Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Frugal living – the “recessionistas” in China
Can you be hip and frugal? That’s the challenge many people are taking up in the United States. Cutting out subscriptions, movie tickets, eating out, and other discretionary purchases, while learning new ways to cook with cheap ingredients at home and how to reuse old stuff (see the recent explosion in blogs on living cheaply and surviving job losses).
In February I heard about students and young professionals in China who try to live on ¥100 yuan a week, which is about $15 (really more like $30-50 when factoring in the higher purchasing power of yuan or dollars in China). The ¥100 challenge excludes housing costs.
I thought I lived cheaply until I heard of the ways people spend a good part of ¥100 to buy food in bulk and trying to eat that for a week, while doing away with all but the most essential public transportation and entertainment expenses. It’s kind of old news, but I just came across an article about this trend in an British paper.
It’s not easy to do. Even though I live pretty cheaply and keep track of every yuan I spend, I don’t even come close to ¥100 a week (my target is ¥50 a day or about ¥1,500 over a month). Excluding housing, my most frugal month was November 2007, when I spent only ¥905, which comes out to around ¥210 a week (and I had free housing, so that’s all I spent). Last month I spent ¥1,546, or about 3½ times the ¥100 a week challenge. My most expensive month was August 2008 (¥3,969), when I bought Olympics tickets, train tickets, a cycling kit, a big suitcase, and went out a few times in Beijing. My average monthly expenses over the last 19 months, which includes virtually everything - food, transportation, entertainment, phone, Chinese health insurance - but excludes the rent and tuition I’ve paid in Beijing and Nanjing, has been about ¥2,000 (just under $300).
It’s nice to be young and single (no family to support) and living in a country with such a low cost of living. Life will never be this cheap again!
And if you don’t keep a detailed personal budget, you should start one today. It’s enlightening to see clearly what you do actually spend in a month or a week, then to plan ahead, set goals, and try to see how much self control you can muster to reach your spending/saving goals. It’s actually fun.
In February I heard about students and young professionals in China who try to live on ¥100 yuan a week, which is about $15 (really more like $30-50 when factoring in the higher purchasing power of yuan or dollars in China). The ¥100 challenge excludes housing costs.
I thought I lived cheaply until I heard of the ways people spend a good part of ¥100 to buy food in bulk and trying to eat that for a week, while doing away with all but the most essential public transportation and entertainment expenses. It’s kind of old news, but I just came across an article about this trend in an British paper.
It’s not easy to do. Even though I live pretty cheaply and keep track of every yuan I spend, I don’t even come close to ¥100 a week (my target is ¥50 a day or about ¥1,500 over a month). Excluding housing, my most frugal month was November 2007, when I spent only ¥905, which comes out to around ¥210 a week (and I had free housing, so that’s all I spent). Last month I spent ¥1,546, or about 3½ times the ¥100 a week challenge. My most expensive month was August 2008 (¥3,969), when I bought Olympics tickets, train tickets, a cycling kit, a big suitcase, and went out a few times in Beijing. My average monthly expenses over the last 19 months, which includes virtually everything - food, transportation, entertainment, phone, Chinese health insurance - but excludes the rent and tuition I’ve paid in Beijing and Nanjing, has been about ¥2,000 (just under $300).
It’s nice to be young and single (no family to support) and living in a country with such a low cost of living. Life will never be this cheap again!
And if you don’t keep a detailed personal budget, you should start one today. It’s enlightening to see clearly what you do actually spend in a month or a week, then to plan ahead, set goals, and try to see how much self control you can muster to reach your spending/saving goals. It’s actually fun.
Monday, April 13, 2009
Middle of the semester
Spring has gone by really quickly – it’s already the mid-point of the semester and the steamy summer weather is almost here (it’s in the 70s now). We have midterm exams this week and then a week-long spring break next week.
I feel like I should get around to talking a bit about my classes before the semester is all over – and it seems like June will come really fast. My Chinese reading/grammar and listening/speaking classes are taught by two different teachers but in the same classroom. Our class level is the third semester of a four year Chinese B.A. Our class is just over 20 students; students from South Korea make up about half, and then there are three students from Germany, two from Japan, two from France, and one each from Vietnam, Indonesia, Mongolia, Mexico, and the U.S. (me). Two are married to husbands who work in Nanjing – one is a mother of three in her 40s, the other is a newlywed 30-year old – another student is a mother of about 30 who is a Russian language teacher in Mongolia, two are older men in their 50s – one is retired, the other is a professor on sabbatical – but the majority are college students, most of whom are Chinese or Asian studies majors.
