Carpetbaggers and Chinese locusts

I had lunch with an old college friend who moved to Hong Kong in the past year.  A young Chinese transplant like myself, she grew up in New York and works in media.  A very headstrong girl.  Though it can get annoying at times, I am nonetheless interested to see the world from her perspectives.

She is a go-getter and made it a goal to find a boy marry him and have a kid all in the span of one year. She achieved it, along with a few of my other friends.  She recommended that Atlantic Monthly article "Marry him!" in 2008 that argued for settling.

When the conversation went to a more practical point, I said that I got what I needed from Hong Kong, that being citizenship and a house.  To any financier, that would be practical and correct.  My girlfriend cringed however and said that I sounded like a carpetbagger, or exactly like those Chinese locusts.

Do I? Isn't all that true in what I said?  Everyone's in some place for something right?  Like people move to the States to get a green card and make money, people move to New York to make it, etc, etc.  Of course, I won't bring up that I learned a lot and matured through the experience, but aren't we all enslaved in some way in society and striving for that next goal?  Am I too jaded or is she too idealistic?

In the evening time, despite the rain, I went to visit a local care group, or Bible Study group in Hong Kong.  The couple's home was in Tin Hau and a very good part of it.  I arrived all wet from walking uphill in the rain and they were surprised to see me.  The woman told me that their yearly sessions were already over but invited me in for tea and gave me an umbrella afterwards.  Their big house had five cats roaming about and gave me an instant feeling of home.  If I were living like them, of course I'd like Hong Kong!  The older guy told me that he was born in Shanghai but grew up in Hong Kong and his son having gone to Deerfield Academy, a premier boarding school in the US, now studies at Yale and is a swimmer there.  They are in fact leaving for San Francisco to meet up with him this holiday season.  An ideal life in Hong Kong indeed.