Are you referring specifically to the architect sort? My dad has been an expat for the last few years (business) and he says that they're a dying breed.

alex_ian, are you looking for serious responses? I get a glimmer of an idea you have about people's selfish tendencies in your post, but I think serious responses would need a more complete stement from you. And I'm genuinily curious if you are in the mood to teach.

Sorry, that's "statement" not stement.

You live well but not like a millionaire.

It is hard to walk by people who sort trash all day long behind a hotel on your way to work every day when you realize you make more in an hour than they make in a day (or week).

Are you going to make a difference? No. You will have some fun designing crazy shit that you would not have the opportunity to work on in the states - but everything is still run by the developers, not the architects.

I am definitely looking for serious responses, sorry that i was a bit short at first, plus i was under the impression of "whoo, show pics of your flat" from another thread. I am in China right now, hosted by a university, in a city with very few foreigners. My impression of shanghai was not very good.
I am specifically wondering about the attitudes behind the "Expat" phenomenon, namely people coming to this country with the aim to have a higher living standard than in their home country, surely above the average of the chinese people, and closing themselves up in expat-communities (Be it compounds or Youth Hostels).
I for myself would decide not to work here for profit before some serious changes take place, mainly in rights to address problems...

I'll bump this not because I have anything serious to add but i hopes that others will.

My only experience with ex-pat work is second hand and old. In 1992 or so I had a friend come visit me in Portland who was working in China, I don't recall where. He and his wife were working in an architecture firm and bringing home about $1,000 a week. I was struggling in an internship barely making that in a month!

But his goals were very clear-cut: they were there for three years, saving as much money as possible so they could take another year off to travel and apply to grad school. The adventure quality of it was definitely part of the draw, but really it was an economic decision: they could bank a lot of money quickly, then spend it pursuing further education.

I recall they said they drank a bottle of wine every night, in part because they needed to numb themselves from the hideous human circumstances they saw around them sometimes - though from what they described it didn't sound terribly more hideous than what you might have seen in NYC in the mid-80s.

And I think they were interested in exposing themselves to the culture in ways that perhaps straight-up business-minded entrepreneurs were not. Architecture is a study of culture, after all.

alex,
some of us (like me) are here by chance, not choice.
yes, for half the salary a young architect makes in the states a young expat can live very well here, but that is not why many of us are here (in China, that is), rather than what helps keep us here just a bit longer far from our family and friends back home.
True, China has a long way to go. But instead of criticizing something you do not know much about, try to understand that in the Chinese strive for progress foreign firms and western professionals play a key role, even if in the process we are forced to design hideous shopping malls and gated communities.

alex,

I speak for non-architect expats, since my dad was one and I had to move to Beijing while I was a sophmore in highschool (in 1997). I remember we went apartment hunting, and they either had A) plush suburbian mansions or B) foreigner compounds. I'm not saying we weren't allowed to stay in areas that were deemed "local", and I'm pretty sure Beijing has changed *a lot* since 1997- but the real estate people had this "you're on your own behavior" (maybe because they want our money?). I remember there was this community where all foreign embassy people were required to live in. I'm pretty sure if we pressed to live in local areas they would've let us, but there was this weird pressure to live with all the foreigners. (I think they did this so they can charge us super high rents for being foriengers)

Was the pay good? Of course. Did my dad like it? I am not sure, but it allowed my family to save up money for me to go to college. My family's intention was not to live grand and large, but to save up and then move on in 2 years. We were comfortable, but I didn't have a personal chauffer like some of the kids at school did.

Like JosephB said- China has a long way to go. It's getting there though! Quickly too.

What serious changes/problems are you referring to? If you hit me up with an email, I can give you my opinion.

"...in the Chinese strive for progress foreign firms and western professionals play a key role, even if in the process we are forced to design hideous shopping malls and gated communities...."

But doesn´t this attract exactly the wrong kind of architects, those who would not contribute to progress and only repeat the architectural mistakes of the fifties and sixties in the west?
What is your experience with the chinese "we understood the west" and "we´re smarter anyways" attitude?
mlertpac, of course i´m also safely stored in a "foreigner´s block" luckily there are so few foreigners at this university that it doesn´t really matter.

there are people living off trash in indianapolis...

the idea that one is going to go somewhere with their architecture ie the right kind of architect is rather absurd, given that making the right kind of architecture would be the right kind of architecture in an oppressive regime that is responsible for the jailing and torture and execution of scores of political and religious dissidents.

vade retro,
i´m not perfectly sure what you´re getting at, but you used some good keywords there...
I´m not out to judge right or wrong architecture, but i surely consider some ways wrong, such as shortsighted, unsustainable, uncritical, ...
watching "new socialist countryside" prop on cctv...

