This is only Bluetooth 5.0, so it's being sold as low as $4.99... with free shipping by Amazon via their outlet, Woot.com. They sold out, but they have a slightly better version also for $4.99 (claims to have better battery life?). You don't expect much for $5, and this overdeliver at $5.
It can recharge itself from the case in about 30-60 minutes, and one full charge should lasts you at least 3-4 hours of non-stop play-time. And the case itself should be able to recharge the earbuds at least 4-6 times. And I'm being relatively conservative. Oh, and it claims to act as a small 2000 mAh powerbank and has a USB-A output port (it charges via the old-fashioned MicroUSB though).
The fit is relatively comfortable once I got both buds fitted properly. The eargel portion goes into the canal, then rotate the body until it fits into the crook of the ear. It won't stand up to rigorous exercise, but it should not fall off with walking or stair climbing. If you need them to be tighter, you need better eargels, which you can find on Amazon. But that introduces us to the nags and niggles.
Now for the nags and niggles... this thing is very sensitive to the size of the eargels. Beware, that if your eargels are too large, your buds won't fit back into the case and may not recharge. I tried replacing the eargels with foam tips... Won't fit nicely back into the case, even with pressure on the main lid. Also, the indicators of charge are pretty much junk. When it's out of power, it shows 2 out 4 bars. And one side runs out of power first (though only by a few minutes). And 2000 mAh battery... Who uses that?
Still, it's great value for a measly $5. It may not looks as clean as the Xiaomi Airpod clone, but at least this ain't a "homage". And no, I won't pay $100-200 for earbuds, not even if its Bose or Sony.
One of the items I picked up on Aliexpress was a Xiaomi E17 ANC "airpod-like" wireless earbuds. The whole design is obviously a "homage" to Apple's Airpods. I thought I ordered Blue, but I got a black one instead.
The advertised features are 11db ANC mode, transparency mode (so you CAN hear people near you), and supposedly 20 hours playtime. Clearly, it's counting the battery capacity in the carrying case, not in the buds themselves. There are 2 sets of touchpads along either stem of the earbuds.
It does come with a small wrist-loop that can be threaded through the opening on the side of the carrying case. There's a cutout in the loop, but no explanation on what it is for. Maybe for hanging onto things?
To charge it, plug in a USB-C cable into the bottom. When LED over the Mi logo turns solid, the charging is complete.
To pair it, simply flip open the lid near the device you wanted (recommended distance: 2 inches). The instructions says you should turn on BOTH Wifi and Bluetooth on the device (why?)
As said before, each bud has two control pads on the stem. But all of these work on either pad alone. Swipe up or down controls volume. Single tap is pause/play, double tap is fast forward, and triple tap is reverse. If a call comes in, single tap answers. Once I triggered Google assistant by accident, but there's no documented gesture for that. Touch and hold both touchpads to toggle between ANC and "transparency mode". That's it. That's all the documentation. No explanation on what the button on the charging case back does (seems to control charging of the buds?)
After using it a few days, the ANC does work, and yet... it doesn't feel like it doesn't do much. I have an air purifier in my room, and it's like a fan in the background if I turn it up to any setting beyond "whisper quiet". With E17's ANC on, I still hear the fan, just... more muffled. It's similar to wearing an earplug, or wearing over-the-ear headphone with a decent cushion seal. Switching to "transparency mode" just seem to turn ANC off.
There were no spare silicone ear tips, just one set was installed, and they fit... "okay". I'll try to replace them with foam tips when I find some of my spares.
It also does not do multi-point. It will pair with only ONE device. And that device had to "forget" about the E17 to allow it to pair with anything else. Maybe they consider that a security feature, heh?
My MAIN problem with the E17 is its lack of battery life in the buds. I am only getting about 3 hours when one bud or the other starts beeping, indicating low power and needing a recharge from the carrying case. This severely affects my enjoyment of the device and makes me want to bring back out my Lenovo "neckband" or other Bluetooth headsets with far more battery life, even if they don't look as "cool".
My Aliexpress order is finally here... Only took them 8 days.
