So I’ve read a lot lately (the past few months) about people who had immigrated to America that are emigrating back to their original home country. Most of the cases I’ve seen have been people going back to China and India.  I understand why someone might do this on the surface (these economies are ‘booming’), but when you actually think about it, personally I think it makes absolutely no sense.  Let’s explore….

Never having immigrated somewhere in my life, I can only speculate; but I think that there are two main reasons why someone leaves their homeland. The first being they’re in eminent danger (i.e. war, the KGB, civil unrest, drug lords, etc.) and the second is to find somewhere with more opportunities to flourish.  Now correct me if I’m wrong but over the past generation there hasn’t been so much more eminent danger in India or China than there is now, right? This leads me to believe that people leaving India and China to go to America because it was (is it still?) the land of opportunity and not because India and China were war torn countries.  So, people left their homeland seeking opportunities and now feel that opportunities are better back home and are therefore heading back. (Let me say one thing before we go any further here, I am Canadian and have disliked most of what the US has done for the better part of a decade now, so this piece is not an emotional response, it’s purely subjective… I hope) I do not know why these people are doing this, well I think I do – opportunity, but it seems like an incredibly big gamble. I have done a bit of reading/research on China as of late and here’s why I think moving to China could pose a really big problem.

China’s economy has continued to grow even when everyone else’s was shrinking. Yet China relies on the world to buy products from them. So the world is not buying products, yet the product maker is still making lots of money, strange no? Well it is. The agree upon reason for this that I could find is that the Chinese government, for reasons of communism and dictatorships, is forcing banks to lend money to businesses and citizens at very low rates.  This is essentially leaving the market open for very bad debt, not to different from the housing market in the states in the last few years. This inexpensive money is resulting in people investing other people’s money (in this case banks) into things they know nothing about, for example the Chinese Stock Market – which continues to rise strongly. But really how long can this cycle go on for? At what point in time will this all come falling down? If and when it falls, what’s going to happen to the people of China? Something tells me their government is not going to be as supportive as the American government was of its people (making sure companies don’t fail so people retain jobs – as much as they could that is).

With this potential bubble (see what Google has to say about it) not to mention Chinese living conditions, constant disease outbreaks, disastrous working conditions, lack of free speech and whatever other ridiculousness that people over there put up with on a constant bases. I can’t fathom why moving there with ones family (in the chance that China doesn’t catch on fire and blow up in the not too distant future) is even a consideration once you’re in America… or Canada.

Good Luck

At 1:20 of the trailer, Jude apologizes for his apparent apathy in the anti-war effort by claiming that while he wasn’t the man with a mega phone, he was communicating the message through his art. This didn’t seem to appease Lucy, who had just asserted that she would lie in front of a tank if it meant ending the war. My immediate thought was “would I lie in front of a tank if I needed to” to which I answered “if I had the right reason, I would”.

My ambiguity is not cowardly as much as it’s reflective of not being able to relate to the idea of things being that bad. While there are many things worth fighting for today, I have not personally encountered the type of things – tyranny, revolution, invasion, prejudice – which others have historically faced or are currently facing in spheres of the world far different than mine. All things considered, I have unconsciously enjoyed the sheltered life that my beautiful country has afforded me.

So having answered that, sort of, the next thing which fascinated me about that particular scene in the movie and the Chinese Government’s (henceforth ‘China’) actions was regarding communication. Lucy did not see that Jude’s ‘megaphone’ was his paintbrush and China sees liberal communication as a threat rather than an opportunity. Both are dead wrong.

Although China’s actions were not related to the recession, their decision speaks volumes about why their country will struggle and why we’re at a significant advantage. By inhibiting any forms of communication, China is retarding creativity. By creating barriers to communicate and collaborate, China is preventing itself from growing beyond the Manufacturing Age.  Let’s even disregard for the moment social media sites that were blocked like Youtube, Flickr and Twitter and concentrate on Hotmail. How can people be encouraged (let alone be enabled) to create if they can’t communicate?

Recently, many people have compared western governments’ intervention in the economy to that of China’s arguing that we are moving away from the era of free capitalism and towards a more China-like approach. Enter socialism fear-mongering.  I contest that it’s not socialism as much as its survival. Had our government not propped up certain industries and become the main instigator for new jobs, what would have happened to our economy? It was survival and the economic alignment with China, therefore, is temporary because our ability to be creative and debate freely will always ultimately differentiate our sphere from theirs.

When playing a part to kill the recession, remember the asset of free communication and all the things, like creativity, which are a by-product of this.  There are no limits to how we can communicate and it goes well beyond social media and the internet. For Jude it was painting and in this absolute must see video, it was dancing.  For Richard Florida and Kevin Stolarick, the Martin Prosperity Institute provides a well connected channel to evangelize the rise of the Creative Class. For Bruce Mau, the Institute without Boundaries is a brilliant way to communicate the power of design, creativity and people to a young audience.

The point is: there are no limits or boundaries to how you can communicate, create and collaborate. It sounds simple but depending where you live, it’s far from the case.