Chinese Workers Abandon Silicon Valley for Riches Back Home

> My China-born colleagues seem to in general be more conservative, and Silicon Valley has become violently intolerant of anyone that holds an opinion different than the predominant view

What exactly does this mean? Are they evangelical baptists, libertarians, reactionaries, nationalist, homophobic, misogynist, racist, anti-atheist, pro family-values, pro corporation, skeptical of global warming, pro fossil fuel energy, war hawks, or something else altogether? It's really quite difficult to interpret your statement as anything meaningful without clarification, and there are ten thousand different ways to be "conservative".

And to be clear, "conservative" is anything but a dirty word or something I'm trying to critique here--just a context-sensitive one. It could be a pejorative or a value.

Otherwise it doesn't add much to the conversation--it is itself a reactionary statement.

Conservative socially does not have much to do with religion. Chinese will often claim they “aren’t as open as” westerners for some definition of open. Most of my Chinese gay colleagues in china were in the closet, there was just no way you could be open about that, even in an american company. Otherwise, the cultures are very different, which can’t be discounted. Oddly enough, many things in china would be considered too open for Americans, so it isn’t clear cut at all.

It's not like most of those will be tolerated any better in China. I suspect it's more that some of their opposites are more accepted here, and if that offends you then you're more likely to leave.

The primary non-monetary reasons I hear for Chinese nationals to come to the US is for the air pollution and their children's schools. It's not like cost of housing is much lower in Shanghai, Beijing, Shenzhen, HK...

Right, making it doubly confusing to use a culturaly bound one dimensional adjective to describe differences between people of wholly different cultures. It’s not a meaningful comparison.

Edit: I suppose my confusion is incorrect...?

Sounds like they aren’t conservative enough for the US!

I'll try to take a stab at this. I'm Chinese-American and I feel the Chinese folks who come to the US to study or to work have very different mindsets.

I have a friend who is dating a lot in NYC and he told me he notice most of his Chinese-American friends are liberal as in we fight for freedom of expression and social justice. Whereas the girls he met who are newly from China are conservative and support Trump because they are pro-business and more money-driven.

Based on his observation and my own experience I would agree. Most new Chinese visitors or immigrants don't value social rights and freedom of speech. And to be a bit critical, I feel they are so used to having the government or authority telling them what to do that they are comfortable with authoritarian rules and don't understand the importance of having independent thoughts and diversity.

> Conservative socially does not have much to do with religion

It does in the US. Absolutely does.

> What exactly does this mean? Are they evangelical baptists, libertarians, reactionaries, nationalist, homophobic, misogynist, racist,

Wonder if there is a nicer way to ask the person to clarify their point without listing all those things.

Or do you honestly think there is a large number Chinese evangelical baptists who come to SF and work in tech companies.

>> My China-born colleagues seem to in general be more conservative, and Silicon Valley has become violently intolerant of anyone that holds an opinion different than the predominant view

> What exactly does this mean? Are they evangelical baptists, libertarians, reactionaries, nationalist, homophobic, misogynist, racist, anti-atheist, pro family-values, pro corporation, skeptical of global warming, pro fossil fuel energy, war hawks, or something else altogether?

That's a long list.

    baptist: no
    libertarians: definitely no
    reactionaries: depends on what you mean
    nationalist: yes, beyond your wildest dreams... btw fuck Japan
    homophobic: no, disapproval of homosexuality is likely, but not phobia
    misogynist: rarely, but routinely sexist
    racist: yes... especially vs Japanese
    anti-atheist: of course not
    pro family-values: absolutely
    pro corporation: yes
    skeptical of global warming: no
    pro fossil fuel energy: not on the radar
    war hawks: only if rightful and historical claims are not respected
    something else altogether: many, many things

Silicon Valley is strident to the point where it's annoying, even for people invested in entirely orthogonal worldviews.

It does in certain regions. In others, not so much.

Before I continue I would like to preface that personally I am a classic Norwegian social liberal that fight for people right to speak and a sense of justice, regardless of which group you belong to (e.g. social justice warriors, conservatives, liberals, flat earthers etc).

I do not find it useful at all to try to list out the views that are not tolerated as there is no way that you can reduce a huge population groups opinions into neat categories, people can hold both conservative and liberal opinions as well as everything outside those at the same time, and I believe doing so would distract from the real conversation which is the intolerance.

There are also plenty of leaked examples of how people with other opinions are treated to even shock me that generally agree with the predominant view, and I encourage you to look it up and form your own opinion. I also think people like Tim Ferris and several in the YC leadership amongst others have made salient points on how Silicon Valley has become intolerant of anything but the predominant views, and how it is hurting our competitiveness.

