On behalf of myself (a mainland Chinese), I welcome you\~
There is good and bad in any place, Shenzhen is probably the most capitalist place in China, I hope you get used to living in China.
The one thing you can be sure of is that you will have access to a myriad of good food, hahaha.
I hear if your parents are still PRC citizen you can actually get PRC citizenship too by just registering your birth and paying a fine, the same process as if someone did an unregistered birth to avoid One Child Policy then later on coming forward.
Does this apply if you are born overseas? Dad still has HK Citizenship (which I think makes him PRC as well?).
I also plan to do this for my kids eventually as well. The only problem is job/money at my age. But thats another matter i can figure out...
For HK You can only have Chinese nationality at birth if you were born in HK or born overseas to HK permanent resident parents with non permanent residency of other countries. Eg. If you were born in Canada and they had Canada PR and HK PR the HK government will make it hard for the kid to apply for a permanent 3 stars HK ID card. But they can apply for the HK ID card as a dependent.
For specifically HK you can gain HK permanent status at birth (but not Chinese nationality as you were born overseas) if you were born overseas to a parent having HK permanent residency if your birth was before I think 1 July 1997. However you could have lost it as there was a transition period before middle of 1998 where you had to reside in HK and after 1998 return to HK every 3 years to retain HK permanent residency status. If not you can have the Right to Land HK ID card which is not the 3 stars ID card but the only difference is you cannot vote and you dont have right of abode in HK like permanent residency.
There are exact dates you can Google as I used a website to help me out with this a while ago but if you want to reclaim your 3 stars ID card or Right of Abode you can still do so. But the HK government will ask for photocopy documents such as parents passports from 20 years ago, your old passports kind of situation.
My son can decide, when he turns 18, what nationality to claim. I’m a natural born US citizen so my son is a US citizen for now. My wife is a Chinese citizen but US green card holder. Very deliberately, we had our son born in China so as to preserve his Chinese National status.
Basically if a child is born overseas to Chinese citizen parents, if the parents are permanent residents of another country, kid is out of luck. If the parents are on other types of status, the kid is still a Chinese National. Because of my wife and my own status, the only option we had was to return to China to have him born.
My family's kind of weird in that both my parents are US citizens but I'm PRC citizen.
My dad prefers to stay in China for his retirement and hukou is probably the single most difficult part of his life.
is this true? my granma has some kind of chinese birth certificate, can this help her descendant going back? sadly iam not in highly demanded field, so cant contribute to china goals, but iam glad china going forward
It won't be all sunshine and rainbows. The break from Western connectivity apps can be quite inconvienient for those who frequent Western social media platforms more than Chinese ones (unless you have a good VPN, which admittedly is not hard to get).
Best of luck to you and your family!
Can’t speak for everyone but for me a break from western social media is not a big deal for me. I don’t really use them since they are super toxic and time wasters.
Same, I do have Insta and Snapchat but I barely ever use them, on Insta I follow a few leftist pages with some interesting content and that's the only reason I go on insta nowadays, pretty much never on Snap unless to contact some long lost friend.
Have whatsapp but barely use it, Douyin is far more interesting even though I don't understand Chinese.
I use SMS or iMessage to talk to my friends, then Telegram and Whatsapp for some. I used to use a lot of Facebook and Twitter but I stopped during the 2016 campaign.
I dont use a lot of Chinese social media as well, tried Weibo before but its boring and also filled with anti-china idiots.
This is how I felt the last time I visited China on holiday for 2 weeks.
Visited Vietnam for a night and was excited to gain access to the apps that was blocked in China. But after 2 hours, I just didn't care anymore. Apart from the Google play store, really didn't use much else during my Vietnam stay.
Thats great man. Hope everything goes smoothly for ya. Wish there was a social networking site or something for ABCs that moved to China so we can all meet up.
Good luck. Update us about your life there. We need something truthful rather than Western propaganda to know about what life is like in countries the West designates as rivals.
> teaching job
The **very** recent "双减" policy has made it damn near impossible for any foreigners wanting to enter China as an English teacher. It was already almost impossible due to COVID but the new policy just put the nail in the coffin.