Wow. I don't know where to start.

First, the best comment in this thread is "instead of criticizing something you do not know much about, try to understand".

Second, I had many more reasons to get drunk in Texas or Ohio than I have here. Yes, someone lives off my thrash. That someone makes about 50 bucks a month, plus another $100 that he gets from recycling it. It's not a lot, for sure, but it is a lot more than he made as a rice farmer before he moved to the city. And his children will go to school, and most likely to university. To help him out in the way I can, I sort my thrash, quite unheard of here.

When I came here, I was not very experienced. Not at all actually. I also came here on my own, without an expat deal. As a result my salary was about $800 monthly. A lot more than the person making a living from recycling my thrash, but about the same as local architects my age. Now I make more, but still less than I would back home, or in London for that matter.

There are expats here that make a lot of money for sure. But to be honest, most of them are based in New York. They live there, getting lots of money and publicity for doing horrible masterplans in a city they have never seen long enough to understand it, and if things go wrong they can blame the "terrible Chinese clients". No, the people that are here do make a difference, and take responsibility for what they are doing. I am making a difference, so are most of us.

I can certainly understand a feeling that things are not right in China. A lot of people are getting rich at the expense of others. Some of them are expats, but the vast majority are locals. The architecture being done here is quite often a horrible mistake that the cities will have to pay for during many years to come. But things are changing. As someone said, expats of the old type are a dying breed. Now many come here with other intentions than money, often young architects. Some are starting their own practices, like A00 or SURV or ZEROLAB, and they are quite successful! Sure, they don't get the big commissions (yet), but they are building something from the bottom up, starting from interiors and private houses to build a reputation and to gain experience. Others are working in Chinese firms or foreign firms that have relocated here rather than 'established a local office', investing enormous amounts into building relationships with clients and government that will help change things in the long run. Many teach at the universities, giving lectures and tutoring, putting their hearts and passion into the quite hard mission of teaching critical thinking and conceptualism.

Finally, on the political aspect. I don't want to get into this discussion right now, but it is not quite as easy as things are expressed in western media sometimes. What this country has gone through, with the cultural revolution as the worst but not only part, is hard for anyone to imagine, especially without having been here. Nothing can be seen or discussed without that context. What I have realized here is that things are far better here than I thought before coming, and the country and people need all the help they can get. I don't think this is the time for judgements. I might be naive, but I DO think we can help.

olympics, anyone?

i have this idea of china as being mass-steered into one direction or another, being state communism or hardcore capitalism. change happens from the base, not from the top, and i am not sure how the society will be able to evolve. how could they last so long under such an oppressive governmne?

i agree with casiel

there is a big divide in terms of understanding between the US and China. People in China think people in America are ignorant rich folks. People here think China is a communistic state. in some cases, it still is but in many cases, china may be more free than you think.

yes there are still human rights problems in china but it is not very prevalent. it is mainly because the national government has very limited control over local governments as to what they can do (though i think the chinese govt can do better). corruption still exists but china is changing so fast right now things will not be like this from now. china's new generation of young people will change china's direction. the old regime is soon going to be be replaced (and already is) by new people who were born after the cultural revolution.

the government is oppresive only to some certain extent. they are afraid that some crazy ideology will cause people to defy the government (which is why they control churches, oppress falun gong). but as china becomes more globalistic, the people will win. 30,000 chinese cops won't stop millions of internet users from looking at things the govt doesn't want. etc.

wow sorry for running away from the thread topic haha.

cassiel- well said! I agree with you that as much as expats make a lot of money, there are extremely wealthy locals (I am talking about local factory owners who have $1000 usd meals at the four seasons without blinking, while their factory workers are making that amount in the span of 10 months).

I do think it's possible to help, it starts in education. I really freaked out once when we drove through Dongguan (the industrial part of Guangzhou), and you'd see factory kids (middle school age) out on a break. It's sad, but some families are so poor they send their kids away to earn money to take care of elders. This is a part of Chinese culture that's really different. Family is very important. If you're 40, making your own living already, and still living with your parents- that is not shameful. Usually the eldest son/daughter cares for the parents, because there is no such thing as social security money in this part of the world. I believe if you're affiliated with the government they do take care of you, but it's a culture that even the revolution failed to destroy.

So while it's hard to get everyone to go to school, it's happening slowly (but surely). It's not going to happen right away, with such a huge country. So I guess if you do want to help, you can start volunteering to teach for schools in more remote areas where transportation makes it hard for children to go to school.. and try to convince they need to go to school everyday.