We’ve become really close after spending so much time together in class (and sometimes over lunch after class) and we’ve learned a lot from each other by communicating in Chinese (some speak little or no English) and learning about each other’s countries and cultures. The foreign student population on campus is extremely diverse; in the cafeteria you frequently hear Korean, French, German, Turkish, and Russian.
I also take a few optional classes that meet for two hours each week – newspaper reading, business Chinese, and intermediate writing. They are in a bigger classroom with a mix of students from all of the third and fourth semester classes, so the numbers and nationalities vary widely.
I have midterm exams in all but one of these classes this Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.
Finally, here’s the first essay I wrote for my Chinese reading and grammar class. We write a short essay each week for the writing class, but since we have to practice writing characters by hand I haven’t typed any of them.
春节旅游
去年一二月份我放假一个月，所以我趁机去旅游。江苏省的冬天又寒冷又潮湿，我感到很不舒服，所以我决定去中国南方。我计划从上海去广西与广东,最后去香港。
我先跟一个加拿大朋友去上海住了几天， 然后坐火车去杭州。那时侯–2008年一月下旬–中国东南方下大雪。天气特别冷，还有很多雪。杭州到处都是雪，显得很漂亮.可是我很不舒服因为我没带很多衣服,而且，我的鞋子与袜子已经湿了。
因为中国交通又迟缓又拥挤,还有很多人回家过春节,火车票很难买到,所以一到杭州我就去售票处买火车票.但是我只买到一张到南昌的票。
我到南昌住在车站旁边的一座大酒店。房间里很暖和，我很满意，但是到桂林的火车票最早是两天后。第二天南昌那座大酒店没有空房间，所以我住在别的酒店。大概六点半那座酒店没电了，外面已经很黑了，而且没电，没暖气所以我就在床上听mp3。第三天我在南昌转一转。四点三刻我到了火车站。我的火车五点半出发。我到了站突然发现外面有很多不高兴的人。警察不让他们进火车站去。一看我的票，他们也不让我进去。我很着急因为我的火车马上出发。我先回去我第一天住的大酒店请他们帮助我。一位接待员陪我去向警察解释情况。警察告诉我因为大雪,火车延迟八个小时。他建议我几个小时回来才能进去。
九点半我回火车站去。那时侯我能进去。里面很拥挤，连一个空坐位都没有。我站了好几个小时。半夜后我抢到一个坐位，继续等火车。我不敢睡觉因为怕错过到桂林的火车。上午我还等火车…中午还等火车…到两点多才到了。迟到了二十一个小时!我上了火车,列车员却不让我上我的卧铺车,因为前一天的火车取消了,所以那天的火车有两倍乘客。我一整夜没睡觉甚至连一个坐位也没有！我生气极了！大概一个小时后一个列车员让我躺在一个卧铺上。我睡了很长时间。南昌到桂林的火车一般花十三个小时，但是那辆火车花二十六个小时才到了桂林。
一到桂林我就去一个旅馆。我的手机和mp3都差一点没电，但是那座旅馆又没电了！我就睡觉了。在桂林我呆了三天，但是每天都下雨。参观桂林后我去阳寿。我租一辆自行车骑过农村。那天晚上我得了流感。我一点饭也不能吃，就睡了半天。起床时没有力气不过能吃吃走走。那天我打算买到深圳的票。虽然火车最快，但我觉得我的运气很不好，不敢再坐火车, 还是坐长途汽车。我买了一张卧铺汽车票。晚上十点出发，预计早上七点到达深圳。半夜后汽车在高速公路上忽然停了。不一会儿一辆拖车来拖我们的汽车。好像汽车坏了！我就又睡觉了，一起床就发现我们在一个小村子。我们的汽车修不了。司机通知我们十一点另一辆车来。十二点到了汽车还没来。最后另一辆汽车到底没来。五点一刻车才修好了。半夜我们终于到了深圳！在那里天气又暖和又晴朗，我很高兴。
之后我花了两周在香港，澳门，与广州。
Use an online translator if you don't read Chinese and you'll get a hilarious version of it in English. In fact, I should publish everything on my blog that way, it's way more entertaining to read computer-translated-Chinglish, and after all, that's the way a lot of English signs and other media is published here.
I feel like I should get around to talking a bit about my classes before the semester is all over – and it seems like June will come really fast. My Chinese reading/grammar and listening/speaking classes are taught by two different teachers but in the same classroom. Our class level is the third semester of a four year Chinese B.A. Our class is just over 20 students; students from South Korea make up about half, and then there are three students from Germany, two from Japan, two from France, and one each from Vietnam, Indonesia, Mongolia, Mexico, and the U.S. (me). Two are married to husbands who work in Nanjing – one is a mother of three in her 40s, the other is a newlywed 30-year old – another student is a mother of about 30 who is a Russian language teacher in Mongolia, two are older men in their 50s – one is retired, the other is a professor on sabbatical – but the majority are college students, most of whom are Chinese or Asian studies majors.
