Migrating sea turtles and students alike

Migrating sea turtles and students alike
[ 2006-04-10 15:11 ]

Meli writes in from Sydney, Australia:
"The term "海歸" has been one of the most popular terms in the press recently. However, I couldn't find a translated version of it from on-line. Do you have any ideas?"

My comments:
I have no idea, other than that the term was almost certainly created to rhyme with an existing Chinese term of the same pronunciation -"海龜" (Hai Gui), the big migrating turtle of the sea. This is an apt coinage in that the Chinese believe a wanderer in his youth must return to the homeland when he's old, much in the same way leaves fall to the root of the tree, to nurture the home ground and thus to contribute to the future regeneration of their kind and kin.

Hai Gui （海歸）hence describes a Chinese student who went abroad for (further) education but has since returned to China, to help "build the motherland" (according to the official line) or in search of greater business opportunities, preferably with preferential treatment from the government in terms of start-up funding and tax breaks.

What's amazing about these migrating loggerheads (the turtles, I mean), is that they are genetically equipped to re-locate their birthplace many years after wandering in the oceans.

The green turtle born in the Ascension Island in the middle of the South Atlantic Ocean, for example, travels up to 2,300 kilometers to the Brazilian coast to forage and feed. They'd surely get lost, we reckon. Wrong. Every breeding season, they make all the way back to the 11-kilometer-wide island to mate and lay eggs.

And the leatherback turtles, sometimes found 4,800 kilometers away from their birth shores, have the longest migration of all sea turtles.

I'd love to prattle on about the turtles, but realize that I've been carried away farther than perhaps I'm supposed to - You might be interested only in the terms.

In that case, there's another term of the same ilk that you may find interesting. That is "海待" (Hai Dai).

It is pronounced the same as "海帶", the kelp - any of the various brownish, lean, long seaweeds floating in the seas, while steadfastly rooted to the seabed.

Hai Dai (海待) is another clever coinage in that "待" (dai) means "in wait", which by analogy describes perfectly the situation facing overseas Chinese students, floating around in the Four Seas off the mainland, or simply lying in wait for things to look up, either here or there.

Luckily, many do have a life abroad, so theirs can be just as healthy and exciting an existence as that of the giant sea weeds, when they learn to swim with the wave (not to struggle against it).

Ostensibly, all overseas students want to return. Some homebound students, however, are said to have been discouraged by news that some returned students are not very happy back here, after finding that local governments promise more than they actually care do in their behalf.

Locals that have never set foot abroad, on the other hand, sometimes complain that local governments are doing too much for the returned students at their expense.

The government and the students, meanwhile, keep talking about how they miss each other.

According to estimates, some 800,000 students from the Chinese mainland have gone for study abroad. Of them, 200,000 have returned to the mainland with or without receiving preferential treatment afforded them as a Haidai.

I guess in the end, it'll be a matter of who misses whom the most, a matter of biology rather than ideology.

I am sure many overseas students have adopted, wisely, the strategy of staying abroad for as long as they can and returning only when they have to, with no additional strings attached.

Coincidentally, that is also the turtle's way. The irony, don't forget, is that turtles can do no wrong while people can never seem to get it right.

  
Zhang Xin at chinadaily.com.cn

heard haidai (kelp) for the first time.

"sea turtle" (hai3gui1) has a counterpart in chinese... guess it. tu3bie1 ("home-made" turtle)[/COLOR]