China and the USA

Insight, wit and analysis from BBC correspondents around the world, introduced by Pascale Harter. In this edition - a special personal essay by Cindy Sui.

How many times do we hear of people emigrating in search of a better life? Or of the struggle to fit in with the ways of a different culture of hard work in a new country and then eventually, success; a house, a car, university education for the next generation. The children then perfectly at home in this new place, with little idea of where their parents came from and no concept of what they went through to arrive.

For Cindy Sui, who emigrated with her parents to the United States in the 1970s, the story is quite different. Cindy was born in a China with a strictly-controlled command economy, when times were tough for most families. But that was a very different age. China now has the third highest number of millionaires of any country in the world and a flourishing - and ever-expanding - middle class.

So who did better - Cindy's family of emigrants, or the relatives who stayed behind?

(Image: Cindy Sui)