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I am a Boston-area based American with a wife and a 1-month old son. It is likely I may be in a situation where I will have to stay in Beijing for an unknown amount of time if I do not want to lose my family. I have some concerns about my future and want to make sure that I am not being paranoid. If my concerns are legitimate, any suggestions on how to work around these concerns would be greatly appreciated. Concerns:
Request: Please respond with concrete, actionable steps to alleviate these fears and not make this into a hate-fest against the CCP or USCIS (or filled with snarky answers like "you're hosed.") There's also the option of being separated from my family as I work and provide for them from stateside, but I'm not thrilled at the prospect of being away from my son during the first few months of his life. Plus if I do that I wouldn't be able to be sure people take the idea of air pollution seriously and make sure he always wears a mask. *Cause of debt: Certain USCIS officials threatened my wife/then-unborn son (unborn = no citizenship = no rights) with a bit of extortion. I refused and used high priced lawyers to fight back until the threats stopped. The law was on my side and that particular issue was resolved, but it was pretty expensive nontheless. diadem fucked around with this message at 23:57 on Oct 17, 2019 |
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Oct 17, 2019 23:44
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| # ? May 5, 2024 07:54 |
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pros: you wont ever have to post on SA ever again
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Oct 17, 2019 23:52
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diadem posted:I am an American with a wife and a 1-month old son. Don't! <close thread>
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Oct 18, 2019 00:20
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Blistex posted:Don't! Meaning stay stateside even if it means losing my family? Separation from my family isn't something I want to do. It's something I may be forced to. I'm fighting it. diadem fucked around with this message at 00:31 on Oct 18, 2019 |
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Oct 18, 2019 00:26
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Everything else on your list can be dealt with OP, but if you already have financial issues holy loving Christ do not move to Beijing for 1/5 the salary you're currently making. Beijing can be as expensive as living in the USA, if not more so, if you want to maintain a "Western" standard of living - especially in housing. If you were straight out of college coming over by yourself as an English teacher with a sense of adventure, you could probably live quite a bit more cheaply, but in your situation with an infant that's not gonna happen. Also I assume you would be moving on a family visa? You should know first and foremost that those do not allow you to legally work. A legitimate job will sponsor you for a work visa, but freelance/side gigs leave you open to detention and deportation if you're caught, plus being barred from reentry to China for 5(?) years. It's less likely to happen as an office worker than if you were an English teacher getting in front of dozens of kids every day, but still probably not a risk worth taking if it means separation from your family. If this move is happening no matter what, your best bet might be to look for computer touching jobs that will let you work remotely and still earn a USA salary. Technically you'd be working illegally in China still but it's hard to imagine you'd get caught unless someone snitched and the local PSB were particularly bored.
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Oct 18, 2019 00:40
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diadem posted:Concerns: quote:
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Oct 18, 2019 00:50
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Known Lecher posted:Everything else on your list can be dealt with OP, but if you already have financial issues holy loving Christ do not move to Beijing for 1/5 the salary you're currently making. Alright. It sounds like the optimal solution - if this ends up happening - is for me to stay stateside so I can provide for my family until I can get them back. Plus I'll have access to all my resources if something horrible happens and won't be trapped in a foreign land where I don't speak the language. Can you offer any guidance on fixing the other issues, such as the pollution concerns, if this situation arises? MrMoo posted:... diadem fucked around with this message at 00:54 on Oct 18, 2019 |
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Oct 18, 2019 00:52
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Can I ask why your family is so determined to live there? I'm guessing you married a Chinese person and these are your in-laws, but lots of Chinese people will jump at the opportunity to move to the US or Canada, for many of the reasons you listed. At the very least, you should try to keep your son out of there. The pollution is definitely a concern and no, those little paper masks people wear in China don't do anything to help. They're basically a superstition. You can filter out most of it by wearing a legit 3M filter mask, but nobody wants to do that regularly. Another thing to consider is not just the general quality of education your son will be receiving, but the propaganda that it will be laced with. Good schools exist if you can pay enough, but all schools will teach your kid a very warped version of history and current events. Children are trained from a young age to avoid critical thinking and accept rote answers that always favor the government and paint the country's political enemies in a negative light. Prepare to have a lot of very frustrating and disappointing arguments with him as he grows up. Regarding work/life balance: lol