Anyway, adding another fountain pen and and 2 bottles of ink to my collection, which currently consists of:
* Crappy Lamy Safari CLONE from Temu (with included black cart ink, at least 5 if not 10) (about $1.00)
* Jinhou X850 from Temu, black, about $1.50
* Platinum Preppy in see-through blue from Amazon (about $6?) currently MIA (whole pen case is missing, just need to find it)
* Hero A11 "Black Forest" (new)
* Lamy Safari in Black with Black trim (genuine from Lamy store) (new)
As for ink, I currently have:
* Banmi Dragon
* Banmi Dolphin
* Generic black cartridge (for the Safari clone)
* Noodler's Blue (was for the Preppy?)
* Karkos Black
* Karkos Blue
* A couple genuine Lamy T10 carts for the Safari, forgot which color(s).
Ah, but I have the additional stuff coming in from Temu...
* A Jinhou 950 "Blue and White Porcelain" pen for $7.29
* A generic 0.7mm fountain pen with an "art tip" (fude nib?) for $1.59
* 20 more 3.4mm ink carts for $1.19
* 2 generic 3.4mm converters for $2.39 (converts fountain pens to use bottled ink instead of carts)
* A "retractable tip fountain pen 0.38 mm nib" for $1.59
And one more item from Amazon...
* Platinum Preppy M nib black (I bought a converter from LONG time ago for the blue one, which is MIA)
Now I just need a converter for my Lamy Safari... :) Which is like $5 on Jetpens. I am also eyeing one of their closeout limited edition Safaris for $30... But that'll have to wait when I *do* have money.
Don't have much in terms of paper, but I did buy a Rhodia A5 notebook at my local stationery store (Patrick and Co) for funsies. It was like $8. Most of my current fountain pen writing was in a diary I bought off Temu, nice paper, but it has a little bit of bleed through.
This hobby can add up, but if you do a bit of bargain hunting on Temu and such, you'll get a LOT MORE for your money. I am of course NOT saying that these fountain pens are comparable to Japanese (Platinum, Pilot, Sailor), German (Lamy, etc.), muchless Italian (Visconti) craftsmanship, but they are also 1/10 or 1/100th the cost. Platinum Preppy can be had for $6, but is plastic-y. You need to go up to something like Metropolitan to look less plastic-y. Lamy Safari is also plastic-y and starts at $30 (discounted) or $37 (official store), and you need Lamy AL or Lamy 2000 to get to metal body which costs significantly more. Visconti pens STARTS at $120 and goes up to THOUSANDS of bucks.
That Hero A11 full metal black cost me less than $5. I think it was $4.25 or so on Aliexpress.
I think I've wrote enough. Now I need some breakfast.
Aliexpress.us is basically the international website of China's Alibaba group, sort of their international Amazon that long predates sites like Wish, Shein, and Temu. It has a ton of bargains, long recognized by bargain hunters willing to put up with longer shipping times. If you look at watch enthusiast sites, you'll find frequent mentions of Aliexpress as where you find Chinese "homage" watches (read: clones of well known watches) for nearly the same quality but at bargain prices, under $100 USD, or even under $50. But that's not what I was looking for.
Just the other day, I saw that "Fashion Over 40" guy was advertising a special collar stay that's reusable, that goes around the whole collar instead just under the tip of the shirt collars. I swear I've seen this before elsewhere, and Google search finally located them on Aliexpress... for $2.00 (or less) instead of 2 for $25 in the US.
So I tried to order one. Then Aliexpress started doing the Temu dance... Throwing various special deals at me, free shipping if you take X items, etc. etc. Got me distracted with a variety of items, from a tiny display screen for PC internal status to $1 infinity cube fidget toy to name-brand (Lenovo, Xiaomi, etc.) ANC BT earbuds for a few bucks, and much more. There are even a deal where $1.00 gets you a watch plus a couple "leather" bracelets (it won't be a good one, that's for sure). Fountain pens for a few bucks, comes with 10 to 50 extra ink carts... Add to cart they were.
Then I placed an order, and in order NOT to enter my own card info into their site, I went through Paypal. Unfortunately, I forgot I hadn't made the payment on my CC, so the Paypal was rejected. I had to swap payment method in Paypal (to draw from my bank account) to make it go through. And that order went through... Except for the collar stay, why I got on there to start with, ARGH!
