About 30 years ago, I was living Houston and one of the things I had going on was as a specialist on a state of the art technology from my company that a very well known prof at a western US university was trialing in his research program. The prof’s work was funded by a prominent process equipment manufacturer that wanted to incorporate our technology into their overall system package. I was spending about 2-weeks a month in town split between the university and a second project at a copper mine and mill an hour drive away.
I was teamed up with a visiting Chinese prof that was on a fellowship to the project. The guy was really broken down, obvious he’d had a hard life and was at an age that I’m sure he had been caught up on the brutal side of the earlier Cultural Revolution chaos. So, we worked together several months then on my last visit he was gone and 2 well groomed Chinese with perfect English were in his place. I asked where the original Chinese was at. The reply was basically “who’s that, never heard of him”. Very weird.
I know.
I live in a university town, work on occasion with Profs at the local university. So I see it all the time.