Chinese Workers Abandon Silicon Valley for Riches Back Home

I am a Norwegian in Silicon Valley that have spent most of my career with Chinese colleagues, both in academia and industry, and my anecdata seem to indicate that my highly talented China-born colleagues are sadly leaving because;

- China has great opportunities for riches

- Getting a US VISA is hard and painful when you come from a populous country like China or India

- 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

Only the first reason is somewhat objective, while the two others cause stress in their daily life as their ability to provide can at any time be removed due to what is perceived as arbitrary reasons. Everything being equal, many of them have told me they would prefer the less crowded Silicon Valley.

> 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.

> Conservative socially does not have much to do with religion

It does in the US. Absolutely does.