Would you let your junior college student study abroad in Shanghai or Hong Kong next year?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:HK and Shanghai are far safer than DC if you look at crime statistics. No gun violence, strong central control on crime. Not great places for freedom of expression of course, but it's an exciting time there for technological advance, and I wouldn't hesitate to send my kid there.

Agreed, far safer than the US.
Shanghai has more culture than Hong Kong.
Hong Kong is like Singapore - all they can tout is "world class" shopping.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Another American in HK (lived in Asia for decades).

- I would recommend your undergrad, provided they exercise good judgement generally (not impulsive) study in Shanghai;
- I would expect some friction at immigration (common for Americans these days given geopolitical, but nothing too crazy more like 10 minutes of questions);
- There are only couple of hundred USA students in China now (this is very sad and bad for the for future relations);
- China & USA have to find a way to coexist;
- This experience will be a valuable life experience & will differentiate;
- The risks: some kind of legal limbo if your kid is posting things political or commits a crime; some kind of encampment if there is WW3 (I view these as very low probability).

Shanghai is an amazing city (Beijing & Taipei also great options for language & Taipei would entail less 'friction').

I also share the sentiments about USA. My half-Asian is a freshman in a USA uni right now and has had one friend deported (not for political reasons) with little due process & his school had an active shooter lockdown (hoax). Off campus he has witnessed serious crime. Shanghai would be much safer day to day on the street & even politically it seems at the moment (don't hear of any foreign students getting deported from China, we hear about it & have first had knowledge of it in USA).

Op here. This is useful, thank you. Dc is not interested in politics so he wouldn’t be posting but he also knows he needs to even watch what he texts, follows online etc. He also knows no drugs (even before he arrives), careful with drinking etc. He’s adventurous in terms of wanting to experience other cultures, but he’s also a rule follower.

Taipei would be great if his focus was just language acquisition (he studied Taiwanese mandarin/learned how to write traditional for years) but unfortunately he’s also specific program focused and Shanghai is his top choice

Taipei is milquetoast compared to Shanghai.

[Anonymous]

I wouldn't encourage it right now, because you simply can't predict what Trump might do to Chinese nationals studying and working here in the US over the next few years. If he does something stupid, China has already shown (tariffs) that they have no problem retaliating in kind. Your child is an adult though, so hopefully they can make this decision for themself.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I wouldn't encourage it right now, because you simply can't predict what Trump might do to Chinese nationals studying and working here in the US over the next few years. If he does something stupid, China has already shown (tariffs) that they have no problem retaliating in kind. Your child is an adult though, so hopefully they can make this decision for themself.

Exactly, he’s an adult and should decide himself.

[Anonymous]

I have family in HK and would send a kid in a heartbeat knowing that my family could extricate my kid from almost any situation

Without that, I’d be on the fence. I’d be most concerned about my kid being involved in some sort of political protest or drug use. I don’t mean doing lines while throwing Molotov cocktails, i mean like getting high and/or being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I think Covid was very conveniently timed in HK and allowed for china to quietly deal with their protests while the world was focused elsewhere and i probably wouldn’t send MY college aged kid if i didn’t have family there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Another American in HK (lived in Asia for decades).

- I would recommend your undergrad, provided they exercise good judgement generally (not impulsive) study in Shanghai;
- I would expect some friction at immigration (common for Americans these days given geopolitical, but nothing too crazy more like 10 minutes of questions);
- There are only couple of hundred USA students in China now (this is very sad and bad for the for future relations);
- China & USA have to find a way to coexist;
- This experience will be a valuable life experience & will differentiate;
- The risks: some kind of legal limbo if your kid is posting things political or commits a crime; some kind of encampment if there is WW3 (I view these as very low probability).

Shanghai is an amazing city (Beijing & Taipei also great options for language & Taipei would entail less 'friction').

I also share the sentiments about USA. My half-Asian is a freshman in a USA uni right now and has had one friend deported (not for political reasons) with little due process & his school had an active shooter lockdown (hoax). Off campus he has witnessed serious crime. Shanghai would be much safer day to day on the street & even politically it seems at the moment (don't hear of any foreign students getting deported from China, we hear about it & have first had knowledge of it in USA).

Op here. This is useful, thank you. Dc is not interested in politics so he wouldn’t be posting but he also knows he needs to even watch what he texts, follows online etc. He also knows no drugs (even before he arrives), careful with drinking etc. He’s adventurous in terms of wanting to experience other cultures, but he’s also a rule follower.