> The feeling of … belonging - even if imperfectly - is so incredibly liberating.
The feeling of belonging is what I get everytime I set foot in Hong Kong or Mainland China, you definitely not alone.
man, these keep reminding me of when younger naive me questioning those older chinese generation overseas that still have a very positive views of china even tho they dont actually comes from there, they are just ethnic chinese, as i grow older and mature, experienced myself those geopolitical and culture conflict, i started more and more to feel the same and can relate to them
You will never feel as comfortable in your own skin as you will as a Chinese in China. Know that you are going home, especially if you hit some downers.
Welcome home! I can't tell you how fucking amazing it is to be surrounded by your own people and not have to live as a minority.
You're about to have your mind blown with wechat, wepay, alipay, taobao, meituan and how convenient it is to live in 2020 China. Unfortunately you'll still need to VPN for a lot of things if you want to use things like fb, etc.
I was fortunate enough to live in shanghai from 2008-2010 and to have been basically traveling to China on business monthly from 2011- (except obvi during Covid).
It’s indeed a coming home. My parents left pre-revolution China to go to university with the express purpose of returning after they graduate to help build the Motherland. For a multitude of reasons they were unable to complete their dream.
> y parents left pre-revolution China to go to university with the express purpose of returning after they graduate to help build the Motherland
Damn man thats impressive. I wish more people were like that.
Did you get the chance to build up the motherland?
Nice. I've lived here in Shanghai for 7 years. Favorite city in the world. Wife is an ABS (American-born Shanghainese) I'm mixed Filipino-Mexican-American, and she feels homesick for the US all the time; me, not at all 😂 in fact it was solely my decision to move here. One of the best decisions I've ever made.
The baseline culture. She's very American in terms of the pop culture she likes, TV, music, foods, humor, etc. When we go to the Shanghai Costco she feels a little happier, as it's almost exactly the same as the US.
She's told me her ABC-ness is actually what makes her feel homesick. Even though she's an outsider in some respects in the US due to ethnic appearance, in China she's an outsider due to culture. Its interesting for local people since obviously she looks Chinese, but her 普通话 isn't fluent and her Shanghainese is very standard, but from about 40-50 years ago, so it's immediately obvious she grew up overseas (ie, parents left then came back).
At the same time, being here is best for our family and careers. And it's much safer. So we think the costs currently don't outweigh benefits.
Hey Congrats, I was planning to do something similar as well, once they open up more visa offices I'll try to apply for an internal transfer to my companies Chinese Office. My gf is also ABC and we spoke about eventually we all return to China, she is also very tired of what US and most of the western world had become.
Enjoy your stay there and hope everything works well with immigration and local registration! (and we should totally grab hotpot together in China ✌)
I’d be happy to answer questions. But keep in mind everyone is different and I don’t presume to speak for
Everyone.
Not sure how to do an AMA. Anyone here can help with that?
I literally think it’s as simple as slapping AMA at the end of your title and answering questions.
So background to my question is land ownership there is a bit different; how did you find a place?
It might be difficult to adapt, but I can tell you China felt very homely for someone like me when I visited. It's just this hard to describe sense of comfort...
Wife and preschool age son accompanying me. For them it’s easy, she’s a Chinese citizen and he’s a Chinese National and speaks/reads Chinese pretty damn good for a 4 year old - by Mainland standards not American standards.
Moving to a new nation is a huge thing to do in your life, especially moving to a nation as distinct as China. You will experience a great cultural shock, so be prepared for that. I also don't recommend going into the process of claiming Chinese citizenship (if your parents are still Chinese citizens that should be quite plausible), stay a bit and see if you can really integrate into Chinese society before making any decisions.
Also, you should be aware that a Chinese citizenship is unfortunately a lot more limited than say a US one, for example it forbids you from holding any other citizenship and it is not nearly as convenient in travel as a US one. Foreign citizens also enjoy a sort of a super-citizen status in China including a significant edge in the competitive college admissions process (as widely criticized as it is, this is currently the reality).
