Indulgent and pointless life of expat's wives in Beijing

[El Chinito loco]

The expat gravy train is probably going to dry up eventually (<10 years) just like it did in Hong Kong for the most part. So the whining bovine expat wives demographic will be a thing of the past. Chinese companies aren't run by complete dolts at the end of the day. They can see the bottom line and if they can hire a local with even marginal (if not entire) competency they will jump to hire them instead.


Priority will be given to overseas educated Chinese professionals more and more as this group increases in size. The need for vastly overcompensated expat salary packages will fall just like in Hong Kong. They may keep around a few sock poppets but it'll just be that. The last expats left will be the lower tier white collar types (english teachers), technical writers, journalists, embassy staff, etc.. and the very rare foreign entrepeneur who can compete in the local Chinese market.

 

[kosko]

The expat gravy train is probably going to dry up eventually (<10 years) just like it did in Hong Kong for the most part. So the whining bovine expat wives demographic will be a thing of the past. Chinese companies aren't run by complete dolts at the end of the day. They can see the bottom line and if they can hire a local with even marginal (if not entire) competency they will jump to hire them instead.


Priority will be given to overseas educated Chinese professionals more and more as this group increases in size. The need for vastly overcompensated expat salary packages will fall just like in Hong Kong. They may keep around a few sock poppets but it'll just be that. The last expats left will be the lower tier white collar types (english teachers), technical writers, journalists, embassy staff, etc.. and the very rare foreign entrepeneur who can compete in the local Chinese market.

The next Expact market is Africa. Many Germans and Portoguese are already down there. To many Anglos aside from maybe Britt's and UKs don't see the opportunities down there.

 

[Switch]

Suits and I were talking last summer about how China is absolutely the worst place to be stuck in if you don't want to be there.

One thing to keep in mind is that most westerners are in China for a limited time. Usually 1-3 years. That deadline is always looming over these women's heads.

They can't speak Chinese, so they can't break into Chinese social circles.

Almost every other Westerner in China has a time limit too, so everyone is just burning time until they get to go back home. What's the point of putting in effort to make good new friends if you're leaving in a year anyway? --this is the mentality of a fair amount of Westerners in China.

Then you add in that Chinese culture is very different from every western culture and there are a lot of things that can really start getting on your nerves. Spitting, smoking, pollution, honking, screaming are all a lot more common in China than in the West. This makes you want to just stay inside.

If you have a husband that you're loyal too, you're probably not going out much. If you have no kids or they are already old, there's really not much to do after a few months of sightseeing, so you end up doing nothing.

China's great, but there a lot of things that really stink.

I have a lot of sympathy for these women. Young single Western women in China? Not so much. But older married women, you bet.

 

[Simeon_Strangelight]

I have talked with a few wives of successful expats - you know - the ones who did not complain. In most countries there is a community of international people there, in some there is always the option to integrate yourself doing something useful.

All this lonely isolation stuff is just nuts - they have a huge financial budget, yes they don't get sexual attention there, but life is about more things than that - of course the current "strong independent woman" can't deal with it because their lives are empty as fuck.

The women I met hosted parties often, met with other expat wives, played with their kids, if they were older, they associated with younger wives and took care of the children sometimes (yes for free and despite nanny being available - just for the fun of it, as women like that), they took up new hobbies like indoor gardening, worked for non-profits and charities for free, meditated, started doing yoga, traveled more etc.

If you gave men 5k-10k/ month and told a 50 year old guy: "You gotta take the cash and find something useful to do. Can you manage?" - do you think, that most men would write articles on how terrible it is to be the husband of a career wife in China? No sympathy. Dirt-poor women with no teeth who work 60 hours a week making NIKE shoes have my sympathy.

 

[Handsome Creepy Eel]

I usually have a bit of a fetish for nude women wearing just sneakers, which makes looking at her grotesqueness even more painful:

:verysad:

It's akin to a 6-year old having a craving for chocolate cakes, only to see a cake that is actually made out of shit.

 

[mastauser]

I know, it's nothing new. It's just laws of nature. Give a man a roof over his head, resources, time and money, and most men will seek to find and follow their mission, they'll strive to excel at something and provide value to society.

This is the only part of your excellent post that I disagree with.

Of the well off people that I know, I can think of 4 of them who were either given unlimited spending or full control of trust funds in their early 20s or younger.
Every single one of the 4 is a basically dickless coward with no real drive.
One of them is a male 9 by looks who never works out, has a money losing business his dad keeps funding, has a 4 for a girlfriend for the last 8 years, and he doesn't travel or anything fun. Just smokes pot and pops adderal all day long. He has access to millions of dollars, would be close to a 10 with some lifting, but there is no heart or drive. Sad really. His dad is super beta, but somehow made over 50 million as a financial services executive.

If a man is just given everything, and never taught about courage, or what it means to work and persevere, in my experience, he becomes something that doesn't really qualify as a man.
Wealth doesn't equal automatic pussy though, it just means that it is extra important for a parent or older brother to provide guidance and serve as a role model. Without real challenges in life, it takes discipline for someone to develop and display character. Just being male doesn't mean that you will make good use of resources handed to you on a silver plate.

 

[CH-Toronto]

I know, it's nothing new. It's just laws of nature. Give a man a roof over his head, resources, time and money, and most men will seek to find and follow their mission, they'll strive to excel at something and provide value to society.

This is the only part of your excellent post that I disagree with.

Of the well off people that I know, I can think of 4 of them who were either given unlimited spending or full control of trust funds in their early 20s or younger.
Every single one of the 4 is a basically dickless coward with no real drive.
One of them is a male 9 by looks who never works out, has a money losing business his dad keeps funding, has a 4 for a girlfriend for the last 8 years, and he doesn't travel or anything fun. Just smokes pot and pops adderal all day long. He has access to millions of dollars, would be close to a 10 with some lifting, but there is no heart or drive. Sad really. His dad is super beta, but somehow made over 50 million as a financial services executive.

If a man is just given everything, and never taught about courage, or what it means to work and persevere, in my experience, he becomes something that doesn't really qualify as a man.
Wealth doesn't equal automatic pussy though, it just means that it is extra important for a parent or older brother to provide guidance and serve as a role model. Without real challenges in life, it takes discipline for someone to develop and display character. Just being male doesn't mean that you will make good use of resources handed to you on a silver plate.

It's going to be very interesting in the next 20 years how a tech mogul's offspring copes with the world.

This is why while some celebrities children end up being "ok" - most wind up pretty crazy/deluded. They have so much money, they don't need to really work, - and if they never work they never learn discipline, and if they don't learn discipline they don't know what success feels like, and if they don't understand success they will become aimless.

Am I making sense?