We’ve become really close after spending so much time together in class (and sometimes over lunch after class) and we’ve learned a lot from each other by communicating in Chinese (some speak little or no English) and learning about each other’s countries and cultures. The foreign student population on campus is extremely diverse; in the cafeteria you frequently hear Korean, French, German, Turkish, and Russian.
I also take a few optional classes that meet for two hours each week – newspaper reading, business Chinese, and intermediate writing. They are in a bigger classroom with a mix of students from all of the third and fourth semester classes, so the numbers and nationalities vary widely.
I have midterm exams in all but one of these classes this Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.
Finally, here’s the first essay I wrote for my Chinese reading and grammar class. We write a short essay each week for the writing class, but since we have to practice writing characters by hand I haven’t typed any of them.
春节旅游
去年一二月份我放假一个月，所以我趁机去旅游。江苏省的冬天又寒冷又潮湿，我感到很不舒服，所以我决定去中国南方。我计划从上海去广西与广东,最后去香港。
我先跟一个加拿大朋友去上海住了几天， 然后坐火车去杭州。那时侯–2008年一月下旬–中国东南方下大雪。天气特别冷，还有很多雪。杭州到处都是雪，显得很漂亮.可是我很不舒服因为我没带很多衣服,而且，我的鞋子与袜子已经湿了。
因为中国交通又迟缓又拥挤,还有很多人回家过春节,火车票很难买到,所以一到杭州我就去售票处买火车票.但是我只买到一张到南昌的票。
我到南昌住在车站旁边的一座大酒店。房间里很暖和，我很满意，但是到桂林的火车票最早是两天后。第二天南昌那座大酒店没有空房间，所以我住在别的酒店。大概六点半那座酒店没电了，外面已经很黑了，而且没电，没暖气所以我就在床上听mp3。第三天我在南昌转一转。四点三刻我到了火车站。我的火车五点半出发。我到了站突然发现外面有很多不高兴的人。警察不让他们进火车站去。一看我的票，他们也不让我进去。我很着急因为我的火车马上出发。我先回去我第一天住的大酒店请他们帮助我。一位接待员陪我去向警察解释情况。警察告诉我因为大雪,火车延迟八个小时。他建议我几个小时回来才能进去。
九点半我回火车站去。那时侯我能进去。里面很拥挤，连一个空坐位都没有。我站了好几个小时。半夜后我抢到一个坐位，继续等火车。我不敢睡觉因为怕错过到桂林的火车。上午我还等火车…中午还等火车…到两点多才到了。迟到了二十一个小时!我上了火车,列车员却不让我上我的卧铺车,因为前一天的火车取消了,所以那天的火车有两倍乘客。我一整夜没睡觉甚至连一个坐位也没有！我生气极了！大概一个小时后一个列车员让我躺在一个卧铺上。我睡了很长时间。南昌到桂林的火车一般花十三个小时，但是那辆火车花二十六个小时才到了桂林。
一到桂林我就去一个旅馆。我的手机和mp3都差一点没电，但是那座旅馆又没电了！我就睡觉了。在桂林我呆了三天，但是每天都下雨。参观桂林后我去阳寿。我租一辆自行车骑过农村。那天晚上我得了流感。我一点饭也不能吃，就睡了半天。起床时没有力气不过能吃吃走走。那天我打算买到深圳的票。虽然火车最快，但我觉得我的运气很不好，不敢再坐火车, 还是坐长途汽车。我买了一张卧铺汽车票。晚上十点出发，预计早上七点到达深圳。半夜后汽车在高速公路上忽然停了。不一会儿一辆拖车来拖我们的汽车。好像汽车坏了！我就又睡觉了，一起床就发现我们在一个小村子。我们的汽车修不了。司机通知我们十一点另一辆车来。十二点到了汽车还没来。最后另一辆汽车到底没来。五点一刻车才修好了。半夜我们终于到了深圳！在那里天气又暖和又晴朗，我很高兴。
之后我花了两周在香港，澳门，与广州。
Use an online translator if you don't read Chinese and you'll get a hilarious version of it in English. In fact, I should publish everything on my blog that way, it's way more entertaining to read computer-translated-Chinglish, and after all, that's the way a lot of English signs and other media is published here.
