, it becomes far more difficult or perhaps even impossible to fix the real problem.

I think one of the better explanations I have heard about the network effect (most recently explained by Reid Hoffman, although probably have heard it from others) is the big advantage occurs when a successful start up goes in to the scaling phase. Many people feel or say SF/SV sucks, its too expensive, I can do the same thing somewhere else, etc. and for almost everyone that is probably correct.

"One of the short term advantages of an authoritarian state is that problems can be swept under the rug and hidden."

Is this in reference to China? Because in that case it's quite clearly false. There's cartoon level inequality in China. You literally see 19 year old guys in Ferraris, which they can barely drive, go past 55 year old ladies sorting trash on the sidewalk. The redeeming quality, except being hard to ignore, is that China is changing rapidly. Few knows what will happen, but it seems clear that it at least won't be the same.

I feel people who go vacation in Thailand is far more hypocritical than someone who goes to work in China. But at the end of the day, it's about the people not the government.

That first point is a painful reality that can't be escaped, for sure. It can be hostile here, but again - it is a frontier.

What did you think of NYC? You don't really talk about it in your article, were you not there long enough?

I moved to New York "permanently", thinking it would last, but I found myself without a job a few months later and ended up on a flight to Beijing.

I think my time in New York was negatively colored by having an office right in Times Square, but even so it was a really meaningful experience and a great place to be in. You definitely understand why it's the city that never sleeps, and it felt much more like a melting pot than California did. I enjoyed listening to and engaging with street preachers, I was grateful for all the talented musicians in the subway, and I never ran out of exciting new cuisines to try.

On the negative side, though, I did feel that New Yorkers (and by this point in my life, Americans in general) could be hard to get close to - easy to approach, but hard to connect with. I don't know who I would have turned out to be if I had stayed in New York, but I imagine that would have been a great adventure of its own.

Beijing feels similar to New York in many ways, and many expats that leave Beijing opt to move to New York. Facebook groups with hundreds of members help ex-Beijingers congregate in both New York and San Francisco, and I don't know that that's a coincidence.

Maybe, if nothing else, I want to argue that Beijing deserves to be in the international spotlight and cultural consciousness the same way that New York and San Francisco and London are.

>On the negative side, though, I did feel that New Yorkers (and by this point in my life, Americans in general) could be hard to get close to - easy to approach, but hard to connect with.

I have found this to be true, especially after living in Germany and finding somewhat the opposite: people are hard to approach, but once you get to know them, you connect with them on a much deeper level than I ever did with people in the US. But of course, these generalizations certainly don't apply to all Americans/Germans.

There are better way to promote your enthusiasm for Beijing than making questionable claims of inferiority on the other cities though.

Chinese culture being less accepting of foreigners has nothing to do with it being a "frontier". If anything, it's the opposite. The US is a relatively young nation populated almost entirely by immigrants or descendants of immigrants. China is a long-established nation with a relatively homogeneous population (90% Han Chinese).

What you say is true, and, perhaps in due time he'll change his mind. In the meantime, he's excited, he's reborn and found vigor. What more can you ask for?

Sure, at some point reality will dawn but I'm sure he'll have learned a lot and will have a lot to add if he ever moves back. Or he may stay, a perennial outsider he may remain, but finding purpose in a place he might find impact. My main wish is that he forget the expat community, leave it behind and get mixed in with the locals. Too many expats (immigrants) hold on to their communities too long and fail to discover the true host country.

Re: business competition, worth reading another post at the top of HN today:

https://backchannel.com/when-it-comes-to-china-googles-exper...

What's the disadvantage of being an expat in a Chinese culture?

America is a melting pot, you can become an American but you can never become "Chinese" and will always be considered an outsider. The Chinese identity is rooted in specific birthright and lineage.

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