Haigui (Chinese: 海龟; pinyin: hǎiguī; literally "sea turtle") is a Chinese language slang term for Chinese people who have returned to mainland China after having studied abroad for several years, but the actual term is 海归.[1] These graduates from foreign universities are highly sought after in Chinese business, and thus can gain employment ahead of those who have graduated from Chinese universities.[1] However, the salary demands of haigui are considered unrealistically high by some employers.[2]
Contents |
Some haigui have returned to China due to the Late-2000s recession in the US and Europe.[3] According to Chinese government statistics, only a quarter of the 1.2 million Chinese people who have gone abroad to study in the past 30 years have returned.[3] As MIT Sloan School of Management professor Yasheng Huang states:
The Chinese educational system is terrible at producing workers with innovative skills for Chinese economy. It produces people who memorize existing facts rather than discovering new facts; who fish for existing solutions rather than coming up with new ones; who execute orders rather than inventing new ways of doing things. In other words they do not solve problems for their employers.[4]
The Westernized way of thinking of haigui may be a threat to the politics of the People's Republic of China, which curtail personal freedoms.[5]
The word is a pun, as hai 海 means "ocean" and gui 龟 is a homophone of gui 归 meaning "to return." The name was first used by Ren Hong, a young man returning to China as a graduate of Yale University seven years after leaving aboard a tea freighter from Guangzhou to the United States.[6]