So I went back to make a new order.
And Aliexpress refused to take my money. Keeps saying "Account protection, contact customer service". Tried logging out and back in, won't let me check out. Talking to customer service did not help. Tried waiting 48 hours, didn't help. Tried waiting a week, didn't help. Tried making a new account, did not help. As soon as they detected the same address, same error! Chatted with customer service multiple times, didn't help. They assured me the issue is being escalated, then nothing.
I must be mad, because I refused to give up on buying that collar stay. This time, I'm going to enlist two new tools: my mail.com account, and privacy.com virtual card.
Weapon 1: Mail.com
Mail.com is where you can get a new email address. If you pay a reasonable price per year, you get a email linked to a domain name that doesn't say gmail, yahoo, or outlook. As for what you do get, why don't you go there and take a look? What's even better deal, mail.com premium allows the creation of up to 10 "alias" email addresses, all of them using the various premium Mail.com domains, and wipe them out when you no longer need them. This will allow me to register a truly new account on Aliexpress.
Weapon 1.5: Google Voice
If they want a new phone, I have my Google Voice phone number for them.
Weapon 2: Privacy.com
If you haven't heard of privacy.com, you should check it ASAP. It makes shopping online MUCH safer. This is how it works: by connecting to your bank account, it will provide "virtual credit cards" for you. The free-tier account gives you up to 10 card numbers, all of them with their individual numbers and expiration dates. Generate one for each online merchant if you wish. Pay a monthly fee to generate even MORE card numbers. Cut each off at any time, or set a spending limit to each number, by day, by week, by month, by transaction... Set a ridiculously low amount like $35. You can't lose more than that. Get notified each and every time a charge goes through. Or use the card a SINGLE time, and have it automatically expire after 72 hours so it can't be used again. It's all up to you. And there's even a Chrome extension to help you shop online.
Yep, this card cannot be linked back to me personally, as long as I don't put in my own address into Aliexpress. Fortunately, my neighbor already takes my packages when I am not there. So I'll just put in his address.
And this time, the order *did* go through. Half dozen items.
I am trying to SPEND money on your website, Aliexpress. I should not have to outsmart your pathetic "security" measures to do so.
In recent months, China and India have skirmished with casualties on both sides. Yes, I mean deaths and serious injuries, deep in the Himalayas. But because both sides have abided by 1966 treaties that prohibited firearms near the border, the skirmishes were fought with sticks.
The border is between China and Indian-Administered Kashmir. And the conflict had been ongoing for months. A clash back in June 2020 is believed to have left over 20 Indian soldiers DEAD. China does not release its casualty figures until recently.
Also keep in mind that China has nearly complete control over Weibo (Chinese Twitter) and WeChat and even accounts of foreign diplomats and heads of state, including Indian Prime Minister Modi, can and had been censored before. Modi's statement regarding the border conflict back in 2020 was wiped from WeChat. Similarly, the British Embassy in China's rebuttal of the Chinese "explanation" of the pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong was wiped out as well.
In contrast, Chinese diplomatic officials serving in the West are known to spread disinformation about ANYTHING that could potentially make China look bad, from the border skirmish with India to suppression of protest in Hong Kong, to suppression of Muslim minorities in Xinjiang. One official spokesperson for foreign affairs went as far as claiming on Twitter that COVID was really an American bio-war experiment. They are often jokingly called "Wolf Warriors", after the Chinese military adventure movie series.
So basically, China can say WHATEVER IT WANTS to its own citizens, and suppress anyone who dares to contradict them, even foreign leaders and diplomats. A Chinese Netizen was apparently banned by Weibo for a year then arrested by police for "insulting heroes", by merely questioning the number of Chinese casualties in the border conflict (banned 2/20, arrested 2/21 Chinese time). And an app, called "Clubhouse" was banned after briefly enjoyed a surge of popularity as a chat platform in China to discuss such issues. And nobody can do anything about it.
It's the war against truth as you know it. If it's inconvenient for China, it ain't true (to China).
