I saw something similar a couple of decades ago when I was living in Austin and working at a well-known game development house. There was a Chinese restaurant close to the office, a really good one. We ate there all the time, enough to get to know a couple of the waiters pretty well. One of them, a guy by the name of Bruce, was especially friendly and professional. He always remembered us, spoke perfect English, never let our drinks run dry. We'd ask to be seated in Bruce's section when we saw he was working. He always got big tips.

One day he mentioned that he had an MSEE degree from a university back home in China. Cue record scratch.

That was a deeply unsettling revelation, since a couple of us were EE dropouts ourselves. How'd I drop out of school and end up with my dream job, while Bruce finished his master's program and ended up serving Szechuan shrimp? WTF was up with that? What if, in my next life, I'm the one who gets hosed like this?

I didn't wake up the next day with a hangover or anxiety -- not with the ego that it took to run in that crowd -- but I certainly had a new perspective on things. If people think that even a STEM degree is going to be an automatic ticket to ride through the good life, there's some massive disillusionment coming.

And I don't think it's going to matter whether you're from China or the US or anywhere else. Not in the long run.