As Many Foreigners Exit China, I’m Still Here to Stay – Pub’d on WWAM BAM

The group blog WWAM BAM just published my latest post titled As Many Foreigners Exit China, I’m Still Here to Stay. Here’s an excerpt:

“I attended multiple going away parties in one week,” confessed a foreign coworker of mine not long ago.

After living in China for years, he had become accustomed to the annual wave of departures that invariably rippled across every expat social circle. But what was once a steady drip had now become a deluge.

It was sweeping up a lot of my friends too. Among them were people I’d pegged as China “lifers”–including a fellow foreign woman with a Chinese husband who had always seemed so happy about life in Shenzhen. But the death of a close family member, whose funeral she couldn’t attend, prompted a dramatic reshuffle of her priorities, leading her to pack up her life and say goodbye to China.

Headlines such as “Foreigners Are Leaving China in Droves” and “China’s Foreign Firms Are Running Out of a Key Resource: Foreigners” shout out the stark reality of the times we live in.

And yet, as foreigners flood out of the country, I’m one of the few going against the current. I’m staying here, and still committed to living in China for the rest of my life.

Head on over to WWAM BAM to read the full piece. And if you like it, share it!