''Haigui'' () is a
Chinese language
Chinese ( or ) is a group of languages spoken natively by the ethnic Han Chinese majority and List of ethnic groups in China, many minority ethnic groups in China, as well as by various communities of the Chinese diaspora. Approximately 1.39& ...
slang
A slang is a vocabulary (words, phrases, and linguistic usages) of an informal register, common in everyday conversation but avoided in formal writing and speech. It also often refers to the language exclusively used by the members of pa ...
term for Chinese nationals who have returned to
mainland China
"Mainland China", also referred to as "the Chinese mainland", is a Geopolitics, geopolitical term defined as the territory under direct administration of the People's Republic of China (PRC) in the aftermath of the Chinese Civil War. In addit ...
after having studied abroad.
The term is a pun on the
homophonic
Homophony and Homophonic are from the Greek language, Greek ὁμόφωνος (''homóphōnos''), literally 'same sounding,' from ὁμός (''homós''), "same" and φωνή (''phōnē''), "sound". It may refer to:
*Homophones − words with the s ...
''hǎiguī'' () meaning "
sea turtle
Sea turtles (superfamily Chelonioidea), sometimes called marine turtles, are reptiles of the order Testudines and of the suborder Cryptodira. The seven existing species of sea turtles are the flatback, green, hawksbill, leatherback, loggerh ...
".
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. Possible causes of this reversal include the rising quality of Chinese education institutions and the high
salary
A salary is a form of periodic payment from an employer to an employee, which may be specified in an employment contract. It is contrasted with piece wages, where each job, hour or other unit is paid separately, rather than on a periodic basis.
...
demands of haigui.
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
The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...
.
Motivations
Some haigui have returned to China due to the
late-2000s recession
The Great Recession was a period of market decline in economies around the world that occurred from late 2007 to mid-2009. in the U.S. and
Europe
Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...
.
According to
Chinese government
The government of the People's Republic of China is based on a system of people's congress within the parameters of a Unitary state, unitary communist state, in which the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) enacts its policies through people's ...
statistics in 2019, 86.3% of the 6.5 million Chinese people who have gone abroad to study in the past 40 years have returned.
As
MIT Sloan School of Management
The MIT Sloan School of Management (branded as MIT Sloan) is the business school of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a private university in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
MIT Sloan offers bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degree progra ...
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.
Etymology and history
The word is a
pun
A pun, also known as a paronomasia in the context of linguistics, is a form of word play that exploits multiple meanings of a term, or of similar-sounding words, for an intended humorous or rhetorical effect. These ambiguities can arise from t ...
, as ''hai'' means "ocean" and ''gui'' is a
homophone
A homophone () is a word that is pronounced the same as another word but differs in meaning or in spelling. The two words may be spelled the same, for example ''rose'' (flower) and ''rose'' (past tense of "rise"), or spelled differently, a ...
of ''gui'' meaning "to return". The name was first used by Ren Hong, a young man returning to China as a graduate of
Yale University
Yale University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Stat ...
seven years after leaving aboard a
tea
Tea is an aromatic beverage prepared by pouring hot or boiling water over cured or fresh leaves of '' Camellia sinensis'', an evergreen shrub native to East Asia which probably originated in the borderlands of south-western China and nor ...
freighter from
Guangzhou
Guangzhou, Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Canton or Kwangchow, is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Guangdong Provinces of China, province in South China, southern China. Located on the Pearl River about nor ...
to the
United States
The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...
.
Notable haigui
*
Sun Yat-Sen
Sun Yat-senUsually known as Sun Zhongshan () in Chinese; also known by Names of Sun Yat-sen, several other names. (; 12 November 186612 March 1925) was a Chinese physician, revolutionary, statesman, and political philosopher who founded the Republ ...
, first president of the
Republic of China
Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia. The main geography of Taiwan, island of Taiwan, also known as ''Formosa'', lies between the East China Sea, East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocea ...
*
Zhou Enlai
Zhou Enlai ( zh, s=周恩来, p=Zhōu Ēnlái, w=Chou1 Ên1-lai2; 5 March 1898 – 8 January 1976) was a Chinese statesman, diplomat, and revolutionary who served as the first Premier of the People's Republic of China from September 1954 unti ...
, first premier and foreign minister of the
People's Republic of China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...
*
Tang Xianhu, badminton player and coach
*
Deng Xiaoping
Deng Xiaoping also Romanization of Chinese, romanised as Teng Hsiao-p'ing; born Xiansheng (). (22 August 190419 February 1997) was a Chinese statesman, revolutionary, and political theorist who served as the paramount leader of the People's R ...
,
elder of the
Chinese Communist Party
The Communist Party of China (CPC), also translated into English as Chinese Communist Party (CCP), is the founding and One-party state, sole ruling party of the People's Republic of China (PRC). Founded in 1921, the CCP emerged victorious in the ...
*
Qian Xuesen
Qian Xuesen ( zh, s=钱学森; December 11, 1911October 31, 2009; also spelled as Tsien Hsue-shen) was a Chinese aerospace engineer and cyberneticist who made significant contributions to the field of aerodynamics and established engineering ...
, father of the Chinese rocket program
See also
*
Gireogi appa
A () is a South Korean term that refers to a man who works in Korea while his wife and children stay in an English-speaking country such as the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia or New Zealand for the sake of their children' ...
*
Kikokushijo
and are Japanese-language terms referring to the children of Japanese expatriates who take part of their education outside Japan. The former term is used to refer to children who have returned to Japan, while the latter refers to such children w ...
*
Daigou
Daigou () is an emerging form of cross-border trade in which an individual or a syndicated group of exporters outside China purchases commodities (mainly luxury goods but sometimes also groceries such as infant formulas) for customers in China.
...
References
{{Reflist, 2
External links
Schott's Vocabulary: HaiguiNew York Times
''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
January 12, 2009
Neologisms
Economy of China
Great Recession
Recruitment