With the risk of being down-voted, I would like to ask does "fight for freedom of expression and social rights" really has to be the polar opposite of "pro-business and more money-driven"? To me, those are answers/attitudes towards two potentially orthogonal questions. To put it another way, is a "pro-business and more money-driven" a good predictor on a person's opinion on "freedom of expression and social rights" and vise-versa? Since there are so many potentially orthogonal questions to ask, it seems to me it tells more about those who ask those questions (which questions are more important to them), than those who answered.

> Or do you honestly think there is a large number Chinese evangelical baptists who come to SF and work in tech companies.

There is a quite sizable evangelical Chinese immigrant community in the Bay Area. Whether they work in tech, I don't know.

I cannot speak for the original poster, but my observation in some of these circles:

Lots of bundling the "others" into one bin/box. If a liberal expresses opposition for DACA, then it is automatically assumed that they are a right leaning person, and several related policy attributes are attached to the person.

Often, simply being undecided and questioning a particular stance leads to the same effect.

I've seen it on HN: A general lack of tolerance for certain viewpoints, with perfectly valid questions resulting in accusations. Unfortunately, more often than I would like. Easy examples would be a lot of threads that involve Trump.

BTW, case in point is this other comment:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16127579

Just because the two are well correlated in the US does not make them the same, and if you come from abroad, you will find many things taken as a given in the US (like the conflation of conservatism with religion, or right leaning tendencies with conservatism) that will confuse you. I suspect their experience in SV has been that when they try to bring it up, they get labeled.

I'm guessing Europe has a lot of radically right wing folks who like their national health care just fine. Imagine they move to a very Republican part of the US, and ask "what's wrong with universal healthcare?" and then are labeled as being liberal. Now do that in reverse in SV.

If you've lived a lot in the rest of the world, you will probably easily find lots of examples where liberals are not acting according to their principles, and the same for conservatives. So when someone tries to be what they think is a "real" liberal (which may imply adopting stances that the "other" side is in favor of), then they'll feel unwelcome.

Some day I'll probably write a more thought-out piece on this. The above is just rambling.

I think your comment and painting people as "reactionary" proves the point of the parent.

> I feel they are so used to having the government or authority telling them what to do that they are comfortable with authoritarian rules and don't understand the importance of having independent thoughts and diversity.

In my opinion you can't value independent thoughts and diversity, without being inclusive of different opinions and setting the same standard of discourse regardless of which viewpoint you are furthering. Because if not who choose what the correct viewpoints are? And are you sure your viewpoints will always stay popular?

Although what we value is very different I am not so sure that we are all that different at this point from China, except for this being enforced by a state sanctioned monopoly on violence in China while its now too often mob-rule violence in the US that I am not confident would be upheld in the courts.

Fighting for what you perceive as justice in a democracy is rarely furthered well by authoritarian means, and should be done through the democratic process and you should respect that the state has a monopoly on violence. Freedom is a fragile thing, and democracy is not the default state of society.

see https://areomagazine.com/2017/03/27/how-french-intellectuals...

i.e. they arguee that social justice become the new status quo holder and that become the new conservative point of view, which can't change for better or worse. the old conservatives want change for the worse. I personally think they have a point in this article (about preventing changes for better too) but the reasoning is dumb and falls in the same paradoxal fallacies as the ones they acuse the old-liberals-turned-conservatives.

Do keep in mind, of course, that not all Chinese people are the same.

I don't think they value social rights that much less than we do (although it seems local Chinese people seem to tolerate government power more than we do). People who come over from China, especially to work in Silicon Valley, tend to be the more open-minded of the bunch, and people I've talked to from China have told me that they're aware of those "problems" but don't view them too negatively as it's just the cost of running an efficient country.

They do, however, feel very disillusioned with a lot of the current progressive environment. It's less to do with not agreeing with those values, and more to do with disapproval with how we in the West express our dissatisfaction - we're quick to take to the streets, protest on social media, and believe anything our echo chambers tell us, hence where the Chinese insult "white left" comes from, referring to people who are overly emotional and sensitive about things.

China and Asia, in general, has a very conservative "keep it to yourself, fix it yourself" attitude when it comes to problems, which can be very toxic. But this current NA attitude of blaming others and expecting the world to change to accommodate you is incredibly frustrating to the coworkers I talked to, and with the current political environment magnifying this problem to incredible levels some of those same coworkers felt that if they didn't participate in these politics (gender, race, religion, etc) then it would reflect negatively on them, but their opinions differed enough (ie only 2 genders) that they would be crucified if they said anything. It wasn't surprising to hear from some of them that they considered going back to China sometimes.

The comment you're dismissing gave a reason talented Chinese colleagues take themselves elsewhere. (I don't have firsthand knowledge of how true it is.) If true, it's worth knowing, whether or not it's a "reactionary statement".

> China and Asia, in general, has a very conservative "keep it to yourself, fix it yourself" attitude when it comes to problems, which can be very toxic.

