I would like to go back but as we all know "sea turtles" aren't worth a damn these days. Things are very competitive in China and I don't think I am to fit to hold the sandals of your average Chinese Engineer (who actually got an education in China). All that I am useful for is going to be translating English documents to Chinese and that probably won't be necessary either in a couple of years once the English ed in China really picks up.
My parents are definitely heading back once they retire. As for me I think it really depends on whether I can find job opportunities back in China. I will go back for visit very often though.
Why do you want to underate yourself?
While theres no doubt that Chinas top engineers /scientists are very good, Imo the bulk of them aren't much better than their Western counterpart knowledge wise anyway.
A couple of yrs ago when some article came out claiming China was proudcing several hundred thousand engineers more than the the USA,a investigation by US institutions found that many of them were sub par to their US counterparts.
In fact Professor Gusong Liu and Shi Yigong finds Chinas education system hindering ideas and go on to suggest that Europe and American Scientists and Engineers will keep their competitive edge for some time yet.
While America and China argue over "indigenous innovation", China is taking a new, direct approach - encouraging highly-skilled Chinese-born expatriates to return home from overseas, bringing their ideas and expertise with them.
But some of these experts have found that China's top-down, centrally-controlled culture, so successful in delivering technologies such as high-speed rail, can prove an obstacle to innovation.
Top medical scientist Professor Guosong Liu, moved from America to take up a post at Tsinghua, China's leading scientific university.
There, the memory and intelligence-enhancing drugs he has been developing in the US and Germany are being tested on thousands of rats and mice.
Frightened students
For such meticulous, labour-intensive work, Professor Liu says, China's hierarchical culture is perfect.
But when it comes to innovation, "this culture inhibits the evolution of new ideas", he says.
Professor Liu finds his Chinese students to be very different from their American counterparts.
Where American students are active in the lecture hall and constantly challenge what they are told, Chinese respect for hierarchy and authority means that even at a top university such as Tsinghua, it is hard to generate creative debate, he explains.
"I always say there's no stupid question. Ask me something stupid - it's better than nothing", Professor Liu says.
"But they sit there. Maybe they're scared of me, but they're not challenging me".
Competitive edge
Another top scientific returnee, Professor Shi Yigong, shocked his colleagues at the top US university Princeton by turning down a $10m research grant to become Dean of Life Sciences at Tsinghua.
Professor Shi also believes China's hierarchical, top-down environment stifles creative debate.
"Every time you say something, you have to think whether what I said appeases my superior," he says.
"You begin to limit your innovation. I think you basically have less innovative factors in your mind".
Companies outside China may fear the break-neck speed at which China is adopting leading edge technologies.
But when it comes to new ideas and innovation, Professor Shi says, China's top-down, hierarchical culture means Europe and the US look likely to keep their competitive edge for some time yet.
