Living the 'Chinese dream'

Gabrielle Harris can't define her "Chinese dream", but after 32 years in China, she believes she has realized it.

For her and many other expats, the enchantment of China was - and remains - being immersed in an ancient culture fused with modernity.

As China has risen to become an economic juggernaut, the country has continued to lure even more foreigners with its cultural appeal and economic opportunities.

But back in England in 1976, Harris was thought of as foolish for choosing to study Chinese.

Undeterred, she continued with her studies, and later traveled to China - a decision that would reshape her entire life.

"Now we think it very fashionable and useful to study Chinese. But in those days, you were regarded as being stupid to do so, and speaking Chinese couldn't help me find a job at home," she said.

In 1980, as Harris entered Nanjing University to start a history course, her future husband David Kay first came to the Chinese mainland for three months to assist an exchange program between his business school in the U.S.and its Chinese counterpart.

At a time when China was just opening up after the chaotic Cultural Revolution (1966-76), foreigners had to deal with some restrictions and suspicions. Kay wasn't allowed to stay in the university dormitory with Chinese students, but instead had to live in one of the few hotels permitted to lodge foreigners.

Mail delivery at the hotel proved to be an enlightening and entertaining spectacle, as Kay explained that most of the letters foreigners received appeared to have been opened, with little done to conceal the fact.

"But the funny thing was, after opening the mail, they weren't very careful about putting the letters back in the correct envelope," Kay said.

An Italian woman's letter was comically jumbled, with page one in Italian, page two in English, and the third page in Croatian.

This was the norm, and it made getting mail a major cultural exchange at the hotel.

Harris and Kay eventually met, married, had children, and have stayed in China for over two decades.

While they arrived during the heart of China's opening-up reforms, Indian Singaporean Abhilash Sarma experienced a more turbulent period of Chinese history. He was born in Beijing in the 1960s, a few years after his parents had moved from India to China.

But Sarma's actual age remains a mystery, because his official birth certificate was lost in the chaos of the Cultural Revolution, which shook the country from 1966 to 1976.

Most of the turbulence was lost on the young Sarma, but he vividly recalls his kindergarten principal being abruptly fired and declared a "class enemy."

Economic reforms were neglected during the Cultural Revolution, but changes arrived in 1978 when China initiated the reform and opening-up policy, making economic development the primary objective.

"Afterward, I could see many wants and demands were fulfilled. People could buy things as they wanted - during the Cultural Revolution, that was just a dream," Sarma said.

For him, his greatest opportunity came in 1992 in the wake of rising foreign investment as China further opened up.

After graduating from a Chinese medical school to be a surgeon, he got an opportunity to manage a multi-million U.S. dollar project in Shanghai for a Singaporean real estate developer. With that, he never picked up the surgical knife again.

After living in Singapore for some years, Sarma eventually moved back to Beijing for better business opportunities.

Before China's opening up, only a limited number of foreigners lived in China, mainly as "foreign experts" like Sarma's parents, who taught English in Beijing.

But now with China's booming economy and globalization, the situation has changed significantly. Over 27 million foreigners entered China in 2011, while this figure stood at 740,000 in 1980. By the end of last year, 220,000 foreigners were legally working on the Chinese mainland.

Sarma has now enrolled his son into an ordinary Chinese school, and requires him not only to learn Mandarin but also the classical Chinese.

"Only those who learn through the Chinese education system can be accepted into the Chinese society," he said.

As for David Kay, his fate was altered in 2003. After being promoted to general counsel of Microsoft China, he discovered an abandoned electronics factory in Beijing's 798 Art District. Having been vacant for a long period of time with broken windows and garbage strewn about, nothing suggested its future as a new media art gallery.

But after having spent most of his career working as a lawyer, Kay decided to renovate this old factory as well as his life. He transformed the 500-square-meter structure into a three-story multi-functional gallery with a gym and majestic above-head swimming pool.

After leaving Microsoft China in 2008, the factory became the center of Kay's life and he also started providing business consultancy services in his loft.

While both Sarma and Kay's careers took off in conjunction with China's urban development, Gabrielle Harris chose an alternative path.She devoted herself to bringing foreign investment to China in the 1990s, as the eastern and southern coastal cities blossomed.

But during the past decade, as the need for developing western China escalated, she shifted her career westward. Since 2006, she has dedicated herself to alleviating rural poverty through microfinance.

Now as head of PlaNet Finance Group's Beijing office, Harris spends months every year in Tongwei county, Gansu Province, working with local rural households to provide them with loans to diversify their farms and raise their earnings.

She said in recent years major changes have taken place in this small county. When she first arrived, there was no irrigation in the hilly areas. But thanks to an irrigation project, water is now transferred even to the driest areas of the county. Roads have also been built to connect every village in the county.

"I'm incredibly privileged to have been part of the most amazing transformation that has ever occurred on this whole planet. Over the last 30 years, I've happened to be here and experienced it firsthand," she said.

But it's not just westerners who are choosing China as the ideal destination to start a new life. Jose Tumba from the Democratic Republic of the Congo first came to China on a scholarship to study chemistry in 1985, thus starting his quasi-30-year journey across the vast country.

After graduating college, he was presented with an opportunity to teach chemistry at an international school in Beijing. It was there that he would meet his future Chinese wife.

Over the years, the economic ties between Africa and China have evolved, with trade between the two sides hitting a record 160 billion U.S. dollars last year.

In the wake of booming bilateral trade, many of Tumba's friends have now also come to China for business opportunities, including his sister, who is studying geology in Beijing.

For Tumba, China has become his second home. "I went to university, married, bought a house and found a decent job all in China. It was far more than I ever expected when I first arrived here in 1985," he said.

But like many other expats, Tumba has to renew his visa annually and is required to be in constant employment to ensure his stay, which is a process that frustrates him.

David Kay has to live with the same visa headache. "After so many years in Beijing, every time I come back, I still have to report to the police station, with a letter written by the management company to prove where I live."

He said that despite its difficulties, he plans to apply for the permanent residence in China. By the end of 2011, only 4,752 foreigners had received a Permanent Residence Card, which is the Chinese equivalent of a green card.

However, Abhilash Sarma is confident at his future of China. He said,"I feel the world has changed into two centers, one is in the West, which is led by the U.S., while the other is in the East, and led by China. You either join this one or that one. I chose this one."