After three H-1B losses, China’s return hit harder

Charlie Fang returned to China in 2024 after losing the H-1B visa lottery three times. He had expected the move to be simple—work, life, routine. Instead, the hardest part was reverse culture shock: the way people read his job through US–China tensions, and th

Charlie Fang remembers the moment it stopped feeling temporary. He had already lost the H-1B visa lottery three times—three attempts at a future he kept thinking he would eventually win. But in 2024, when he finally moved back to China, the adjustment wasn’t just about changing cities. It was about rewiring everything he thought he understood.

Fang, 31, now works for an American tech company in China as a strategic partner manager. In 2024, his “second time” in China came with reverse culture shock—something he says he was not prepared for.

He had left the US in 2024 after three failed attempts to obtain an H-1B visa. and the decision had already been dragging on his life for years. The scramble for the visa shaped his routines. his conversations. even the little rituals other Chinese international students talked about—like eating at Chick-fil-A to improve lottery odds. visiting temples such as the Pao Hua Temple in California. and asking family members back in China to burn incense.

Fang did all of that. He still wasn’t selected.

Before any of the lottery math, there was the feeling of distance as something ordinary. Fang grew up in China and attended school in Nanjing, where studying abroad was common. “More than half of my classmates planned to leave China for college. ” he said. making overseas education feel less like a gamble and more like a path.

His early exposure to the US came in a brief period before college. when he lived with a family in Portland. Oregon. His host mother—who worked in branding—asked what people in China wore and how brands were understood there. The family had watched the Beijing Olympics and had many questions about the country. Politics also came up at the dinner table in 2008, when Barack Obama ran against John McCain.

That political dinner conversation stayed with him because it was new to him; politics, he said, was not something discussed at home as often.

The family also treated him carefully. Before he left, his host mother handwrote a letter in Chinese to his mother using Google Translate. Fang says it left him and his host family with a “hugely positive view of Americans.”

Later. Fang attended the University of Minnesota for his bachelor’s degree. experiencing what people call “Minnesota nice.” During that time. small gestures stood out: at a local restaurant called Hong Kong Noodles. he learned that another customer he had never met quietly paid for his meal. Another time. he accidentally ordered Starbucks from the wrong location. but the nearer branch made him a new drink without charging him again. Even when he missed a bus stop because he and friends forgot to pull the stop cord. other passengers passed the message forward so the driver would stop for them.

He remembers being surprised most by attitudes toward education and individuality. He said professors didn’t seem concerned if students skipped class. and that when someone wanted to enjoy life rather than study. it was treated like a personal choice—something he couldn’t imagine being accepted in China at the time.

Yet even then, Fang didn’t plan to stay in the US permanently. After graduation, he returned to China and joined an adtech startup.

In China. he says he enjoyed the work and got along well with colleagues. even though he worked what people describe as a “996” schedule—often from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. He loved the job and didn’t mind the hours because his salary increased every year. After work, he still went out with friends for drinks or board games.

But in 2021, his US chapter returned in full. Fang went back to the United States to enroll in a master’s program at Harvard. There. he reconnected with friends he hadn’t seen in years and talked enthusiastically about startup life—until one friend told him it was shocking how much he had changed. They called him a workaholic, and Fang says the comment stayed with him.

He started realizing that every conversation seemed to circle back to work. He began questioning whether he should adjust his mindset. talking more about other parts of his life with friends. including his childhood. beliefs. and values. He also did things he once would have called a waste of time—traveling to Mexico and Alaska. and attending friends’ birthday parties.

After graduate school. he moved to California and started working at a startup before moving to a gaming company. where he managed partnerships with content creators. During that period. he entered the H-1B visa lottery three times—building a life in the US while waiting for a door that never opened.

Among Chinese international students. Fang said. there’s a belief that certain actions—like eating at Chick-fil-A—can help your odds. When results come out. some friends even change their social media profile pictures to the company logo to signal they were selected. Fang followed that logic in his own way. He also asked his family in China to burn incense for him at temples. Still, he wasn’t selected.

Once he understood he couldn’t stay, Fang began applying for jobs in Beijing and eventually joined an American tech company as a strategic partner manager.

When he moved back to China in 2024, he found a different kind of barrier. He had become more direct and less sensitive to authority and hierarchy after living in the US. In China, he says, people often rely on cues to figure out who holds influence in an interaction.

Working for an American company in China created “strange questions.” Relatives asked whether he represented American interests or whether he had obtained a green card. He told them he was simply an employee and that he pays taxes to China. Even then. he said it sometimes felt like people were viewing him through the lens of US–China tensions instead of as an individual.

The day-to-day weight of that misreading sharpened the difference between the two places he knew. Fang says he now has a healthier work-life balance than he did at the startup. He also finds it easier to make close friends in China because he shares similar experiences and histories.

In the US, he says, relationships were simpler. In China, he feels he has more people to take care of—but also more people taking care of him.

The story of his return isn’t only about visas. It’s about what happens after a long period of waiting: the moment you finally go back. you discover that familiarity doesn’t automatically bring comfort. For Fang, the hardest part of losing the lottery wasn’t the paperwork. It was the feeling that. when he returned. he still had to fight for the right to be seen as just himself.

H-1B lottery reverse culture shock Charlie Fang Harvard University of Minnesota strategic partner manager American tech company 996 schedule content creators international students