I do have hope (and faith) that they're leaning more towards the capitalist end. What used to be a country that only wore green and blue actually has hip venues like warehouses converted into art galleries, fashion, flims,.. it's coming along. A lot of locals have family members that managed to get away during the revolution- a lot have turned back to help.

I remember living in Beijing in 1996, and then going to visit in 2002. I could hardly remember the space around me. There were new streets, new airports, new everything. All these buildings just popped out of nowhere.

mlertpac-if i'm correct, a lot of students do go to school. not all, but a lot of those who want to help their parents. most parents sacrifice their way of life so that their children can score realyl well on the examinations so that they can go to some university and make a good living. then the students can support their families back home and be able to start a family with a better income. i think one major problem is the lack of education that persists throughout the countryside. unlike america, not everyone has the money to go to school. i know this from direct experience because i've taught english in the countryside in jiangsu province before. but you're right, we need to provide more educational opportunities for those who don't have an education.

does anyone know whether housing problems exist in china? is homelessness a big problem in china? i know in every city there are always those who don't have a place to live but is there a major problem in china where there are people in china who dont' have enough money to afford housing? i think this is a worthy goal for foreign architects to pursue in china, providing low income housing for those who can't afford to rent an apartment along with good design that identifies itself with chinese culture.

one major problem i find in china is the lack of identity found in china's modern architecture right now. it's in a very chaotic state right now where foreign architects infuse the landscape with foreign ideas that don't relate to chinese culture at all. this is why i really admire yung ho chang's work out there along with some other chinese architects, who maintain chinese culture but at the same time allow for modern growth.

I partially disagree with you on the aspect of identity, sashimi. I do agree to admire FCJZ though, they do a great job.

Too often though it is stated that foreign architects come to China to do their own experimentation and projects, without care of what Chinese culture is. But sadly, the Chinese themselves often do not know what it is. They are seeking a cultural identity that they have lost, and replace it with an image that is very shallow. "Chinese Culture" as a grand narrative has so strong implications and meanings that it tends to override the understanding of local culture and site context. Chinese culture is not one grand story, it is thousands of little stories, just like European culture or American culture.

Foreign ideas have as big a place in Chinese architecture as they do in any other, the world is global, culture is global. I believe many foreign architects do a very good job in looking for how that can manifest itself in architecture. We should not make the divide between 'foreign architects' and 'Chinese architects', there are good and bad ones of both kinds. What is clear to me is that the good kinds of both need to work together.
I do not know about the housing problems, as you asked it. I think you see it through western eyes too much maybe. Our housing shortage somewhat comes from the fact that we have a minimum standard for what a house is. I believe that no such standard really exists here. A house is defined as anything where one lives, be it a mansion or a skyscraper or a metal shed. So there are certainly housing problems, but it all depends on what you define as a house. Everyone can find a home for their budget, but what kind of home do you get if your budget i $10 a month?

The migrant workers that come to the big cities by the millions are certainly some of the ones that are worst off, and if someone has nowhere to live, I would believe it is them. Now that would be a nice great problem to tackle for a thesis!

sashimi- thanks for correcting me. I got a little carried away when I said everybody. Like you said, the real problem lies within the countryside. There's a lot of it and there are still a lot of farmers (thanks to the revolution).

It is going to be interesting to see how successfull the "go west" strategy will be (the Chinese government is now starting to pump enormous sums of money into the countryside). Earlier, the same has been done with the big cites, like the delevopment of Pudong i Shanghai in the 90s.

In the worst case scenario will it take the money away from the 'spinning wheel' of the big cities and cause the economy to crash? Or will it actually succeed in bringing the economic development to the countryside?

Will the future bring quality development, or just ramapant and unequally distributed wealth?

And that's even without getting into the environmental challenges...

back to what expats architects are doing to make a difference- there really needs to be more in the way of collaboration to exchange ideas. In shanghai the f.a.r. group is doing a great job getting other architects- local and expat- together to with their past competition (www.far-shanghai.net) and their pecha kucha night (www.sinocities.net) coming up on moganshan rd. SURV had Thom Mayne give a lecture and BAU has more local architects give presentations every once in a while. There used to be an architecture meetup group, but it lost much chance of growing when the website www.meetup.com was blocked (or maybe its just shutdown everywhere?) in china. Anyone know of any other events or any other groups who are addressing problems or exchanging ideas in shanghai?

china en vivo, woke up this morning by toxic smells of paint all over the area... not sure how long i will take the daily health risks...
I know there are way more foreign architects around, and i´d like to know the ways how you deal with chinese realities...

Beijing 2008 now reminds me a lot of Berlin 1936, with hardly paid workers polishing the place, and the whole world faithfully believing that the totalitarian regime will miraculously open up some day...