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Oct 18, 2019 00:55
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diadem posted:Alright. It sounds like the optimal solution - if this ends up happening - is for me to stay stateside so I can provide for my family until I can get them back. Plus I'll have access to all my resources if something horrible happens and won't be trapped in a foreign land where I don't speak the language. There's a lot on your list and I don't have time for a big effortpost at the moment so I'll look later unless someone else beats me to it. (And while MrMoo above isn't necessarily wrong they're also presenting the worst-case options which are good to be aware of but not necessarily going to happen to you specifically.) On pollution, the air is honestly getting better in the Beijing area thanks to the government finally cracking down on major sources of pollution. It's still frequently not good but rarely reaches smogpocalypse levels of bad. Air pollution can be managed by buying air purifiers - one for each room if you're serious and something like this ti keep an eye on it. Also you can find someone to redo the seals around your windows to keep outside air from leaking in and keep the kiddo indoors unless the pm2.5 AQI is below whatever number you feel comfortable with, maybe 100-150. As for food you can find organic produce even in places like Walmart. Is it really organic...maybe? Though there's still potential soil/air contamination issues. Research what kinds of produce is more likely to absorb pollution and avoid those if you're serious about it. There's also always imported fruit for sale, imported shelf stable milk is everywhere (Chinese don't trust the local dairy industry after some big contamination scandals in the 00s) and you can usually find frozen imported meat/fish. There's also Western grocery stores that sell imported foodstuffs but for more than it costs back home. Like I said, most of the stuff on your list can be managed except the finance issue. I would encourage you to look for remote work if you don't want to be separated from your family , at least see if it's possible. Edit: yes I'm also curious why you need to move to Beijing. If your child was born in the USA with you as a US citizen parent then they should have zero citizenship issues. If it's just your spouse then at the risk of sounding callous maybe it would be better for everyone (or at least your child) if they went back by themselves to sort out these issues? Edit 2: On further reflection I'm going to echo what the other expats are saying in that your first option should be to not move anyone, your second option should be to not move the kid. But if it's truly unavoidable you can deal with most or list to a greater or lesser degree, though some stuff (like private international school) will cost $$. Porfiriato fucked around with this message at 01:22 on Oct 18, 2019 |
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Oct 18, 2019 01:13
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Keep fighting. Having a kid is usually the final trigger for expats to leave China, moving there to raise a child is nuts. The pollution is a serious concern, impossible to avoid (you're focused on air, but the food and water are also all contaminated to one degree or another), and affects kids much worse than adults. Chinese school also is a meat grinder. It's not as bad pre-middle school but I still wouldn't put a kid through it. E: Also I'm going to assume this came up because your wife is Chinese and from Beijing, in which case you have to consider that the kid's going to be dumped off with her parents to raise. You will be spending all of your free time fighting with them and their superstitions that your child needs to be wearing 15 layers of clothing at all time and eating potentially toxic herbs and poo poo. Grand Fromage fucked around with this message at 01:18 on Oct 18, 2019 |
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Oct 18, 2019 01:15
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Devils Affricate posted:Can I ask why your family is so determined to live there? I'm guessing you married a Chinese person and these are your in-laws - Witnessing a school shooting involving deaths of multiple children - Being physically assaulted for being Asian. - Horrible treatment from USCIS (ignoring rule of law). Mistakes from USCIS which resulted in suspension of driver's license, stepping down from work, etc. Flat out extortion and threats from USCIS officials to perform illegal actions. - Watching most foreign friends get kicked out for BS reasons. (Example: One friend was promoted too quickly for being skilled, which USCIS deemed suspicious). Hell, two of the USCIS actions towards her friends resulted in a death. edit: two. two deaths. one of her former classmates recently died. forgot about that one. - Racist comments from government officials (essentially "your kind aren't welcome around here") Grand Fromage posted:E: Also I'm going to assume this came up because your wife is Chinese and from Beijing, in which case you have to consider that the kid's going to be dumped off with her parents to raise. You will be spending all of your free time fighting with them and their superstitions that your child needs to be wearing 15 layers of clothing at all time and eating potentially toxic herbs and poo poo. I'm not going to comment on this one, but I see you've been here before too. diadem fucked around with this message at 01:34 on Oct 18, 2019 |
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Oct 18, 2019 01:27
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I'd recommend wiping the entirety of your online presence in any case to avoid the ccp going after your family's passport, finances, or individual freedoms because you talked about Tiananmen square 89 that one time. That would absolutely count as 'promoting disharmious spirit', apparently if it's even just your friends or family who said it according to china's imminent and insane social credit system.