It's a war of information. And we are playing by THEIR rules.
Thus, banning shark fin imports or sale in California will NOT significantly affect shark finning at all.
In fact, most of the sharks harvested are done in poor third-world countries like Ecuador, Indonesia, and so on. Though Japan has its own port full of shark finning. Except in this case, the carcasses are NOT tossed back into the ocean for the ultimate recycling. And according to Japanese government stats, their shark catch have HALVED since the 1960's (to about 35000 tons per year, and that's the whole sharks, not just the fins).
Image via CrunchBaseChinese News CCTV 13 allegedly played a footage of the Chinese J-10 fighter conducting an exercise on 23-JAN-2011 and destroyed a drone. However, sharp-eyed bloggers caught the footage of the explosion as being lifted out of the American movie Top Gun, even though it only last all but 2 seconds.
Turns out the news is even more interesting. I searched on ToDou, the Chinese Youtube clone, and found a "promo tape" from the fighter maker CAIC#1, which shows the same sequence: missile firing, then the 2 seconds of things blowing up, at 3:07 mark.
So we have two levels of fakery here.
1) CCTV13 was showing STOCK footage, not real missile test footage with no attribution
2) The "stock footage" from the plane manufacturer contained a few seconds pirated from Top Gun
AdroitAlien and I have a little discussion on Cultural Baggage and Entrepreneurship... This is his reply where we were discussion on China, labor, and more. He wrote:
If you were talking about cheap labor in general, how exactly is that exploiting? More to the point, who are we to decide if their labor standards are unfit? And if they are unfit, who is to blame? Do you see my point here? Even if we replace the "child labor" with "cheap labor", my previous point would still be valid. Supply and demand works in favor of demand. If there is a surplus of demand, people will find a way to fill(Supply) it. If there is a surplus of supply, demand falls(Unless they are commodities). It is the US that is the main source of these products. We are the demand.
Well, the point was not about "cheap labor", but rather exploitation of cheap labor is not really entrepreneurship. Any one in business knows "buy low sell high". It doesn't take an entrepreneur to see that. Real entrepreneur creates new products, exploits new market niches, creates new service, and so on.
I don't believe the GDP and annual growth is fiction and I don't expect anyone with the ability to critically think to believe that. I've been following Nielsen for a while now and I am constantly reminded of Asia's growth.
They do market research with measurable data to back it up. I have no affiliation with them.
China's GDP is widely believed be fiction. Just search "China real GDP" and you'll find plenty of economists doubting the numbers released by China. One economist is quoted as saying that the published figures on how much freight is moved doesn't correlate with the GDP figures. Local governments are know to inflate their figures to make themselves look good. China's GDP is a POLITICAL figure, not an economical one, so its reliability is low. The fact that China's Consumer Price Index has jumped to over 5% just in 2010 should tell you their GDP is actually due to INFLATION instead of actual growth.
As far as their banks controlling inflation, how is that different from the Federal Reserve's tactics of printing money[digitally]? Our system isn't even audited(yet). Congressman Ron Paul is pushing for an audit as we speak.
China's Central Bank has FORCEABLY ALIGNED thei Yuan (RenMinBi) to the dollar, refusing to budge even a few pennies. It is only late in 2010 that they allowed a TINY rise in exchange rate, and that was huge news. However, it did not prevent their CPI from taking a sharp rise, and real estate market going into a bubble. They are trying to manage the bubble, hoping it doesn't go KABOOM.
The approach is one of indirect control, vs. one of direct control. VERY different.
If Foxconn is a Taiwanese company, isn't that still Asian? A contractor often times outsource work. This is nothing new. They're still working for Apple. And when you say cheap labor, you're saying it like it's a bad thing. Very strange coming from a pro-business article. And this relates with my point on the prison industrial complex here in the US. Even if we conclude it to be a bad thing, we are doing the same. Why hire workers for $10 an hour when we can outsource the work to prisoners for 65 cents an hour?
The point actually is the "innovation" is NOT in China, but rather, in the US or elsewhere. Chinese companies are NOT known for their entrepreneurship and innovative spirit. China is known for being a copycat, producer of cheap clones, and for industries, a lot of industrial spies. It's not about whether the innovator is Asian or not.
