The New New World

It used to be that the catchcry was 'Go West, young man' - But in the 21st century, it is China that attracts the young and adventurous

They come for the adventure. They stay for the jobs. Foreigners coming to China for excitement and work is nothing new, but today's imported talent, like 28-year-old American Nick Wester, is younger and higher-caliber. Wester heeded the call of the former US national security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, who served under Jimmy Carter, who spoke at his university and told graduates to go East.

Wester was selected immediately after graduating from Brigham Young University to found Eleutian Technology's China branch.

For Wester, it was equal parts adventure and career that prompted the move.

"Three hundred years ago, if you wanted to do what was best for your family, you'd sell all you own and move to the USA.

"Today, the best thing you can do for your family is to sell all you own and move to China."

So, he did, moving to Dalian in Liaoning province, before settling in Beijing in 2010.

But Wester already had an inkling of what he was getting into and why it was a good move.

He had done an internship in 2008 with a US furniture company in a village of 200 people outside of Guangzhou "two hours from any McDonalds".

"That was my welcome to China experience," he says.

"It was the moment I realized China is the place to be. That was when I realized what the growth really was. If you go to Beijing or Shanghai, you feel like China is already there. But if you go to the places where the majority of the population lives, you see the growth that will take place."

The New World refrain articulated by Horace Greeley in 1865 - "Go West, young man; Go West, and grow up with the country" - persisted to later lure Europeans and people from the economically emerging world.

But the direction of human relocation is also starting to stream in reverse. "Go East, young man" may be the new mantra.

Roderick Leung's story demonstrates the U-turn. Leung, an American, has retraced the route his Chinese emigrant parents took to the United States in the opposite direction.

"We both probably had the same idea: this was going to be the next big thing and we wanted to be on the ground when it hit," he says.

But he says it was "100 percent adventure" that originally drew him to China.

The 27-year-old Microsoft project assistant says his motivations have changed in the two years he has lived in China. Now, they are about 70 percent career and 30 percent adventure.

Clinton Hendry, a Canadian who moved to Beijing when he was 23, puts it this way: "China's like the Wild West but on the other side of the world. China has become the destination for the new 'Lost Generation' to seek adventure."

He likens it to how early 20th-century Spain lured such global nomads as Ernest Hemingway, who popularized the Lost Generation concept.

Hendry says that while he taught at his university in Canada, his job in China was his first long-term contract.

"I had a lot of job experience back home, a lot of it in not particularly good jobs," he says, citing work as a barman and security guard in Canada.

"My goal was always to be a teacher," he says. "The idea that a university in China wanted to hire me was perfect."

Mark Henderson, from Britain, says he had planned to put his career on hold when he came to Beijing after his girlfriend landed a job as an attache to the EU delegation to China five years ago.

"However, I quickly realized the opportunities were rather better than I'd expected," Henderson says.

"Compared to my hometown of 185,000 people, the opportunities here are exceptional."

After two years as a university instructor, he became a EU-China Trade Project II project manager.

"I'm now happy to say I have got the best job I've ever had, and it perfectly fits my career trajectory thus far," he says.

But the 32-year-old says China has offered him more than a career and adventure.

"I came to China as a young man, with a girlfriend and no job.

"When the time comes, I will leave as a married father with some amazing experiences working and living here."

Human resources companies say coming to China is a strategic move for young Westerners.

"Over the past decade, China has become a portal of wealth and experience for Westerners looking to further their careers," Direct HR Shanghai's founding partner Michael Maeder says.

Christopher Russell, from Britain, who works as a writer and editor for ACN Worldwide in Shanghai, had trouble finding the kinds of jobs he wanted back home after graduating in 2009 with a bachelor's degree in philosophy from King's College, London.

"Straight after graduation, I worked a succession of jobs that weren't intellectually or creatively stimulating.

"There was little prospect of that changing, or that's how it felt," the 24-year-old says.

"Even if there had been no recession, though, I would have still come to China."

Paul Afshar left his position as a lobbyist in Britain to move to China to become managing director of Ijustwannabuy.com.

China offered new opportunities, Afshar, 28, says. He visited the country as a tourist in June 2011 and moved to Beijing the following month.

It was not a career move but also a quest for excitement.

"None of my friends were doing it," he says. "China seemed almost mystical and exotic, and I wanted to be the guy in the pub back home with something interesting to say."

But while most young Western professionals will boomerang home with tales to tell and with burnished CVs, some are here indefinitely.

"As long as the environment is right for me professionally and for my family, then I'll be in China," Wester says.

Contact the writers at

sundayed@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 01/04/2013 page19)