<p class="ql-block">July 18, 8:00AM</p><p class="ql-block">The morning heat of the dog days of summer is already sweltering. I haven't taken an early morning walk in quite some time, and strolling through the streets of Daxing today, my mind is a tangle of thoughts. Tomorrow, I will set off on my journey back to the United States. Over the past four months of living in Beijing, walking from the blossoming spring into the unbearably hot midsummer, my heart has been filled with ambivalence and hesitation.</p><p class="ql-block">When I first arrived in Beijing with a work agreement, no fixed duration was set for my stay. Torn between worrying about my injured wife across the ocean and my reluctance to leave behind the unique charm of this city, I have constantly second-guessed whether I will return here for the long term after my vacation in the US. I was originally scheduled to fly back on August 1st, but due to my wife's foot injury, I am leaving ten days early. I can only hope her foot is mostly healed by late August so that I can return to Beijing as initially planned and await the city's most breathtaking season—its golden autumn.</p><p class="ql-block">During these four months of sojourning, I have accumulated countless impressions, though they remain scattered and mostly unrecorded. Undeniably, modern Beijing exudes progress at every turn. Looking at China as a whole, the rapid urban development of the past two decades has resulted in highly advanced infrastructure, such as high-speed railways and road networks. This dazzling "hard power" is evident to the entire world.</p> <p class="ql-block">Yet, alongside witnessing this booming development, I have also developed many complex feelings. To my eyes, the current society operates almost as a closed-loop system, one that isn't particularly friendly to outsiders. Daily life—clothing, food, housing, and transportation—harbors hidden inconveniences. Take transportation, for instance: without a company-provided vehicle, daily commuting requires constantly hailing cabs, which is quite exhausting. In contrast, in the US, as long as you have legal status, renting a car short-term or long-term, or even buying one, is incredibly easy. Such convenience is hard to come by here; where else would you encounter a situation where you can buy a car but still be unable to get a license plate?</p><p class="ql-block">While watching the World Cup recently, I ran into two female Egyptian medical students at a hotel bar. They had been studying in Henan for a year. To my astonishment, their classes were taught entirely in English, and they could barely speak any Chinese. This is quite thought-provoking. If you put yourself in their shoes, the contrast is stark: if Chinese students went to study in the US for a whole year and were taught entirely in Chinese without needing to learn English, it would completely defeat the purpose of studying abroad—which is to broaden one's horizons and learn the local language and culture. This incident also made me realize something deeply. Even as a native-born Chinese person returning home, who never considers himself an outsider, I can tangibly feel how restricted foreign friends are living here. Furthermore, every mobile app is stuffed with advertisements; if you aren't careful, you are instantly hijacked by pop-ups and marketing, which is incredibly frustrating.</p> <p class="ql-block">It is currently the season when college entrance exam (GaoKao) results are released, making another contrast deeply felt. Chinese students are plunged into fierce competition from a very young age; the "involution" (hyper-competition) begins almost in kindergarten. The relentless succession of exams—from elementary to middle school, high school, and finally college—along with the scramble for school-district housing and endless tutoring classes, leaves both students and parents physically and mentally exhausted. Society at large implicitly glorifies this competition. Whenever a student is admitted to a prestigious university, media outlets and schools promote it heavily, further intensifying this hyper-competitive atmosphere.</p><p class="ql-block">The educational philosophy in the US is completely different. High-quality schools are keenly aware of the psychological damage that excessive competition can inflict on children. They do not publicly announce students' academic rankings. Promotional materials only provide generalized data on how many students went to major universities, strictly protecting individual names. Test scores across all grades are kept entirely confidential to protect children's self-esteem and prevent toxic comparisons. Before high school, American children have a very relaxed curriculum that emphasizes happy growth. The clash between these two drastically different educational environments has been a major shock to me.</p><p class="ql-block">On a daily basis, people here constantly throw comparative questions at me: How powerfully has China developed? When will our economy surpass that of the US? Is American society chaotic? Has everyone there been robbed? Since the environment is so unstable, why do you stay there?</p><p class="ql-block">Questions like these are endless. It is clear that most people here lack an objective, comprehensive understanding of American society. The people of both nations are trapped within their respective information silos, making it difficult to clearly see the reality of each other's lives.</p> <p class="ql-block">As the entire country focuses on development, various issues inevitably arise, the real estate bubble being one of them. The fervor of guaranteed profits in housing has faded; many people now hold depreciating properties that are difficult to offload. Having lived in the US for over thirty years, I have personally experienced two real estate bubbles. By comparison, the domestic housing frenzy was far crazier. After a bubble bursts in the US, the housing market usually rebounds and recovers alongside the stock market after several years or a decade of adjustment.</p><p class="ql-block">If we simply evaluate the pros and cons of daily life in both places: China offers a rich variety of food and a vibrant, bustling atmosphere; its city streets are brand-new and clean, with well-equipped parks. Much of America’s infrastructure, however, was built decades or even a century ago and is aging—take the century-old New York subway, for example. Directly comparing century-old facilities with newly built domestic urban infrastructure is inherently unfair.</p><p class="ql-block">Regarding the economy, China's GDP growth rate has vastly outpaced that of the US for a long time. Even if the data is slightly inflated, current trends suggest its total economic volume may eventually surpass America's. However, the massive population base cannot be ignored. China's population is more than three times that of the US; when divided per capita, the development levels of the two are still in completely different worlds.</p><p class="ql-block">The differences in development philosophies can also be seen in the details of urban planning. When new districts are developed in the US, comprehensive planning ensures that residential areas do not feature identical houses; the varied architecture gives communities a sense of depth rather than monotony. In China, many large-scale high-rise residential complexes have highly uniform designs, which can look monotonous and oppressive when viewed en masse.</p><p class="ql-block">Public sports facilities show a similarly stark contrast. New residential developments in the US have strict regulations requiring public sports grounds, making various courts accessible everywhere for convenient daily exercise. China has a massive population, making public sports resources relatively scarce. Aside from jogging anywhere, playing ball sports usually requires going to specialized, paid venues, greatly reducing convenience.</p><p class="ql-block">Thinking deeply about it, one realizes there is no absolute superiority or inferiority between China and the US; each has its unique strengths. Even if China continues to develop and the US economy gradually slows in the future, these differences will not disappear. The two nations represent two completely different development paths and systems of human civilization. Comparing them purely on the basis of superiority is largely meaningless.</p><p class="ql-block">Because of this, deciding whether to settle in the US or remain in China over the next twenty or thirty years is not an either-or choice for me. I have lives I cannot part with in both places. Long-term commuting between the two, while offering unique experiences, is also accompanied by heavy challenges.</p><p class="ql-block">For now, I have a preliminary plan in mind: return to the US, spend a holiday with my family, and focus on caring for my wife as she recovers. If all goes smoothly, I will return to Beijing in late August, gather with the friends I've made here, and together, we will experience the crisp autumn air and the breathtaking autumn foliage of the capital.</p>