Okay, I'll give you that. Sure, they have plants in the US and Mexico. Does that justify them kicking our butts in our own country? When nationalistic American say "Support America, buy American." Will, you raise your hand and make a point to support Toyota for having plants in America?
Then the point of "protect American jobs" goes away, doesn't it, if these "foreign" cars are actually built in the US? Boycotting them would be pointless. In fact, every new car sold in the US actually has a label that explains where the vehicle is assembled, and how much of the parts used were imported.
I'll humor you again. If the Japanese auto makers are getting "bailouts" for decades, who is to blame? The car makers for getting the bailouts or our governments for giving them? BTW, I don't consider loans "bailouts" no matter how low the interest rates are. A loan is a loan.
It wasn't blame. It was simply very different circumstances. Besides, the "bailout" in the US is a loan. US paid a lot of money to become part owners of GM, and the money WILL be paid back when the shares are sold later. Chrysler's version is a little different, but basically they sold a big chunk of themselves to Fiat.
So the difference between a business and a job is measured in time? If so how much?
The original quote is "if you have a business in which you spend most of your time, what you have is a job".
The point is that a business is supposed to generate PASSIVE income... that it makes money without your personal involvement. It's okay to be self-employed, but then, self-employed just means job, except you are your own boss. It's not really entrepreneurship.
I don't want to turn this into a east vs West or China vs the world thing. I know Japan, Taiwan, Korea, etc are all part of the eastern culture. I just don't buy into the hate. Recently, China has limit the amount of precious materials, like Lithium, for export and they've been getting bad press for it. I say, how is that different from what we did to Cuba? This is not a debate on Eastern business culture = bad, Wester = good. I am taking no sides. I am here to say, "The pot calling the kettle."
It's NOT hate. it's simply DIFFERENCE. You have to unlearn part of the upbringing about conformity and all that (that's in the original Hub article). It wasn't really about east vs. west economic war, but more of an IDEA or CULTURE conflict.
Btw, just to clarify a few things. Morally, I do not support the child labor in China or anywhere but I do understand it. Also, innovation goes well with efficiency. Whether or not we agree with it, China and other parts of the world have made electronic good cheaper for us, the consumers. They are an industrialization country right now. We can't expect them to innovate as well as Japan or the US.
And if they ever want to become a "first-world country" they need to actually innovate instead of copy. Japan did that.
Image via WikipediaWikileaks supporters are claiming world-wide conspiracy to shut down Wikileaks for embarrassing governments worldwide. They claim we all should save Wikileaks because it is making governments more accountable.
But which governments needs to be held more accountable? Compared to hundreds of other governments and organizations, the US government is positively wide-open and transparent even BEFORE Wikileaks leaked out all this ****.
Everybody knows that when you attack a problem, you attack it where it does the most good, not where it do very little good.
For example, let's say there's a certain type of preventable accident that kills about 30 people a year, vs. 30000 people a year. Which type of accident should you try to really prevent, if it's about the same cost? The 30000 people kind, of course. Any one who go after the 30 people type will be ridiculed for being crazy and stupid.
Yet that's what Wikileaks is doing: making an already quite-open US government "accountable" when there are bazillion governments and agencies that NEEDS to be held accountable. Government in China, Iran, and so on needs some exposure. Who really makes the decisions there? What lead to those decisions? Who really ordered the Tiananmen Square massacre? What is the real GDP of China? Who really won the election in Iran? Who ordered the crackdown? What are the casualties during all those protests? Etc.
What Wikileaks really is: a media bully with delusion of gradeur.
Image via Wikipedia
Just the other day I got an offer that some body is bring some sort of machine from UC (that's University of California) to do some sort of health scan for free. I was already skeptical.
So the machine arrived... It's about the size of two large shoes stacked on top of each other. It's labelled Pharmanex S2. There's a "blue-laser" on one end. I was supposed to wash my hands and have it scan me for my antioxidant levels.
I scored terrible, as I guesed I would. And I expected, the lady operating the machine started promoting some vitamins called Lifepak Nano. I thanked her and left, and pulled out my Moto Droid to look up the company.