I think the attitude is more 'don't stand out' and 'don't be different' attitude. 'keep to yourself' is a behavior resulted from this attitude.

Most native Chinese folks value group experience over individual experience.

Thanks for the clarification.

> Do keep in mind, of course, that not all Chinese people are the same.

That's a snarky comment.

Obviously not everyone raised in a given country holds identical views, but there are real differences in cultures and beliefs between countries (especially those with centrally managed media).

Well, not all the terms I used were negative :) my point was, I have zero context giving me an ability to consider what a conservative chinese foreign national would look like, value wise.

For instance, I consider myself a technological conservative—I tend to not believe in the inherent good of technological investment. I would not describe myself as “a conservative”. It is a word generally only useful in a one dimensional context.

Eh, so I would like to add I lean towards social democracy. And I admit I have a bias view. When I think of pro-business, I think of corporations valuing profit over people, of government valuing control over personal freedom, and of people who assume money can solve all their problems.

It is reactionary because it is not meaningful; it is just a reaction.

Reactionary is a label thrown at people who do not agree with a particular progressive idea and might have different ideas. People don't generally describe themselves as reactionary; instead it's a way for people to denigrate a particular opinion.

Most people who consider themselves "pro-business" prefer less government control vs personal freedom.

Although there is a certain culture of political correctness in Norway too, I find that people are far more civil and respectful when encountering people with different political beliefs

Okay, so it does in the US, generally speaking, but doesn't have much to do with why Chinese immigrants tend to hold certain views that are considered conservative in America as the vast majority of recent ones are not at all religious in the first place.

In Norway I have not observed a propensity to seek extrajudicial measures or ostracisation of people that hold opinions different from the predominant view. Have you seen that?

> Reactionary is a label thrown at people who do not agree with a particular progressive idea and might have different ideas

I disagree; it's a word for people who disagree with an idea because it is different, often because it's an easy way to manipulate people or gain favor. One could call the Amish reactionary, but you'd be ignoring an entire philosophy, culture, and context.

This is not true. Would you consider James Damore conservative? His views certainly weren't religious.

The rise of "social justice" means that anyone who doesn't agree with those tactics is now conservative. I think you'll find many atheists in those ranks. In fact, their community was one of the first battle grounds in the current culture war.

Until the US embraces some kind of preferential voting system allowing more than two political parties, yes, it pretty much has to be.

It has a lot to do with religion but individually does not depend on it; plenty of religious people (including in the religous groups dominated by social conservatives) are not social conservatives, and plenty of social conservatives are not religious. That said, there are strong correlations...

I'm not sure if you're being sarcastic or alluding to some other country; just saying I generally find Norwegians much more civil toward people whose views they disagree with.

Amongst the H1B visa workers? That would be surprising.

It's an interesting topic actually, (and off-topic here) how likely are immigrant communities to switch their traditional religious affiliation after moving to US. In know a Korean family who became Catholic, and often wonder if it is a common thing and if there are patterns.

Can you please not post political flamebait to Hacker News? It takes threads on destructive tangents, and the comment you're replying to was obviously more substantive than this.

How's that a snarky comment?

It's a gentle reminder to all who read things like this that Chinese people are individuals too, and don't all subscribe to the same beliefs. The notion that the modern Chinese person is racist towards the Japanese is pretty laughable, for example.

A "gentle reminder" that a 1.4 billion group of people are not identical is about as condescending as it gets.

> The notion that the modern Chinese person is racist towards the Japanese is pretty laughable, for example.

It's hard to see how anyone with any familiarity with China who does not themselves hate Japanese would laugh at this.

Not only is there widespread hatred of Japan (including Japanese people whose parents weren't even born during WWII), but it's fanned by the government[1]. Anti-Japanese specials run on TV during national week and over 200 anti-Japanese films are produced in China every year. In some cases anti-Japanese films are censored for being too moderate. A well known example is the 2000s war film, Devils at the Doorstep, which was nationally banned for including a scene where one Japanese soldier was friendly with Chinese villagers.

Despite your implication that modern China suffers less from this, surveys have shown that anti-Japanese sentiment in China is higher among the current generation than among the Chinese who lived through the war occupation. [2]

Personal anecdote is the weakest form of argument in this kind of debate, but I'll also add that while living on the mainland, I've personally received criticism simply for having befriended several Japanese students during my uni days.

1) https://journals.sub.uni-hamburg.de/giga/jcca/article/view/1...

2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Japanese_sentiment_in_Chi...

What's really weird about Devils at the Doorstep being banned - SPOILERS eventually the Japanese killed everyone in that village and the Japanese soldiers were not punished because of the ending of World War 2.

Exactly :)

Of course, I wasn't dismissing anyone! Read more carefully. And, they were kind enough to actually clarify, and I appreciated their comment.

Not every discussion about political words must be political itself.