China's nouveau riche land on US campuses

The Straits Times 12 September 2015

Earlier generations of Chinese overseas students were perceived as frugal, diligent and idealistic, but this is no longer the case, writes Yi-Ling Liu for The Straits Times.

For many Chinese studying in the US in 2015, time spent stateside is but a stepping stone to a Chinese dream – one that's for sale. Thanks to the immense purchasing power of the growing Chinese middle class, the image of the humble and diligent Chinese student of the 1980s has been replaced by that of the entitled ‘fuerdai’, or the second-generation scion in a wealthy family, who studies abroad in order to return home to run the family business.

The fuerdai pay full tuition, often study finance, business management or economics, and spend their time clustered together. At the University of California, Los Angeles or UCLA, rising senior Jing Li said that many Chinese students have "formed a sub-campus", capable of living a life apart from their classmates. Their relative isolation isn't hard to understand, given that Chinese students are part of a massive influx that dwarfs anything that has come before.
Full report on The Straits Times site

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