Taipei would be great if his focus was just language acquisition (he studied Taiwanese mandarin/learned how to write traditional for years) but unfortunately he’s also specific program focused and Shanghai is his top choice

Taipei is milquetoast compared to Shanghai.

Op here. Lol, did my ds join the chat?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have family in HK and would send a kid in a heartbeat knowing that my family could extricate my kid from almost any situation

Without that, I’d be on the fence. I’d be most concerned about my kid being involved in some sort of political protest or drug use. I don’t mean doing lines while throwing Molotov cocktails, i mean like getting high and/or being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I think Covid was very conveniently timed in HK and allowed for china to quietly deal with their protests while the world was focused elsewhere and i probably wouldn’t send MY college aged kid if i didn’t have family there.

Op here. Why wouldn’t dc just not do those things? My dc would know not to do anything close to that while studying there.

[Anonymous]

Wow, lots of misinformation and worrywarts here. I'm a frequent China visitor, I even hold the rare 10-year multi-entry visa.

OP, he should go to Shanghai. It's "real" China and that is what he wants to experience. You mentioned it's a top school he's invited to, so I'm guessing it's SJTU. They have a lovely campus, and separate housing for foreign students. He'll be housed with a mix of students from around the world. The foreigner dorms in China have fewer rules in place than those for domestic students, so he may even be able to stay out past midnight (most dorms in China lock the doors at curfew time). Food-wise, he'll be fine. Food is always served piping hot so people know it wasn't just reheated and it's safe. The school will have multiple cafeterias, including a "Muslim" cafeteria where no pork is used. Sometimes they have slightly better food, but it's all pretty good.

As long as he avoids drugs and political protests, he's not going to get in any trouble. Chinese people aren't going to hate him either, though their opinions of his country may not be that favorable.. to an extent. Remember respect for USA is sort of engrained in Chinese culture -- the word for "America" is "meiguo" which literally translates to "beautiful country". Your biggest worry will be that he ends up with too many girlfriends!

If it's indeed SJTU, tell him to go to Found 158 on Julu Lu. It's walking distance, and is an old factory area converted into a bunch of smaller bars and restaurants. Good food and cocktail options.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have family in HK and would send a kid in a heartbeat knowing that my family could extricate my kid from almost any situation

Without that, I’d be on the fence. I’d be most concerned about my kid being involved in some sort of political protest or drug use. I don’t mean doing lines while throwing Molotov cocktails, i mean like getting high and/or being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I think Covid was very conveniently timed in HK and allowed for china to quietly deal with their protests while the world was focused elsewhere and i probably wouldn’t send MY college aged kid if i didn’t have family there.

Op here. Why wouldn’t dc just not do those things? My dc would know not to do anything close to that while studying there.

I think she meant that it wouldn’t be difficult to create a situation where your kid could be compromised if government officials deemed it necessary for whatever reason. That is not a high probability, however, not impossible.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wow, lots of misinformation and worrywarts here. I'm a frequent China visitor, I even hold the rare 10-year multi-entry visa.

OP, he should go to Shanghai. It's "real" China and that is what he wants to experience. You mentioned it's a top school he's invited to, so I'm guessing it's SJTU. They have a lovely campus, and separate housing for foreign students. He'll be housed with a mix of students from around the world. The foreigner dorms in China have fewer rules in place than those for domestic students, so he may even be able to stay out past midnight (most dorms in China lock the doors at curfew time). Food-wise, he'll be fine. Food is always served piping hot so people know it wasn't just reheated and it's safe. The school will have multiple cafeterias, including a "Muslim" cafeteria where no pork is used. Sometimes they have slightly better food, but it's all pretty good.

As long as he avoids drugs and political protests, he's not going to get in any trouble. Chinese people aren't going to hate him either, though their opinions of his country may not be that favorable.. to an extent. Remember respect for USA is sort of engrained in Chinese culture -- the word for "America" is "meiguo" which literally translates to "beautiful country". Your biggest worry will be that he ends up with too many girlfriends!

If it's indeed SJTU, tell him to go to Found 158 on Julu Lu. It's walking distance, and is an old factory area converted into a bunch of smaller bars and restaurants. Good food and cocktail options.

This is great info, thank you!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For Asia, Japan, Korea, or Singapore.

You do realize they don’t speak Mandarin there, right?

DP, and I live in Singapore. Mandarin is WIDELY spoken here: it's the second language, after English. I'm American and don't speak Mandarin, but I hear it every day. Outside, shopping, at hawker centers, overhearing my Singaporean colleagues chatting in Mandarin amongst themselves: everywhere. Even "Singlish", a common local vernacular, is English modeled on Mandarin sentence structures, with Mandarin words woven in.