SlipUp fucked around with this message at 01:36 on Oct 18, 2019 |
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Oct 18, 2019 01:31
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diadem posted:- Witnessing a school shooting involving deaths of multiple children Stay in the US but don't stay in Florida
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Oct 18, 2019 01:39
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diadem posted:I'm not going to comment on this one, but I see you've been here before too. Spent a lot of time living in China and have a lot of friends who've been through the family stuff, anyway.
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Oct 18, 2019 01:42
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diadem posted:- Witnessing a school shooting involving deaths of multiple children Ok, sure, these are reasons to not wanna be somewhere, but why China? China and America aren't the only two countries in the world. I like my life here, but if I was in your situation I'd stay the gently caress away from China. Everything you listed exists in some way in China and likely you're going to deal with worse. Do you speak Chinese? Do you have any connection to the country besides being, apparently, Asian? What do you plan to do for work? Have you thought about this for more than 10 minutes?
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Oct 18, 2019 01:59
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Oct 18, 2019 02:02
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For real tho you should seriouspost since you've actually had to make the decision about raising a kid in China.
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Oct 18, 2019 02:03
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BrainDance posted:Ok, sure, these are reasons to not wanna be somewhere, but why China? I'm not Asian and I don't want to move to China. I simply don't want to be separated from my family if they are in Beijing. I'm being deliberately vague as to why they may need to move there, aside from me fighting for them to stay. It sounds like even if they do move, I'll have to fight for them to return while I"m still stateside. diadem fucked around with this message at 02:17 on Oct 18, 2019 |
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Oct 18, 2019 02:10
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Even though I would not in a million years move a family to Beijing, you're still better off going with them if there's no other choice. Your kid will probably not die of heavy metal poisoning or be run over by a big red dump truck and you can work on leaving again ASAP. But do find a way to work remotely, Beijing is not the cheap part of China and IT wages/work hours in Asia generally are garbage compared to the US. If you can compromise on location, Shanghai is even more expensive than Beijing but is the least Chinese situation you can manage while still being in China. And if you could negotiate down to anywhere in China, there are options like Xiamen which are rumored to be almost nice places to live. Or perhaps embrace the One China policy and argue that Taipei is China so you should move there.
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Oct 18, 2019 02:17
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If you're going to bust your rear end and blow your finances in a panic, go somewhere nice instead of Beijing of all places. Move the family to Hawaii or something, Working in Beijing as a foreigner for no-name startups is going to be miserable, it's only worth it if you're in a corporate multinational. You are going to be too stressed to deal with the culture shock, especially with a toddler and family issues. The pollution is a real one. You can't avoid pollution because your child is going to have to leave the house and eat regular Chinese food. This isn't going to kill them, but it's just added health risk, aggravated by the fact that they're so young. The CCP will not do anything about you because you're unimportant. The Chinese government is mostly reactive when it comes to official repression, you're not going to come into the crosshairs unless you're moving lots of money around. You might get screwed by the bureaucracy in a manner not unlike the USCIS though. Slim Jim Pickens fucked around with this message at 02:22 on Oct 18, 2019 |
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Oct 18, 2019 02:19
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Ah ok, I get it, so the wife's Chinese. gently caress man, if your family has to be in Beijing and you cant do anything about it they have to be in Beijing and I wish you the best figuring out a non-Beijing solution to this. I hate to say it but the reason no one is alleviating your fears about it is because they're completely realistic fears that you'd be crazy to not have, and they don't even scratch the surface of things you should be worrying about. I would encourage almost anyone to move to China if they wanted to, even if it would probably turn out bad it might be worth the experience. But, when we're talking about a family, when you've got kids it's an awful idea. If you were the one choosing to take your family there I'd call you a piece of poo poo but it doesn't sound like you have much of a choice. Have you met your inlaws before? I'd answer your questions more specifically (though I just live here, I dont have kids, and other people already posting here have lived here longer or have more experiences) but I gotta go to work. The tldr is gonna be "not good" though.