Skilled workers and urban economies
Richard Florida is a popular writer on urban affairs, and is well known for his idea that greater creativity and tolerance fosters greater economic growth (see his “gay/hipster index”). His article, “The World is Spiky,” describes how economic production and scientific innovation is highly concentrated in a small number of cities. Four world maps show the importance of cities visually, in terms of population, light emissions (as a proxy for economic productivity), patents, and scientific citations. The last two are highly concentrated in just a handful of cities in North America, Western Europe, and East Asia. It’s a good counterargument to the current idea of a flat world where free trade together with fast and cheap computers and telecommunication allow anyone anywhere in the world to compete. Florida argues that cities provide many intangible benefits by concentrating creative and highly skilled people and providing an environment to commercialize new ideas and breakthroughs.
You could say the same of China, where average urban incomes are about 3.5 times as high as the average income in rural areas. Highly educated workers are concentrated in a small number of coastal cities and Beijing; Shenzhen is home to about half of the country’s PhDs working in private industry.
“The continuing dominance of the world’s most productive urban areas is astounding. When it comes to actual economic output, the ten largest U.S. metropolitan areas combined are behind only the United States as a whole and Japan. New York’s economy alone is about the size of Russia’s or Brazil’s, and Chicago’s is on a par with Sweden’s. Together New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Boston have a bigger economy than all of China. If U.S. metropolitan areas were countries, they’d make up forty-seven of the biggest 100 economies in the world.”
The attraction of cities for highly skilled and educated workers is further discussed in “Where the Brains Are”。
Finally, check out this interesting project that attempts to map the “geography of buzz” in New York City and Los Angeles.
You could say the same of China, where average urban incomes are about 3.5 times as high as the average income in rural areas. Highly educated workers are concentrated in a small number of coastal cities and Beijing; Shenzhen is home to about half of the country’s PhDs working in private industry.
“The continuing dominance of the world’s most productive urban areas is astounding. When it comes to actual economic output, the ten largest U.S. metropolitan areas combined are behind only the United States as a whole and Japan. New York’s economy alone is about the size of Russia’s or Brazil’s, and Chicago’s is on a par with Sweden’s. Together New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Boston have a bigger economy than all of China. If U.S. metropolitan areas were countries, they’d make up forty-seven of the biggest 100 economies in the world.”
The attraction of cities for highly skilled and educated workers is further discussed in “Where the Brains Are”。
Finally, check out this interesting project that attempts to map the “geography of buzz” in New York City and Los Angeles.
Another article on America's immigration policy and how it is hurting high-tech companies that want to hire the best talent.
Friday, April 10, 2009
International schools
In the last few years, the number of international schools (the K-12 kind), along with their enrollments, boomed in many Asian countries. Growth was particularly robust in China, where international schools expanded from 123 schools in 2006 to 210 this year. But the trend has reversed recently as the recession is driving expatriate business people home.
By the way, some guy named Nicholas Brummitt is quoted in the article. I came across it because I have a Google alert for “Brummitt” that sends me links to anything new on the web with the word Brummitt. It’s usually a few little things about the Brummitts in North Carolina, the Brummitts in the U.K., or the Brummitt school in Indiana.
By the way, some guy named Nicholas Brummitt is quoted in the article. I came across it because I have a Google alert for “Brummitt” that sends me links to anything new on the web with the word Brummitt. It’s usually a few little things about the Brummitts in North Carolina, the Brummitts in the U.K., or the Brummitt school in Indiana.
Tuesday, April 07, 2009
The contributions of immigrants
As a student of Spanish in the United States and now as an expatriate in China, I’ve been interested in the struggles of immigrants, their impact on society, and the heated debates over immigrant policy. China is trying hard to attract skilled immigrants from abroad while also creating enough jobs for the millions of low-skilled internal migrants moving to the developed eastern cities.
In the United States, H-1B visas for highly educated immigrants are difficult to obtain. More barriers to immigration were erected after the terrorist attacks in 2001 and even the first bank bailout last year restricted bank on hiring H-1B visa holders. These visas are limited and not easy to obtain.
But we should reexamine how important skilled immigrants are to scientific innovation, higher education, and economic growth.
Immigrants provide crucial skilled labor for not only the science and technology industries, but also the military and intelligence agencies.
The New York Times profiled a high school in a northern Virginia school district that has received an influx of immigrants in the last decade. Bringing non-native English speakers up to a functional level of English and integrating a diverse student body presents many challenges.
The map alongside the article, showing the number of immigrants from different countries during different decades is worth checking out.
