On '50% of new expats leave China early'

No easy way out

There is no easy solution to this situation. My 18-year-old daughter hated living in China when we first arrived. She was ready to return after two months. Then she had an incident that made her change her attitude and try. She learned Chinese, made a lot of Chinese friends, and adapted. Now she loves China and Chinese people. Even though she returned to America to attend university this year, she's very much connected to Chinese people in China and in America. She can't wait to come back.

The big problem that large MNCs need to learn is that how their expats adapt to a new culture can be the most critical key to their success there. They often take huge salaries for the "hardship" of living in China, but that makes them even more useless because it makes it that much harder for them to adapt, or even to have empathy with their local teammates. Money would be much better spent recruiting in China and training someone who is already culturally adjusted.