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Oct 18, 2019 02:24
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Grand Fromage posted:For real tho you should seriouspost since you've actually had to make the decision about raising a kid in China. ok, you're right. Hi diadem. I'm also originally from Boston (born and raised in Cambridge and Watertown!) and lived in mainland China for almost nine years. I met my wife over there and we got married and had a child. My situation might be a bit different from yours because my wife isn't Chinese. I also didn't live in Beijing, I was in Tianjin and then outside of Shenyang. I can't really imagine what kind of situation you've gotten yourself into but it certainly doesn't look good. You definitely do not want to go to China, especially an expensive city like Beijing, without a job. Especially if you are in debt. Does your wife's family have a ton of money? You could swing something if that's the case. Like if she was filthy Chinese rich, it could turn out alright. If you can find a good paying job out there, you could consider going. But I'd urge you not to. Even then, it will take like 4-6 months just to process your work visa, and that's assuming you find a competent employer. My son was born in December 2015 in rural Japan and I was in Japan for the first month he was alive, and then had to go back to China to work. I made trips back and forth until my son got his China residency visa when he was about six months old, and came back over with my wife. I hated having him in China, it was incredibly stressful for me and I'd find myself checking my phone like 600 times a day because I was worried something may happen to him, and because the hospitals all sucked and any other little child/family we met would just endlessly try to take photos of my son or grab him or some poo poo, we started looking at G-ingTFO of China as soon as possible. Thus, I accepted a position with a university in the USA that was running a satellite program in some rural shithole and I did this so my wife and son would leave China. My wife was ok with this because she got our son into the good preschool nearby and we wanted to have another baby anyway and we didn't want my wife pregnant in China, nor did we want our one and a half year old in China. I don't know why your significant other is so focused on going to China, if she's from China and just wants to go home and see her family after she had some bad experiences, I guess that's that, but I'd highly recommend you do everything your power to keep your family here in the United States. Even if you get a good paying job that can allow your family to live an upper-middle class life in Beijing, I wouldn't recommend bringing an infant over there. Like Grand Fromage said, you're doing it backwards. Most people get married and have a child and then do everything in their power to leave China...not have a child and then figure out how to move to China. diadem posted:- Witnessing a school shooting involving deaths of multiple children My heart goes out to you for this poo poo, have you thought about moving/relocating to a different area that might be better for your family? I relocated to Honolulu a year and a few months ago and while it can be super racist out here, there's a ton of asian or asian/black or asian/white families out here. My son's preschool is a sustainable preschool here in a nice area in the valley and there's only two white kids in his class (out of 14 children, its mainly Hawaiian, Chinese, Japanese or asian-American kids). I'd be happy to talk to you off SA if that would be helpful, just let me know. The Great Autismo! fucked around with this message at 02:29 on Oct 18, 2019 |
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Oct 18, 2019 02:26
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I gave some advice on practicalities earlier but I may read between the lines here OP, it sounds like you don't have any compelling reason to move to China in particular (by that I mean legal issues like your wife lost her green card or something). So, don't. It sounds like your wife has had an awful experience in the USA and wants to GTFO which is completely understandable. But really, raising a small child in China is not something I would recommend at all unless you both are familiar with culture and the language and are equipped to deal with the day to day hassles of life in China, AND are making enough money to afford a decent place to live, international schools, etc. Neither of which sounds like it's the case here. I also hate to even bring this up, but you should know that if things ever go south, child custody is basically unenforceable for you as a foreigner in China, especially if your wife is a Chinese citizen. If your wife and kid go over by themselves and she disappears there is essentially nothing any US or Chinese court can/will do to help you regain custody. I only mention this because it sounds like there might be some stress already in your relationship with this whole "moving to China if I don't want to lose my family" thing. It's something you NEED to be thinking about and have a plan in the back of your mind before poo poo starts going sideways. Porfiriato fucked around with this message at 03:10 on Oct 18, 2019 |
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Oct 18, 2019 03:08
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What is a power-based culture? Or a results-based culture? Where are you getting these terms?