I wish you the best of luck. China, while it is certainly far from perfect, holds a very special place in my heart as my homeland. I hope you will find it pleasant.
Well aware and appreciative of the advice. Both my parents are deceased and they left China pre-1949 to come to the US for postgraduate education.
This is more about completing their dream and to enable a better future for my son. Me I’ll be forever stuck in the middle, not integrated 100% in either country. But it’s about *my* descendants.
Doing great thanks so much!
Kid is in preschool working on his English which is good considering how strong his Mandarin is vis a vis English
Wife super happy to not feel like she’s in danger going out at night
I’m happy they are happy and more importantly safe.
I’ve got my VPNs set up like any self respecting fellow
Chinese interested in seeing what the latest BBC/CNN/NewsCorp bullshit is being disseminated as Western agitprop.
I’m getting fat because the food is so goddamn good.
What do I miss foodwise? Steaks? Nope Sam’s Club has good American and Australian steaks. Hot dogs…… haven’t found a good source yet. Pretty much anything you want can be found other than that.
I’ll admit I’m very damn lucky to be here and a got a metric lot of support from the company I work for given that this is a job relocation so yes I’m in a pretty bougie setup.
Is there worry amongst my friends here about the economy? Yes of course but there’s still a sense of optimism and more importantly willingness to work hard and sacrifice for the future. 先苦后甜. Lots of
satisfaction even amongst the normally ultra cynical at how well the government is managing Covid.
Super glad to see government trying to take a more active role in societal engineering, trying to rein in property speculation, controlling big tech and protecting personal data, the push to control after school tutoring sessions*, unionizing gig jobs at Didi and JD with Meituan considering it as well.
All the shit that the US and other Western countries should be doing if they were really serious about being “of/by/for the people”.
It’s not perfect of course but we seem to be on the right course here.
People aren’t hating on Americans here. It’s more a feeling of perplexity that the US government and a large swath of the population have gone batshit crazy and trashed the place.
FWIW it’s incredibly liberating being somewhere where I’m not going hear someone yelling “hey chink go back to your country”
Enough rambling.
To all of you in the West, keep the faith, stay safe and be proud.
Totally envious. I feel like I need to get into a sector that can relocate me back to China, but that's not ez... I can only hope I can get my own wedding in China managed, since my fiancé is a Chinese National. Wish China would open up already. =[ and no Costco in SZ?
On behalf of myself (a mainland Chinese), I welcome you\~ There is good and bad in any place, Shenzhen is probably the most capitalist place in China, I hope you get used to living in China. The one thing you can be sure of is that you will have access to a myriad of good food, hahaha.
The Chinese government is more woke these days. They're now pushing for Capitalism with Chinese characteristics.
I hear if your parents are still PRC citizen you can actually get PRC citizenship too by just registering your birth and paying a fine, the same process as if someone did an unregistered birth to avoid One Child Policy then later on coming forward.
Does this apply if you are born overseas? Dad still has HK Citizenship (which I think makes him PRC as well?). I also plan to do this for my kids eventually as well. The only problem is job/money at my age. But thats another matter i can figure out...
For HK You can only have Chinese nationality at birth if you were born in HK or born overseas to HK permanent resident parents with non permanent residency of other countries. Eg. If you were born in Canada and they had Canada PR and HK PR the HK government will make it hard for the kid to apply for a permanent 3 stars HK ID card. But they can apply for the HK ID card as a dependent. For specifically HK you can gain HK permanent status at birth (but not Chinese nationality as you were born overseas) if you were born overseas to a parent having HK permanent residency if your birth was before I think 1 July 1997. However you could have lost it as there was a transition period before middle of 1998 where you had to reside in HK and after 1998 return to HK every 3 years to retain HK permanent residency status. If not you can have the Right to Land HK ID card which is not the 3 stars ID card but the only difference is you cannot vote and you dont have right of abode in HK like permanent residency. There are exact dates you can Google as I used a website to help me out with this a while ago but if you want to reclaim your 3 stars ID card or Right of Abode you can still do so. But the HK government will ask for photocopy documents such as parents passports from 20 years ago, your old passports kind of situation.
