Laowai Comics: Everyone is Leaving China

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*Editor’s Note:

We are hurtling towards winter in China, it’s starting to get cold in the northern fringes of the country, the smog isn’t quite blowing away as well anymore, and the airpocolypses are about ready to begin rolling in. Tis also the season for disgruntled expats to start building up their lists of reasons why they’re fed up with China — the grand finale of which will inevitably be released via an empathy seeking blog post about paying their dues and getting squat for it. They all start out a little like this:

I have been living in Beijing for nearly four years. . . I will continue to defend China, but the direction this country is going in is no longer a laughing matter, no longer a simple dinner conversation. What’s happening here is scary, and I am slightly scared to be writing about it. Gotta puke it out. . .

When Mark Kitto and Charlie Custer did this some years back it got attention, but now it’s become one of the compulsory requirements needed to earmark a period of time spent in China — kind of like going to the Great Wall, ordering a friend an unsolicited cooked canine in a restaurant, and going into a pink lighted hair salon and asking for a haircut. It’s the way all of our years in China will eventually fizzle out, an attention seeking blog post about the unrequited hardships we endured in a country that gave us a livelihood, a shot at opportunity, and a never ending procession of intrigues, surprises, and experiences will be our final bow. We all know we will go out this way, but for now, those of us who stay on in China only have this to say:

“Can I have your rice maker?”

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