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Which China City Is Best for Mordachai?

By Dan Harris and Steve Dickinson

Got a somewhat weird email today, but it makes sense, on some level, so here goes:

Dear Mr. Harris: A question you may want to answer on your blog: If you were 25 again -- crisp J.D. in hand but, alas, no job -- which city in China would you move to? You've noted that there's more to China than Beijing and Shanghai but I was wondering where you thought the future was located. Mordachai Absalom (that would be a pseudonym)

Tough question, actually, particularly since I do not know all that many of China's cities terribly well. Also, (and how's this for being a lawyer) much will depend on the individual and unique facts of your case. For instance, if you are a Chinese-American with an Uncle who heads up the Communist party in Chongqing, then I suggest you go to Chongqing. Or maybe you are not a Chinese-American, but your father-in-law heads up the party in Xiamen. Well then, I would recommend Xiamen. Now suppose you graduated first in your class from Harvard Law School, with an undergraduate physics degree, Summa Cum Laude, from CIT. You speak Farsi, Urdu, and Finnish fluently, but the only word you know in Chinese is xie xie. Well then, I would suggest you stick with a big foreign law firm in Shanghai or Beijing. But if you are fluent in Chinese and, most importantly, can read and write it, then I would suggest you go to an up and coming second tier city that is also a nice place in which to live. For that, I might recommend Dalian or Qingdao, but I confess I pick those two cities because I have spent so much time in them and I have come to really like them. People, help me out here.

Full post as published by China Law Blog on February 04, 2009 (boomark / email).