There's plenty of information, but they all just copy each other. The gist is simple: Pharmanex is owned by NuSkin, the cosmetics MLM. (I am somewhat familiar with Nu Skin as my aunt was a distributor once upon a time) Pharmanex "BioPhotonic" scanner is real.
What does it do? It supposedly scans your skin for presense of skin keratonids, an anti-oxidant. It supposedly is an accurate measure for your overall body antioxidant level, supposedly higher is better. And of course, their Lifepak Nano will help boost you antioxidant level, so suppose you take our supplements for a month, come back and get another scan, we guarantee your score will be better!
There's an itch in my brain that this starts to sound very scammy, as there is no third-party research in any sort of major review that supports the conclusions. Nothing on WebMD, Mayo Clinic, or such. Any such reviews are cited either from PharmanexUSA.com or the few places that have one of these machines.
The science is real... up to a point. Raman Spectroscopy is a way to scan tissue for presence of certain stuff. The original method was developed to scan for Lutein, that thing good for your eyes, without poking a needle into your eyeball and suck out some fluids.
The only test that supposedly proves this machine is useful is a study funded by Pharmanex itself in a clinical trial in China (2006?) on about 100 people. Supposedly 100 people get blood drawn AND skin tested by this scanner and there's a correlation between the levels of skin antioxidant and the blood antioxidant. However, this test had not been duplicated at all.
Furthermore there is no proof that high levels of antioxidant in your body is better for you.
Thus, this machine is basically a self-justifying proposition. This machine "proves" you need more vitamins.
You can probably get better score by just drinking a cup of carrot juice very day for 3 weeks.
So it's not a scam per se... The only thing they guarantee, that you'll score better on their machine, is absolutely true. Whether it will actually help your overall health, well, they did not make any promise about that at all. That would be illegal under FDA guidelines.
The labor class is supposed to be the backbone of any communist society, such as China. Yet, it seems that the labor class has always been the one being exploited in China. According to communists, only those doing honest labor, such as farmers and laborers are "good", and any sort of owner (store owner, land owner) are "bad". Yet the only way the current government earn money is by selling things, and that is mainly done by selling the labor of all the laborers to foreign companies. Foxconn is a Taiwanesecompany, making products to HP, Apple, and so on, using Chinese labor.
The problem with the idea is when the labor class gets tired of being exploited, you have a revolution. Can the government manage the tight-rope walk between exploiting its labor force / citizens, and convincing the outside companies to continue to invest money?
Let this article explain what is KIRF, shanzhai, and how they are affecting the Chinese economy.
China, with the recent Foxconn suicides, has garnered international attention and highlights it as a source of cheap labor to feed the world economy. However, China is also famous for being the clone factory of the world. People in China has no respect for "copyright", and this had lead to a ton of commercial friction between it and other companies and countries.
Microsoft recently is basically refusing to expand its operation in China, citing lack of intellectual property protection. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer stated recently that even though China has about 10-15% of global PC market, only 1% of Microsoft's revenue is coming from sales in China, when theoretically it should be proportional. Furthermore, Chinese government has recently announced a procurement policy that supposedly rewards "native innovation", which is interpreted as favoring "domestic clones" of foreign products. it was so alarming even US Secretary of Treasury Tim Geitner had to make a statement that he had talked to his counterpart in China and the policy will be modified and clarified.
Has China been turned into a country of cheap labor and clones? Let us check into the the phenomenon of KIRF, shanzhai, and the problem's roots.
What are satellite babies? It's a term believed to be coined by Yvonne Bohr, a chilinical psychologist at York University in Toronto. It describe children of Chinese-American families, whose parents are working so hard, they decided to send their recently born children to live with grandparents in China, and bring them back when they are old enough to attend preschool.
The problem is, these satellite babies grow up to have MASSIVE psychological issues adjusting to life in America after spending their earliest years in China, and they are not old enough to recognize and discuss such issues. Some refuse to recognize their parents, some want to leave and are perpetually unhappy, some cry for no particular reason (that adults can see), some even turn masochistic, such as hit their heads against walls or other self-harm acts. Many are initially (and mistakenly) diagnosed as autistic. ALL needed psychological help, and not all are getting it.