If OP's child wanted to speak Mandarin in Singapore, he could easily do it every day with people who are native speakers, on all levels of society.

Oh, and the majority of Singaporeans do NOT sound like the characters on Crazy Rich Asians. I think that was source of your misunderstanding, PP. Crazy Rich Asians...is not real.

Singaporean Mandarin is quite different than standard, with different grammar and vocabulary. Like you wouldn’t call Singlish speakers “native” speakers of English.

Yes, I would, because the majority of Singlish speakers readily code-switch between standard English (for work, speaking to non-Singlish speakers, etc) and Singlish and Mandarin.

I don't speak Mandarin so can't comment for sure about the differences in that, but I do know that MANY people here were born/raised in China, so I would imagine their Mandarin is indeed "Chinese Mandarin." I'd be surprised if "Singapore Mandarin" is different because there is just so much interaction and exposure to "China Chinease" and their media, culture, and natives who moved here.

That’s an interesting question. I do know that many Chinese people speak Mandarin as a 2nd language and their local dialect as their first language, even among young people. This is IRL. Maybe the official story is different.

It would be interesting to learn of any language drift between Singapore Mandarin and the official Chinese Mandarin.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For Asia, Japan, Korea, or Singapore.

You do realize they don’t speak Mandarin there, right?

DP, and I live in Singapore. Mandarin is WIDELY spoken here: it's the second language, after English. I'm American and don't speak Mandarin, but I hear it every day. Outside, shopping, at hawker centers, overhearing my Singaporean colleagues chatting in Mandarin amongst themselves: everywhere. Even "Singlish", a common local vernacular, is English modeled on Mandarin sentence structures, with Mandarin words woven in.

If OP's child wanted to speak Mandarin in Singapore, he could easily do it every day with people who are native speakers, on all levels of society.

Oh, and the majority of Singaporeans do NOT sound like the characters on Crazy Rich Asians. I think that was source of your misunderstanding, PP. Crazy Rich Asians...is not real.

Singaporean Mandarin is quite different than standard, with different grammar and vocabulary. Like you wouldn’t call Singlish speakers “native” speakers of English.

Yes, I would, because the majority of Singlish speakers readily code-switch between standard English (for work, speaking to non-Singlish speakers, etc) and Singlish and Mandarin.

I don't speak Mandarin so can't comment for sure about the differences in that, but I do know that MANY people here were born/raised in China, so I would imagine their Mandarin is indeed "Chinese Mandarin." I'd be surprised if "Singapore Mandarin" is different because there is just so much interaction and exposure to "China Chinease" and their media, culture, and natives who moved here.

That’s an interesting question. I do know that many Chinese people speak Mandarin as a 2nd language and their local dialect as their first language, even among young people. This is IRL. Maybe the official story is different.

It would be interesting to learn of any language drift between Singapore Mandarin and the official Chinese Mandarin.

It’s rare for a native Singaporean to be fluent in Mandarin - it’s broken and different, not unlike Singlish. Chinese media or even culture isn’t as prevalent as you think - Korean dramas and pop are more popular, for example.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
That’s an interesting question. I do know that many Chinese people speak Mandarin as a 2nd language and their local dialect as their first language, even among young people. This is IRL. Maybe the official story is different.

It would be interesting to learn of any language drift between Singapore Mandarin and the official Chinese Mandarin.

It's a bit different. I speak official Mandarin (putonghua) and they didn't understand me too well in Singapore. If OP's son is looking for the best experience with Chinese, China is the place to do it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
We are Brazilian currently living in São Paulo and my son was accepted to Brown and NYU and also a couple of European schools. Given the recent US Gov view on foreign students, we have the same issues that you Americans do when worrying about your kids going abroad.

We adivsed him to forgo those offers and accept one of the UK/EU offers. He is now deciding between LSE, St Andrews and Bocconi.

Same here. We are from Turkey. My son had offers from UCLA, Chicago and Dartmouth. He always dreamt of studying in the US. Both his father and I studied in the US. But given the latest environment, he is turning down those schools for UCL in London.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Study in China, um no.

I am a huge supporter of study abroad but this is a terrible time for these locales.

It has been a terrible time to study in china for decades.

Unfortunately, Hong Kong was ruined when the British gave it back.

China, hell no.
Hong Kong, nope nope nope

Taiwan? Yes, definitely! Great modern country with a functioning modern democratic government. Just have a solid escape plan for when china invades.

Singapore? YES.

Japan? Definitely.