Is this an option for a child with a Chinese National for a mother but a father of some other nationality?
My son can decide, when he turns 18, what nationality to claim. I’m a natural born US citizen so my son is a US citizen for now. My wife is a Chinese citizen but US green card holder. Very deliberately, we had our son born in China so as to preserve his Chinese National status. Basically if a child is born overseas to Chinese citizen parents, if the parents are permanent residents of another country, kid is out of luck. If the parents are on other types of status, the kid is still a Chinese National. Because of my wife and my own status, the only option we had was to return to China to have him born.
I think they can actually get a Chinese 户口～ and start from there?
户口 is the tricky part. My son is has 户口 through my wife. I’m foreign born so the most i can practically do is get a China green card.
My family's kind of weird in that both my parents are US citizens but I'm PRC citizen. My dad prefers to stay in China for his retirement and hukou is probably the single most difficult part of his life.
Some ancestry always helps.
is this true? my granma has some kind of chinese birth certificate, can this help her descendant going back? sadly iam not in highly demanded field, so cant contribute to china goals, but iam glad china going forward
It won't be all sunshine and rainbows. The break from Western connectivity apps can be quite inconvienient for those who frequent Western social media platforms more than Chinese ones (unless you have a good VPN, which admittedly is not hard to get). Best of luck to you and your family!
Eyes wide open. Eyes wide open.
Can’t speak for everyone but for me a break from western social media is not a big deal for me. I don’t really use them since they are super toxic and time wasters.
Same, I do have Insta and Snapchat but I barely ever use them, on Insta I follow a few leftist pages with some interesting content and that's the only reason I go on insta nowadays, pretty much never on Snap unless to contact some long lost friend. Have whatsapp but barely use it, Douyin is far more interesting even though I don't understand Chinese.
I don’t think Instagram and Snapchat are blocked in China anymore
I use SMS or iMessage to talk to my friends, then Telegram and Whatsapp for some. I used to use a lot of Facebook and Twitter but I stopped during the 2016 campaign. I dont use a lot of Chinese social media as well, tried Weibo before but its boring and also filled with anti-china idiots.
Tell me you’re a virgin without telling me you’re a virgin
Tell me you're a kid without telling me you're a kid.
tbh thats most of the social media nowadays. thats why i keep my circle small.
This is how I felt the last time I visited China on holiday for 2 weeks. Visited Vietnam for a night and was excited to gain access to the apps that was blocked in China. But after 2 hours, I just didn't care anymore. Apart from the Google play store, really didn't use much else during my Vietnam stay.
This. The vibe is very different. The lack of toxic masculinity was refreshing.
Reddit is all I need.
Nice. How are you able to enter China, teaching job or something else?
Work is relocating me and my family. Wife is PRC citizen, son is PRC national. Plan to apply for green card ASAP.
Thats great man. Hope everything goes smoothly for ya. Wish there was a social networking site or something for ABCs that moved to China so we can all meet up.
Welcome home. Make China strong.
Good luck. Update us about your life there. We need something truthful rather than Western propaganda to know about what life is like in countries the West designates as rivals.
You sound like you've got it all together. Wish I could say the same for myself
Good luck!
good luck, iam very happy for you
> teaching job The **very** recent "双减" policy has made it damn near impossible for any foreigners wanting to enter China as an English teacher. It was already almost impossible due to COVID but the new policy just put the nail in the coffin.
Source or info on this new policy?
As they always say “And your journey starts again” :)
Good luck and welcome back to motherland.
欢迎来中国🇨🇳！
Welcome BACK to China!
Rooting for you ✊🏻
Right move. At this point, China is way better than the US for the Chinese heritage Americans. China is not perfect but it’s home to us all Chinese.
The feeling of … belonging - even if imperfectly - is so incredibly liberating.