Interestingly, it is a phenomenon virtually unheard of outside the Chinese-American society, due to several... peculiarities of the Chinese culture.
1) Chinese value their filial duty, and many defer to their grandparents when it comes to childrearing 2) Living standards in China are much cheaper than in the US, even if you count the plane tickets and long distance calls 3) Chinese families often live on opposite sides of the world. The old generation stay behind while the younger generation venture out and establish life in America, 4) The Chinese parents are working way too hard to provide any sort of proper family life (many are small business owners who works like 80 to 100 hours a week), and 5) these said parents want some Chinese culture indoctrination for their children early on, lest their children turn into... banana (yellow outside, white inside, a derogatory term for American-Born Chinese who looks Chinese, but acts completely American, with no trace of Chinese heritage other than genetic) 6) the grandparents have NO exposure to American culture, language, and so on. 7) a mistaken belief that young children will more readily adapt to new environment
If you are a satellite baby, your earliest memories would be a Chinese upbringing. Everybody is speaking Chinese. Every care is taken care of around the clock. You learn to be quiet until spoken to, and to appear obedient and cute (in other words, passive, don't stand out, don't make waves...) and mostly, be spoiled rotten by doting grandparents.
Then suddenly, when you're three or four, old enough to be preschool, start to have some ideas about the surrounding world and how it works... BLINK, you're in America. Unfamiliar surroundings, nobody you'd really recognize, everybody speaks ENGLISH except at home, NONE of the stuff you learned in the past few years apply any more. Who are these adults (parents) that are taking care of me but don't really have time? Where are the kind people that took care of me? Why doesn't any one else speak my language? Who are all these strange looking people? Why doesn't anything make sense?
No wonder some kids go bonkers! It's like taking them from Earth and drop them in the middle of an alien culture! Combine that with the Chinese upbringing they already got (internalize everything, don't make waves, etc.) it's small wonders why their heads aren't more messed up! Children without the early Chinese conditioning will act out violently, such as fights, screaming, and so on. But Chinese children are taught NOT to cry, not to make waves, and so on. So they turn into self-harm, passive aggressive behavior, and so on. They internalize, often withdrew into their own world where they are in control, or act out control fantasies such as superhero (and everybody else is "bad guy", including the parents).
And I can attest to this bad adjustment first-hand. I have a friend who has two rambunctious kids that had been living with grandparents in China for past several years. They almost appear to be twins, even though they are a year apart. They show absolutely NO discipline when they first got here. I personally witness them them HIT (punch) their own parents! They aren't as bad though as these parents go back every few months, and I think the mom stayed in China for several months to acclimate the kids before bringing them back. Still, it was NOT a happy family for a while.
This phenomenon is not new. During WW2, Germany Luftwaffe was bombing London daily in the period known as the "London Blitz". Some children were evacuated from London without their parents, often with their parent's wishes. Later psychological studies show that many of these children were so traumatized by the separation, it may have been better to let them endure the danger of the bombing instead.
And the idea of satellite babies is not new either. Immigration experts pointed to Chinese women who were smuggled over over a decade ago, often from the Fujian province of China, having children here, but due to various circumstances, chose to send their children back to China for initial upbringing. These children, however, are brought back much later, often as elementary school students or even later. It was only in recent years, when free all-day childcare became available in the US, that younger and younger children are brought back, and the problem exacerbated.
What can be done? Don't create satellite babies in the first place. If yo're too busy to have children, then don't! If you got them, then make time for them! If you don't pay the price now, you will pay later... WITH INTEREST TACKED ON.
So what to do if you already have satellite baby(ies)? Find professional help ASAP. Most large cities have a "Newcomer's Center" which can often refer you to child psychologists who can help deal with the issues. Also check with your child's teacher(s) and other school resources, as some areas have recognized the problem and have developed therapy for such children. Even so, expect years of adjustment, and even then the child may not fully recover.
Just to show you that EVERYTHING has a price. You may not pay it, but your children may instead.
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