A Swede Returns to Silicon Valley from China
I'm also a Swede who has also lived in SF and Beijing.<p>The social problems of SF are certainly a bit of a shock coming from Scandinavia, and I can understand the author's excitement about Beijing. But there are a couple of deal-breakers about China that would make it very tough for me to consider moving back:<p>* You'll always be an expat. You can become an American both legally and culturally, but you cannot become Chinese in either sense. As someone who grew up surrounded by US culture, it makes more sense to live in the US than in China.<p>* Your business is always going to be at a disadvantage compared to 
native businesses. I don't have any first-hand experience of this, but from what I understand, government connections are necessary to get anything going, especially in hyper-competitive China.<p>* There's no public debate. The government has little oversight. The internet is censored. There are plenty of policies that I consider indefensible. The US has plenty of flaws too, but at least there is an open discussion about these flaws and a pathway towards fixing them.<p>SF can be a bit insular and self-absorbed at times, but I felt more at home there than I did in Beijing.