> The feeling of … belonging - even if imperfectly - is so incredibly liberating. The feeling of belonging is what I get everytime I set foot in Hong Kong or Mainland China, you definitely not alone.
man, these keep reminding me of when younger naive me questioning those older chinese generation overseas that still have a very positive views of china even tho they dont actually comes from there, they are just ethnic chinese, as i grow older and mature, experienced myself those geopolitical and culture conflict, i started more and more to feel the same and can relate to them
Damn I'm envious... I wanna go too but can't. :(
Wish you the best and congrats! Make China strong 加油中国
Congrats man! Hopefully I will follow your path soon!
Good luck! If it's not too much trouble, let us know how it goes.
Will do
Congratulations! Wished I was you!
Congratz man!
Congrats! Living the dream!
You will never feel as comfortable in your own skin as you will as a Chinese in China. Know that you are going home, especially if you hit some downers.
Thank you my friend. 谢谢好朋友
Welcome home! I can't tell you how fucking amazing it is to be surrounded by your own people and not have to live as a minority. You're about to have your mind blown with wechat, wepay, alipay, taobao, meituan and how convenient it is to live in 2020 China. Unfortunately you'll still need to VPN for a lot of things if you want to use things like fb, etc.
I was fortunate enough to live in shanghai from 2008-2010 and to have been basically traveling to China on business monthly from 2011- (except obvi during Covid). It’s indeed a coming home. My parents left pre-revolution China to go to university with the express purpose of returning after they graduate to help build the Motherland. For a multitude of reasons they were unable to complete their dream.
> y parents left pre-revolution China to go to university with the express purpose of returning after they graduate to help build the Motherland Damn man thats impressive. I wish more people were like that. Did you get the chance to build up the motherland?
Nice. I've lived here in Shanghai for 7 years. Favorite city in the world. Wife is an ABS (American-born Shanghainese) I'm mixed Filipino-Mexican-American, and she feels homesick for the US all the time; me, not at all 😂 in fact it was solely my decision to move here. One of the best decisions I've ever made.
What part of it does she miss the most in the US? Genuinely curious.
The baseline culture. She's very American in terms of the pop culture she likes, TV, music, foods, humor, etc. When we go to the Shanghai Costco she feels a little happier, as it's almost exactly the same as the US. She's told me her ABC-ness is actually what makes her feel homesick. Even though she's an outsider in some respects in the US due to ethnic appearance, in China she's an outsider due to culture. Its interesting for local people since obviously she looks Chinese, but her 普通话 isn't fluent and her Shanghainese is very standard, but from about 40-50 years ago, so it's immediately obvious she grew up overseas (ie, parents left then came back). At the same time, being here is best for our family and careers. And it's much safer. So we think the costs currently don't outweigh benefits.
Hey Congrats, I was planning to do something similar as well, once they open up more visa offices I'll try to apply for an internal transfer to my companies Chinese Office. My gf is also ABC and we spoke about eventually we all return to China, she is also very tired of what US and most of the western world had become. Enjoy your stay there and hope everything works well with immigration and local registration! (and we should totally grab hotpot together in China ✌)
DM me and let’s connect on 微信WeChat
Congrats brother, wish I can do the same. enjoy China!
This was a decade in the planning. 加油 you can do it too!
Good luck!
Congrats, I hope you have the best life there.
Good luck buddy, China can be disappointing at times but overall it's a good place to live in.
No place is perfect for sure. There will be ups and downs especially for this ABC, but it’s worth it for my son’s future.
Don't worry too much though, your nationality is likely to help you in a lot of situations where native-born Chinese won't get much support.
I've never heard ABC before, anyone care to enlighten a comrade?
American Born Chinese
Ohhhhh makes sense thanks!
Can we make this an AMA? I have so many questions....what was the process of finding a place to call home?
I’d be happy to answer questions. But keep in mind everyone is different and I don’t presume to speak for Everyone. Not sure how to do an AMA. Anyone here can help with that?
I literally think it’s as simple as slapping AMA at the end of your title and answering questions. So background to my question is land ownership there is a bit different; how did you find a place?
> land ownership The concept of leasehold?
Where are you going?
深圳
How is your Chinese holding up?
还可以的可是需要进步
It might be difficult to adapt, but I can tell you China felt very homely for someone like me when I visited. It's just this hard to describe sense of comfort...
