[QUOTE]Originally posted by tokyo_james
[B]Cheers Charlie ......

Yes we are thinking about kids, and I already feel that if we do have them, I would want to be back in the UK with them for a number of reasons .......

Health, ease of life, eduction etc.

 

Cheers Andy



Try the health systems abroad and you might not think that ours is too bad ...... I am not saying that ours is great, but I just don't trust Japanese or Chinese doctors and hospitals particularly, they have a different view of things than we do, and I guess I prefer the medical approach that I was brought up with.


[QUOTE]Originally posted by awinskill
[B]
Oh and our 60hr working week makes for an easy life.

 

Andy,

Are you kidding? Who works 60 hour weeks in the UK??? Europeans are a bunch o' slackers compared to the Asians, if you ask me!!

Too much and not enough .

j/k!!

 

ROFLMFAO

I would LOVE to know where this myth about Asians being hard workers comes from !!!!!

 

I guess if a plate of snake and dog meat were waiting for me at home, I'd stay at work too!

 

Europeans work to get the whole of the friggin months of june July and Aug off.

jk... sort of.

You know what everyone was worried about when I took a job in the US? Education of my kids, health care and being shot in the inner city where apparently everyone in the US lives.

The stabbings and bomb that went off shortly after we left weren't as scary as the bucholic little town I live in.

Short answer... everyone loves the devil they know.

 

I'm not sure if it's prevalent throughout all of Asia, but my limited experience tell me that Asians in Asia (OK, Malaysia, and from what I hear it's worse in Singapore) are a very competitive in the workplace.

I did an internship in Intel (their manufacturing plant in Penang, Malaysia) one summer, and the engineers I worked with were working seriously long hours.
The official work hours were 8am to 6pm, but my supervisor and at least two other engineers I worked with were there every day at 7am and go home at 7-8pm (and this I understand is the norm, at least in Intel ). It's a cut throat environment there - people wanted their promotions and were all trying to work longer hours, and finish more in less time than their peer...

... which is partly why I'm working here
Other reasons are:
1. Better pay here.
2. I get to do what I really want to do.
3. Govt levies a 300% tax on foreign assembled cars which would make the S2000 RM500,000 which is roughly equivalent to US$500,000 when you compensate for cost of living.

Oink.

 

I suspect the stereotype of "asians" can't be applied to ALL Asians. How on earth could it be? There are so many varied work ethics throughout the US much less all of NA and both Americas.

 

But the French are the real slackers!

 

My point is that even though people here put in the hours, the amount of work that gets done in that time is not particularly impressive!!

I spend a lot of hours whoring here, get in to the office at 8am and leave by 6pm. I can complete far more work in that time than any of my Asian counterparts do in their day, regardless of the hours they put in.

Okay I have an advantage because English is my first language, but even when I worked in Hong Kong, where many of the people I worked with were prefectly fluent in English, the expats produced far more output than the locals.

Granted there are people who work hard and produce a lot during the long hours they work. But I think that is true of every race. I just don't think that Asians are any more productive than Westerners, be them American or European.