Haigui ( simplified Chinese: 海归; traditional Chinese: 海 歸; pinyin: hǎiguī) is a Chinese language slang term for Chinese nationals who have returned to mainland China after having studied abroad. [1] The term is a pun on the homophonic hǎiguī ( simplified Chinese: 海龟; traditional Chinese: 海 龜) meaning " sea turtle".
Graduates from foreign universities used to be highly sought out by employers in China. A 2017 study found that haigui are now less likely to receive a callback from potential employers compared to Chinese students with a Chinese degree. [2] Possible causes of this reversal include the rising quality of Chinese education institutions and the high salary demands of haigui. [3]
Over 800,000 recently graduated haigui returned to China in 2020, an increase of 70% from 2019, largely due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. [4]
Some haigui have returned to China due to the late-2000s recession in the U.S. and Europe. [5] According to PRC 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. [5] As MIT Sloan School of Management professor Yasheng Huang, an American, 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. [6]
The word is a pun, as hai 海 means "ocean" and gui 龟; 龜 is a homophone of gui 归; 歸 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. [7]
Haigui ( simplified Chinese: 海归; traditional Chinese: 海 歸; pinyin: hǎiguī) is a Chinese language slang term for Chinese nationals who have returned to mainland China after having studied abroad. [1] The term is a pun on the homophonic hǎiguī ( simplified Chinese: 海龟; traditional Chinese: 海 龜) meaning " sea turtle".
Graduates from foreign universities used to be highly sought out by employers in China. A 2017 study found that haigui are now less likely to receive a callback from potential employers compared to Chinese students with a Chinese degree. [2] Possible causes of this reversal include the rising quality of Chinese education institutions and the high salary demands of haigui. [3]
Over 800,000 recently graduated haigui returned to China in 2020, an increase of 70% from 2019, largely due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. [4]
Some haigui have returned to China due to the late-2000s recession in the U.S. and Europe. [5] According to PRC 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. [5] As MIT Sloan School of Management professor Yasheng Huang, an American, 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. [6]
The word is a pun, as hai 海 means "ocean" and gui 龟; 龜 is a homophone of gui 归; 歸 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. [7]