Every few months I read a post that beautifully encapsulates and sums up a festering hot button China issue. I read such a post today on the Richard Burger’s Peking Duck blog. Burger himself describes his post (on Facebook) as “A bit of a hodgepodge of a post, but the topic of Westerners’ losing their attraction to China is a fascinating one.” I agree.
The post is entitled, Leaving China, Westernizing, Playing Victim, etc., and to grossly summarize it, many prominent Westerners who have spent many years in China and know China well have become fed up with it and are leaving in very vocal ways.
I honestly do not know if this disquiet is a growing trend or if this is just a one time blip of articulate people leaving and writing about it, but either way, the post and the links within it are well worth a read.
What are you seeing out there? And whose fault is it anyway? Expats who were too idealistic? Expats who are too inflexible? Expats who misunderstood China or where it was going? China itself? Has China changed or is it a lack of change? Or is this really just a small meaningless blip?