Barry is delighted he chose the high life in Shanghai
Barry McFarlane, wife Zoe and their children celebrating New Year 2024 in Shanghai, China, where he has lived for more than a decade.
Barry McFarlane is China development director for the Irish-founded PM Group, the construction project management company, and has lived in Shanghai for more than a decade.
He really enjoys his life in China and is not at odds with being an outsider for, as he explains, he has always fallen into that category.
“My father is from Tyrone and my mother is from Wexford and while I was born in the UK, I spent all my summers on the farm with relatives in Northern Ireland. As a result, when in the UK I am considered Irish and while in Ireland I was thought of as English.”
His parents met in London where his mother had travelled to train to become a nurse and his father had arrived to work in construction.
“In fact, my mother ended up as matron in the hospital where she trained and at 74 is still working part-time.”
His parents are very involved in the local Irish community and as a result McFarlane played GAA, but his other love was hiking which can be solitary sport. This was fostered by his undiagnosed dyslexia and dislike for school where he was bullied as a result.
At that time, dyslexia was not typically recognized but McFarlane’s mother knew he was not slow. What followed was years of painstaking efforts on her part to help in with his homework and seek relevant therapies to help him learn easier.
Another major step was the purchase of a home computer, a real luxury at the time, complete with spell-checker.
“This was a game changer for me. I was doing business studies at GCSE and I even started to win prizes. I remember saying to my parents I wanted to do A Levels and even university. They were a bit nonplussed to be honest as I had hated school up to that point.”
A lucky visit to an open day in Birmingham University discovered sponsorships from engineering companies and McFarlane had his route to college. He was smart and quickly went up the ladder, while studying a four-year engineering business degree.
“My mother told me I had to work twice as hard as everyone else because of my dyslexia, but over the years I realized my dyslexia is my super power. As an engineer, I think differently and that has been very good to me.”
McFarlane’s career took off and soon he was travelling extensively, going to more than 75 countries, as the number two lollipop maker in the world. He had literally hit the top of the ladder but was increasingly tired of the incessant travel. He joined PM as a project engineer originally before swiftly rising to the role of director. He was now ten years in the UK when the opportunity to work for a project in China appeared. He took it.
“I love being in Asian cultures and I am very comfortable being an alien. I was brought over as a director in the food sector. When I first arrived in 2008 there was a large Irish community so that helped me settle in.”
McFarlane’s passion is trekking, hiking and running triathlons. For the next three years he aggressively discovered China. He’d climbed mountains in New Zealand and Nepal, but China really impressed him. He cycled to Everest base camp, completed an ultra-marathon on the Great Wall, hiked the highest mountain in Sichuan, and did many Iron Men across the country.
“Every weekend, I was doing something. Three years turned into five years and then I met a Chinese girl, married her and now we have two small children.”
McFarlane’s wife Zoe has a PhD in epidemiology and while she was working for the CDC originally, she has since moved into the private sector with the view to being flexible in her work.
McFarlane is not sure if he might move again — back to Ireland perhaps and the summers he remembers in Tyrone — but he does know he is very happy in China. His parents have been to see him many times, except for during Covid of course, but he thinks he may stay there. He also has his Chinese residency which gives him choices.
Working in China is intense. Compared to Ireland, McFarlane finds the pace of life much faster and many of his colleagues are younger and indeed half of them are women.
“There is a huge amount of energy in the office and things move fast. It can feel a bit frantic but the buzz is real. China is only really opening up since the mid-90s so they are doing a lot of things for the first time and the ambition is huge.”
McFarlane reckons he has delivered a billion dollars’ worth of projects in the past decade.
“I’d never get an opportunity to work on such vast projects anywhere else. Professionally this is very exciting and satisfying by the sheer scale and ambition of the projects.”
He is working with whiskeys currently, Middleton, Jameson, Diageo in the mix, and has designed three whiskey distilleries in China, and thinks he may hold the record for the biggest number of builds by a single person.
Having worked across so many countries in the world, McFarlane is of the opinion that everyone is the same.
“Everyone wants the best for their kids. In China, family is particularly important. Everyone works very hard to earn money to make sure their kids have enough. I’d almost say they are obsessed with the next generation.
“I don’t think the Chinese are as hedonistic and selfish as we are in the West. And may I say it is one of the safest places I have ever lived in.”
McFarlane doesn’t carry cash in China and finds it weird when he returns home where Ireland feels backwards. By contrast, all the infrastructures in China are new, like the high-speed trains, and it feels as though he is living in a city of the future.
“I cycle to work on a community bike — and that costs a fiver a year. If you follow the rules here, you are very safe. If you don’t, then you are punished sharply. So just follow the rules which are not onerous. In fact, I’d say I’ve lost my sense of street smarts living here — it is just so safe.”
Part of the feeling of order and stability McFarlane puts down to the fact that the Chinese government plans for the next 100 years. There is no election cycle with promises made and broken every five years.
“Everyone is very focused on the next generation and that creates stability too.”
