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Meng, a 34-year-old Chinese software engineer working in San Francisco, has been living apart from his family, who live in Dalian, a port city in eastern China, for more than three years.
In spite of the physical separation, he remains on very intimate terms with his wife and son. After work, he routinely logs into a chatroom to speak with his wife or listens to his son playing the piano over the telephone.
"We will continue this lifestyle for a while as I find it difficult to get a well-paid job in China, and my wife enjoys her job in Dalian," Meng said.
Families such as Meng's, separated for professional or economic reasons, are on the rise in China.
According to government statistics, a total of 210,000 Chinese went abroad during the 30-year period preceding 1979, which marked China's opening its doors to the outside world. In contrast, the year 2002 saw 16.6 million Chinese citizens going abroad for study, work and sightseeing, an increase of 36 percent over the previous year.
Families with members working abroad are increasingly common in China.
Mrs. Han, a university professor in Changchun, in northeast China's Jilin Province, was dispatched by her university to the Republic of Korea to teach Chinese a year ago. Her husband, also a university professor, stays home to take care of their six-year-old son. Although she regrets not being able to take good care of her husband and son, she is reluctant to give up her well-paid job.
To compensate for her absence, and due to her love for her husband and son, she returns to Changchun for every winter and summer vacation and has promised to return for good when her contract expires.
Nearly all the families surveyed said they plan to settle in China. Working abroad is merely an opportunity to make money, set up future projects or broaden their perspectives.
In this age of the Internet, the visual-telephone and other modern telecom facilities, husbands and wives can still communicate. It thus makes no difference that a husband and wife live in different cities within China or in other parts of the world.
Globalization has brought China closer to other nations, and the Chinese people have become more pragmatic, said Chinese economists.
(Xinhua News Agency February 17, 2003)
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