www射-国产免费一级-欧美福利-亚洲成人福利-成人一区在线观看-亚州成人

USEUROPEAFRICAASIA 中文雙語Fran?ais
Lifestyle
Home / Lifestyle / News

When the brave were the first

By Thomas Hale | China Daily | Updated: 2012-12-31 13:41

When the brave were the first

Frank Hossack has seen China change dramatically in the last two decades.

Today, many foreigners traveling to China have their route mapped out for them.

Well into the present day, its economy attracts individuals with well-defined career aspirations and a clear image in their minds of the role China can play for them.

Earlier voyagers, however, were drawn largely by curiosity, and, in the absence of an obviously marked-out path, adapted to a culture wildly different from that of today.

One such individual is Frank Hossack, who arrived in Shanghai in 1993 to introduce Chinese pop music to Western radio.

When the brave were the first

 Go East, young man

At this point, remarkably, only 800 foreigners lived in the city. This figure now stands at around 210,000. For Hossack, the landscape of early '90s China was in many ways incomparable with the situation today. International schools and hospitals, and places to buy Western food, were incredibly thin on the ground.

The foreign population, he says, was mostly a spread of teachers and engineers but also "consisted of senior members of large companies, who were attempting to build a presence in the Chinese market".

Other than a large diplomatic presence, which has remained relatively unchanged, the situation was much the same in Beijing. Outside of these cities, foreigners were rarely encountered.

Beyond the demographic of businessmen responding to an increasingly open Chinese market, there was also a large number of people who, in Hossack's words, embodied a kind of culture of "self-imposed exile" - foreigners who had left their home countries to escape something or someone.

The exotic notion of the Far East, and especially China, as a refuge for those fleeing something at home has a long heritage.

In the 1920s and '30s, around 20,000 Russians - many of them Jewish - fled the newly established Soviet Union and settled in Shanghai.

Today, this narrative still informs many perceptions about foreigners in China, even if most are now chasing success rather than fleeing difficulties.

Hossack currently runs a company based in Jiangsu's provincial capital Nanjing called Sinoconnexion, which provides a number of media and publishing services and has also provided several internships to students from the United Kingdom and Australia.

When the brave were the first

The east is red hot?

Crucially, and in sharp contrast to the increasingly economic motivations driving foreigners in 2012, people arriving in the early '90s, in Hossack's experience, were "not looking for money, but adventure".

"I don't think that's the case anymore," he says. "It certainly was when I arrived."

Where the vast majority of Hossack's acquaintances in '90s Shanghai were "extremely colorful, eccentric individuals" - products, perhaps, of the long narrative of "self-imposed exile" that has contributed to the city's status and identity - the foreigners he meets today are different.

By and large, he points out, when it comes to foreigners in China, they are "increasingly normal people".

As China becomes an ever-more-popular destination for career-builders, the job market is becoming more competitive.

This trend has a major impact on visas, and entering China is not getting easier.

But the adventurous streak that drove foreigners East may be in the process of being pacified by economic transitions.

Today, perfectly normal people flock to China to pursue a career, which is supplemented by but not necessarily driven by adventure. But Hossack says that in the early '90s: "You wouldn't have survived if you weren't adventurous."

thomas.hale@21stcentury.com.cn

Copyright 1995 - . All rights reserved. The content (including but not limited to text, photo, multimedia information, etc) published in this site belongs to China Daily Information Co (CDIC). Without written authorization from CDIC, such content shall not be republished or used in any form. Note: Browsers with 1024*768 or higher resolution are suggested for this site.
License for publishing multimedia online 0108263

Registration Number: 130349
FOLLOW US
主站蜘蛛池模板: 久久aaa| 欧美高清正版在线 | 日本一区三区二区三区四区 | 男人天堂网在线观看 | www久久| 偷拍自拍第一页 | 国产成人午夜性a一级毛片 国产成人午夜性视频影院 国产成人香蕉久久久久 | 久久国产精品亚洲 | 久久网站免费观看 | www.九九| 欧美白人猛性xxxxx交69 | 久久院线 | 免费的a级毛片 | www.av视频在线观看 | 国产亚洲精品91 | 久久精品视频99精品视频150 | 日韩99精品 | 国产精品久久久久久久福利院 | 亚洲不卡在线 | 国产高清成人mv在线观看 | 亚洲日本va午夜中文字幕 | 日韩精品一区二区三区 在线观看 | 国产精品一级片 | 亚洲人成a在线网站 | 爱久久精品国产 | 日本三区视频 | 毛片网站视频 | 91国在线视频| 久一在线 | 亚洲精品不卡视频 | 欧美综合自拍亚洲综合百度 | 国产vs久久| 日本韩国一区二区三区 | 欧美一级特黄乱妇高清视频 | 91免费视| 久久青草国产手机看片福利盒子 | 国产一区二区免费在线观看 | 一本色道久久88加勒比—综合 | 亚洲美女在线观看亚洲美女 | 福利视频在线午夜老司机 | 大伊香蕉精品视频在线 |