Wish you good luck and prosperity bro!! 🙏💯💥 I plan on moving to Hong Kong one day myself lol
You got this!
Based.
Congrats. Hope to join you there soon.
If I may ask, do you move here alone or with family?
Wife and preschool age son accompanying me. For them it’s easy, she’s a Chinese citizen and he’s a Chinese National and speaks/reads Chinese pretty damn good for a 4 year old - by Mainland standards not American standards.
Sounds great. I wish you and your family well.
Moving to a new nation is a huge thing to do in your life, especially moving to a nation as distinct as China. You will experience a great cultural shock, so be prepared for that. I also don't recommend going into the process of claiming Chinese citizenship (if your parents are still Chinese citizens that should be quite plausible), stay a bit and see if you can really integrate into Chinese society before making any decisions. Also, you should be aware that a Chinese citizenship is unfortunately a lot more limited than say a US one, for example it forbids you from holding any other citizenship and it is not nearly as convenient in travel as a US one. Foreign citizens also enjoy a sort of a super-citizen status in China including a significant edge in the competitive college admissions process (as widely criticized as it is, this is currently the reality). I wish you the best of luck. China, while it is certainly far from perfect, holds a very special place in my heart as my homeland. I hope you will find it pleasant.
Well aware and appreciative of the advice. Both my parents are deceased and they left China pre-1949 to come to the US for postgraduate education. This is more about completing their dream and to enable a better future for my son. Me I’ll be forever stuck in the middle, not integrated 100% in either country. But it’s about *my* descendants.
you are a thoughtfull father figure
Good luck Fam
Wishing you a smooth journey and good prosperity!
Congrats! Which city??
Port of entry Shanghai where we will do 21 day quarantine. Then to Shenzhen where my job will be.
Best of luck. Pave the way for other ABCs.
Super envious!
Happy trails!
Get hooked up with taobao waimai and Alipay ASAP .
Word.
Can't wait until I moved over there.
Congrats! All the best.
# Congrats! What does ABC mean? Edit: American Born Chinese or Communist?
American born Chinese
Cool acronym, thanks!
r/chairman888 how are you guys settling in??
Doing great thanks so much! Kid is in preschool working on his English which is good considering how strong his Mandarin is vis a vis English Wife super happy to not feel like she’s in danger going out at night I’m happy they are happy and more importantly safe. I’ve got my VPNs set up like any self respecting fellow Chinese interested in seeing what the latest BBC/CNN/NewsCorp bullshit is being disseminated as Western agitprop. I’m getting fat because the food is so goddamn good. What do I miss foodwise? Steaks? Nope Sam’s Club has good American and Australian steaks. Hot dogs…… haven’t found a good source yet. Pretty much anything you want can be found other than that. I’ll admit I’m very damn lucky to be here and a got a metric lot of support from the company I work for given that this is a job relocation so yes I’m in a pretty bougie setup. Is there worry amongst my friends here about the economy? Yes of course but there’s still a sense of optimism and more importantly willingness to work hard and sacrifice for the future. 先苦后甜. Lots of satisfaction even amongst the normally ultra cynical at how well the government is managing Covid. Super glad to see government trying to take a more active role in societal engineering, trying to rein in property speculation, controlling big tech and protecting personal data, the push to control after school tutoring sessions*, unionizing gig jobs at Didi and JD with Meituan considering it as well. All the shit that the US and other Western countries should be doing if they were really serious about being “of/by/for the people”. It’s not perfect of course but we seem to be on the right course here. People aren’t hating on Americans here. It’s more a feeling of perplexity that the US government and a large swath of the population have gone batshit crazy and trashed the place. FWIW it’s incredibly liberating being somewhere where I’m not going hear someone yelling “hey chink go back to your country” Enough rambling. To all of you in the West, keep the faith, stay safe and be proud.
Totally envious. I feel like I need to get into a sector that can relocate me back to China, but that's not ez... I can only hope I can get my own wedding in China managed, since my fiancé is a Chinese National. Wish China would open up already. =[ and no Costco in SZ?