I do see where you are coming from. When I am abroad I certainly miss seeing the sports games, the food, the cultural aspects such as art, literature, and design in the society. Making the effort to learn foreign languages certainly makes me miss reading books printed in those languages when I am not in that country, and Mandarin is certainly no exception to this. It is just that some things become unbearable after a while. Also, expats who truly adopt the culture of wherever they are living will be able to talk about how their adopted culture made them better people. With the grovelling types who come on here and romanticize China, I do not see this in them at all. Though they are shameless to talk about how much China is good for them, usually it is because the country allows them to remain in their own shells and actively keep their bad habits.

I stated in a past post about a Chinese girl who immigrated to Canada. She adopted Western culture to her life and took up a love for philosophy, literature, and the arts. She proudly boasted about how in her own house she doesn't even have any more Chinese paintings or sculptures, only Western ones because she sees better artistic value(and stated why specifically). She also stated how she now will not really socialize with newer Chinese immigrants due to the lack of humanity she feels they possess. She stated that the most important reason she believes in the superiority of living in the West is because of the spirituality which teaches Universalism and Equality for All. From what she wrote I could see that she actually became a better person compared to before when she was still caught in the "China" reality.

Foreigners who want to stay in China may have special cases of why they want to do so, but in many cases it stems from a own lack of self initiative to change for the better. Being in a place that is not so free makes people feel that they do not have to think as hard to live their lives, and that certainly doesn't bode well for making intelligent insights or well rounded personalities.