Some 'Sea Turtles' Find Foreign Degrees Don't Float in China

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Summarized by OS X

Some 'Sea Turtles' Find Foreign Degrees Don't Float in China
 Graduates return to find intense competition, low wages and a distaste  
for their Western attitude.


By John M. Glionna, Times Staff Writer


BEIJING — Kevin Wang was set to take the Chinese job market by storm.

Fluent in English and armed with an MBA from the University of  
Wisconsin, he returned here after four years abroad, confident that his  
foreign degree would pay instant dividends in China's booming economy.

...Over the last two decades, 600,000 mainland Chinese have left to  
study abroad and 160,000, lured by stories of quick employment and fast  
money, have returned in search of work, government officials estimate.

...But many have been so unsuccessful at finding work that they've  
earned a new nickname: seaweed, based on a double entendre that also  
means "returned from overseas and waiting for a job."

...Many sea turtles find that their homegrown counterparts have  
improved English skills, making them more competitive in an  
international marketplace where the ability to communicate with  
Westerners is always in demand.

Their absence also often costs them valuable insight into the  
ever-changing Chinese marketplace: New terminology, new industries and,  
in Beijing, new business communities have emerged just in the last two  
years.

The result: Although many of their fellow graduates who remain in the  
United States, Europe or Australia are getting comparatively hefty  
salaries, some sea turtles have taken jobs that pay less than $4,000 a  
year.

...Beijing headhunter Sunny Yang knows a returning student who became  
so frustrated that she lowered her salary requirement to just $1,200 a  
year — poverty wages, even in Beijing — just to get an offer.

...Andrew Tsui, Hong Kong managing director for Korn/Ferry  
International, an executive search company, said many sea turtles who  
land jobs make the mistake of trying to show up their domestic  
colleagues.

"They go off to these exotic places and learn all these new ideas, so  
when they return, they want to prove they're better trained and more  
competent than people who never left home," he said.

...Some sea turtles say they are not given credit for the expense and  
hardships they endured to get a foreign education.

...Universities in the United States and Europe teach students to  
become outspoken and aggressive as individuals, traits that are not  
well received in China, they say.

...After receiving his undergraduate degree in China, he spent two  
years at Leeds University in England earning master's degrees in  
information systems and human resource management.
<http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg- 
seaturtles8aug08.story>

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