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Oct 18, 2019 03:17
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Maybe give us some info on your wife, her family situation, and why it has to be Beijing. If you go there and you do not have super-rich and charitable inlaws, you're going to at best not make any money, and at the worst lose a lot. Beijing is expensive, getting your kid into a daycare that isn't a horrible pit is hard, and getting your kids into a daycare that actually lets you sleep at night is super-super-expensive. Basically your wife will have to be raking in the cash to make it worthwhile to live there. Also, since you're not a speaker, not a Chinese lawyer, and not ethnically Chinese, you are 50,000x more susceptible to being scammed by a potential employer. Best case scenario you get paid a lovely wage. Worst case scenario you don't get paid and somehow get picked up on some sort of Visa/Work technicality where your employer slips the officer a few hundred RMB and gets off scott free while you get the lovely end of the legal stick. As a foreigner, and especially as a US citizen (given the current climate), you will always be in the wrong and the law will likely come down on you as hard as possible. Everyone else has brought up a lot of really good points that you should be aware of, but the general theme among those of us who have lived there is that you should absolutely try and exhaust every other option before even considering going, or letting your child go. Also, I would put the brakes on your wife's plan to take your son to China. You have some say, and I think you need to stand up in this case. You wife isn't going to abandon your son, and maybe that's the leverage you need to convince her to try and move to a less-lovely part of the US where she will have less issues and you'll be happier. You situation sucks, but going to Beijing is just going to result in every aspect of your life and your child's life getting worse. p.s. If your wife's plan is to let her parents help raise your son, then that kid is going to get a serious case of "Chinese old's influence" which I had just a little-tiny taste of with our son and I'm not lying that it took over a year to get him acting like a normal kid again (and they're probably a 3 out of 10 on the "Bad Chinese Grandparents" scale. I really feel for you, but you owe it to yourself and your son to not let this happen.
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Oct 18, 2019 03:39
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JK Fresco posted:What is a power-based culture? Or a results-based culture? Where are you getting these terms? I think he means meritocracy versus idk, a plutocracy, or something like Japan’s Nenko system. MrMoo fucked around with this message at 03:48 on Oct 18, 2019 |
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Oct 18, 2019 03:42
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diadem posted:- Horrible treatment from USCIS (ignoring rule of law). Mistakes from USCIS which resulted in suspension of driver's license, stepping down from work, etc. Flat out extortion and threats from USCIS officials to perform illegal actions. dhsoighotline@dhs.gov
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Oct 18, 2019 03:44
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MrMoo posted:I think he means meritocracy versus idk, a plutocracy, or something like Japan’s Nenko system. In this and other things I feel like I'm either missing something here or else thr OP is something of a nut...
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Oct 18, 2019 03:49
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diadem posted:I'm not Asian and I don't want to move to China. I simply don't want to be separated from my family if they are in Beijing. I'm being deliberately vague as to why they may need to move there, aside from me fighting for them to stay. Seriously, consider Canada, maybe Toronto or Vancouver area. Canada is very pro-immigration at the moment, at least compared to the U.S. The chances of having job options in your field will be vastly greater, the standard of living will be roughly the same, the education will be roughly the same. The culture shock (for you) will be minimal. The air quality will be roughly the same. There will be no language issues, if that's a problem. American family and close friends won't have to go to another continent to visit you, and there obviously isn't an internet firewall. Furthermore having spent some time in Toronto, they have a fuckton of Asian supermarkets, which might be a nice perk for your wife. If your wife needs to go take care of her parents then forget all that of course.
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Oct 18, 2019 04:01
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I'm going to close this before the thread details. Information I provided was deliberately ambiguous. Thank you to everyone who helped thus far. It's truely appreciated. It's clear I need to keep fighting. If you have information that can be useful, or previously lived in China and are willing to relay information as a first party as to your experiences, please send me a pm. diadem fucked around with this message at 10:31 on Oct 18, 2019 |
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Oct 18, 2019 10:23
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