OVERSEAS, AND BACK

By RICHARD MULLINS

Chinese students are still heading overseas for education – but these days, they’re also coming back.

A haigui comes home to start his career.

The sea turtle may be one of the animal kingdoms’ most endangered species, but in its allegorical sense, it thrives. Each year, thousands of Chinese set out for distant lands on a hunt for knowledge, and well-worn trails lead to every top university on earth. Some never make it – they’re snaffled up by massive competition, financial restraints or bureaucracy before they ever leave their shores. But those that do get through have different instincts than their predecessors – they are coming back to China with their academic eggs.

This new trend has ushered the phrase haigui into modern Chinese vernacular. Literally meaning “sea turtle,” it’s also short for haiwai guilai, or “returned from overseas.” It’s mainly used to describe Chinese students and scholars that leave their lives in the “paradisiacal” West and come back and contribute to the development of their own land. But why do they go in the first place, and what must they go through to get there?

Aspiring Chinese academics generally agree that beyond graduate level, universities in their home country just cannot cut the mustard. So they look overseas, particularly towards the United States, in search of a learning environment that’ll tease out the best of their abilities. “China lags behind. No Chinese university appears on the top-20 list of Asian universities when it comes to graduate level education,” says Luo Haihua, a 27-year-old Chinese doing a master’s in the States who believes that his marketability depends mainly on good qualifications. Top foreign universities provide their students with state-of-the-art facilities and rich research resources – something that most Chinese universities cannot yet offer.

Another reason why Luo Haihua went abroad was the chance of landing a quality internship. “In this regard, it’s simply unbeatable. I’m going to Texas in the summer to intern with a global software giant!” says Luo. “Tsinghua University in Beijing is the best of its kind in China, but it won’t provide me with comparable chances.” Chinese organizations certainly take on interns, but the students rarely get much relevant experience – they often find themselves gluing stamps to envelopes in the mailroom.

Others seek experience and broader horizons when they fill out their application forms. They see China as a rising power on the global stage, and as the leaders of tomorrow, they want to be clued up on the different social, economic and political fabrics that line the world today. Firsthand experience is a very good teacher. “I think young people should go out and see the world, to know how people on the other side of the planet lead their lives and conduct their businesses,” says Ai Yu, a 25-year-old master’s student who’s also in the States. “I know a more global outlook will be vital in the coming years, as China keeps on developing.”

Getting into these universities, however, is easier said than done. The process is costly and time consuming – those that can afford it will hire an agency to organize the application at a fee of between RMB 10,000 and 20,000 (US $1,300 to 2,600). When deciding where to go, students examine factors such as cost, reputation and location. A preference for universities in the United States is evident among Chinese students, with the UK and Australia next on the list. But other countries like Ireland and New Zealand are getting more popular, with tighter post-9/11 US visa regulations and skyrocketing fees in Britain.

Unsurprisingly, English-speaking destinations require Chinese students to achieve a high grade in the language through internationally recognized teaching systems such as IELTS. The application form itself must be submitted with a plethora of additional documents, including a statement of purpose, letters of recommendation, test reports, official transcripts, resumes, and relevant diplomas and certificates. Ai Yu, who once waded through piles of such papers, advises, “With US universities find a professor with whom you have similar research interests, demonstrate your capabilities and tell him or her about your own research plans, and you’ll have a much greater chance of being admitted.” Would-be overseas students are under immense pressures to succeed; they rarely apply to just one school, while their parents foot the considerable application and correspondence fees. Neither party thinks failure is acceptable.

For those that do succeed, more frustrations lie in store when they arrive on foreign shores. Culture shock is common among Chinese students, many of whom have lived relatively sheltered lives. A trip to the local supermarket may result in a heart attack. Zhao Meng, a 28-year-old studying management in Oxford, says, “I couldn’t believe how expensive things are – at home I could probably buy a new television set with what I spend in a visit to the local food store.” Classroom dissimilarities can be even more crushing as students struggle to adjust to a new, interactive teaching system that’s poles apart from their own. Some remodel themselves to prevent their confidence – and results – from plummeting. Fortunately, most Chinese students view this as a challenge, and a major benefit they’ll get out of overseas study. Luo Haihua says “It’s great to challenge my teachers and have them challenge me. Chinese students tend to be passive learners while their Western counterparts are usually active participants. No matter if you are BA, an MA, or a PhD, the situation is the same.”

Ai Yu also knows the benefits of such a learning environment. He says, “Chinese students are hard working, but to some extent, lacking in innovation and creativity. Students just follow their teachers’ instructions, stick to the routines, and barely do any critical thinking themselves. So that is the very thing we are looking for from foreign universities.” It seems Zhao Meng has found it. Commenting on the highly personalized approach, Zhao says, “Every student here is allocated an academic supervisor and a college tutor. We also need to identify a dissertation supervisor. In addition, it is not uncommon to contact someone in other academic domains in Oxford for help with research. So communication is much more intensive.”

Traditionally, most overseas students never returned to China. But as the country continues to prosper, more are swimming back to the beach of their birth. Older graduates too are packing their bags and returning to make their contributions to China’s rapid economic and social progress. A series of preferential policies entice the talented, Western-trained brains back to their homeland, to work in fields such as technology, law, finance, education and scientific research. With government tax breaks, grants and other incentives, Beijing’s Zhongguancun Science and Technology Park (often touted as China’s Silicon Valley), has become a magnet for the haigui. Many have patented their own technologies, and made their fortunes. Similar stories abound in Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen. Traveling abroad for education with a view to returning after graduation is now the norm. Meanwhile, those who don’t make the grade, or cannot afford the staggering costs, long for the day when China’s own post-grad courses are revamped to compete with the best universities in the world. Slightly falling numbers of Chinese applicants to foreign universities suggest that the country’s universities could be on the right track.