Most groups are highly concentrated on the coasts, save for northern and central Europeans who congregated in the Midwest during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
The big debate today is whether the current wave of immigrants from Mexico is different from previous immigrations. Some of the reasons that cause the greatest alarm are the fact that Mexican immigrants are the only group originating from a neighboring county (Canadian immigration has always been minimal) and the only one with a historical claim to U.S. territory. The map also clearly shows that the number (and geographical reach) of Mexican immigrants far surpasses any previous group of immigrants.
[UPDATE] Another article on America's immigration policy and how it is hurting high-tech companies that want to hire the best talent.
In the United States, H-1B visas for highly educated immigrants are difficult to obtain. More barriers to immigration were erected after the terrorist attacks in 2001 and even the first bank bailout last year restricted bank on hiring H-1B visa holders. These visas are limited and not easy to obtain.
[H-1B] visas are valid for up to six years. If a worker on an H-1B visa wants to stay permanently, he has to apply for a permanent resident visa. These visas are in very short supply and can take more than a decade to obtain. While they wait for permanent residence, some H-1B workers get paid below-market salaries and endure many other hardships.
But we should reexamine how important skilled immigrants are to scientific innovation, higher education, and economic growth.
Immigrants patent at double the native rate, and that this is entirely accounted for by their disproportionately holding degrees in science and engineering. These data imply that a one percentage point rise in the share of immigrant college graduates in the population increases patents per capita by 6%. This could be an overestimate of immigration's benefit if immigrant inventors crowd out native inventors, or an underestimate if immigrants have positive spill-overs on inventors. Using a 1940-2000 state panel, we show that immigrants do have positive spill-overs, resulting in an increase in patents per capita of 9-18% in response to a one percentage point increase in immigrant college graduates.
One way to look at educated immigrants on H1-B visas is to view them as human capital subsidized by their home countries.
Most of the workers who immigrate to the U.S. each year have at least a high school diploma, while about a third have a college education or better. Since it costs, on average, roughly $100,000 to provide 12 years of elementary and secondary education, and another $100,000 to pay for a college degree, immigrants are providing a subsidy of at least $50 billion annually to the U.S. economy in free human capital. Alternatively, valuing their contribution to the economy by the total wages they expect to earn during their lifetime would put the value of the human capital of new immigrants closer to $200 billion per year. Either the low or high estimate would make the current account deficit look smaller.
Immigrants provide crucial skilled labor for not only the science and technology industries, but also the military and intelligence agencies.
[A] new effort, for the first time since the Vietnam War, will open the armed forces to temporary immigrants if they have lived in the United States for a minimum of two years, according to military officials familiar with the plan.
Recruiters expect that the temporary immigrants will have more education, foreign language skills and professional expertise than many Americans who enlist, helping the military to fill shortages in medical care, language interpretation and field intelligence analysis.
…
The American Army finds itself in a lot of different countries where cultural awareness is critical,” said Lt. Gen. Benjamin C. Freakley, the top recruitment officer for the Army, which is leading the pilot program. “There will be some very talented folks in this group.
The New York Times profiled a high school in a northern Virginia school district that has received an influx of immigrants in the last decade. Bringing non-native English speakers up to a functional level of English and integrating a diverse student body presents many challenges.
The map alongside the article, showing the number of immigrants from different countries during different decades is worth checking out.
Most groups are highly concentrated on the coasts, save for northern and central Europeans who congregated in the Midwest during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
The big debate today is whether the current wave of immigrants from Mexico is different from previous immigrations. Some of the reasons that cause the greatest alarm are the fact that Mexican immigrants are the only group originating from a neighboring county (Canadian immigration has always been minimal) and the only one with a historical claim to U.S. territory. The map also clearly shows that the number (and geographical reach) of Mexican immigrants far surpasses any previous group of immigrants.
[UPDATE] Another article on America's immigration policy and how it is hurting high-tech companies that want to hire the best talent.
The limit [of H-1B visas] was raised twice as the technology sector boomed, to 115,000 in 1999 and to 195,000 in 2001. But those temporary increases were not renewed for 2004, and the number of H-1B visas reverted to 65,000. (There are an additional 20,000 H1-B’s for people with graduate degrees from American universities.)
Since 2004, there has been a growing gap between the number of H-1B visas sought and those granted, through a lottery. In 2008, companies made 163,000 applications for the 65,000 slots. Google applied for 300 of them; 90 were denied.
...
Many innovators in Silicon Valley come from overseas; 42 percent of engineers with master’s degrees and 60 percent of those with engineering Ph.D.’s in the United States are foreign-born.
Foreigners also spur innovation by broadening understanding of consumers abroad. For instance, on the advice of Chinese-born workers, Google dotted its mobile maps for China with fast-food restaurants, which locals use as navigational landmarks.
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