Winton Dong

    dht620@sina.com

    DURING the May Day holiday, I went to the cinema with my wife and son. The film we saw is a blockbuster titled “Book of Love.” The hero in the film, a Chinese man named Daniel in his 30s, works as a property agent in Los Angeles. Daniel was sent to the United States to study by his parents at the age of only 14. Because of his going abroad at such a young age, Daniel is very sensitive. He regards himself as a cactus, with spikes all over the body, struggling to believe others and always trying to defend himself.

    After watching the thought-provoking film, I couldn’t help discussing the topic with my family and talking about the educational system in China.

    According to the Washington-based Institution of International Education, of 1.18 million international students enrolled in public and private schools in the United States as of the end of March this year, 353,069, or about 30 percent, were from China.

    For example, in small cities such as Murrieta, a rural community about 130 kilometers southeast of Los Angeles, the number of Chinese students has surged in recent years, bringing welcome cash to the school district as well as the host families who care for the teens. Three years ago, the city had about 40 Chinese students, and today it has more than 300 and the number keeps growing.

    About 30,000 of the 353,069 students from China attend secondary schools (junior high and senior) in the States. The majority of their ages are between 14 and 19. They are called “parachute kids” in the United States. Most of them attend Catholic or Christian schools because of restrictions set by the U.S. Government on the number of foreign students enrolled by public schools.

    Everybody with common sense knows that our children are not for parachuting. However, it has turned out to be a trend in China for parents from middle class or above to send their kids abroad at a relatively young age, whatever the cost maybe. In average, Chinese students spend about US$50,000 in the U.S. a year.

    According to the latest statistics, China boasts 2,600 higher learning institutions with 7.5 million graduates in 2015. The average monthly income of these Chinese graduates is only 3,700 yuan (US$600), even lower than the wage of laborers.

    Under these circumstances, many wealthy parents are not satisfied with the quality and prospects presented by Chinese universities. They regard domestic universities as cheap diploma factories and consider sending their children abroad to study to be one of the family’s most important investments.

    Most Chinese teens can adjust well to life in the U.S., but a criminal case in America last year triggered heated debate and rang the alarm bell for Chinese parents. In June 2015, six Chinese students (three were born in 1996 and three others were minors) were put on trial, accused of abducting and torturing a fellow Chinese student by beating her and stripping off her clothes, in Rowland Heights, an affluent unincorporated community in Los Angeles County with an almost 60 percent Asian population. According to Rowland Heights police officers, they frequently see Chinese teens going out alone late at night. Some teens even live alone in villas bought by their parents without adult supervision.

    Controversy about the criminal case ensued when the father of a Chinese defendant allegedly tried to pay off a witness, hoping to settle the case. He was later arrested and charged with attempted bribery. In February this year, the defendants were sentenced to six to 13 years in jail. Different from in China, school violence and torture is a felony in the United States.

    “Those Chinese parents thought they finished their task of raising children by spending a large sum of money and sending their kids to the U.S. Don’t they know that education is a lifelong task?” a Chinese netizen said.

    The criminal case also reminded me of “Lord of the Flies.” The story, written by British Nobel Laureate William Golding and published in 1954, is about a group of children who are stranded on a remote island. When they are forced to live by themselves, the children turn into animals and kill each other.

    In my opinion, education is not only a lifelong task, but also a lifelong task that takes true love and full dedication.

    (The author is the editor-in-chief of the Shenzhen Daily with a Ph.D. from the Journalism and Communication School of Wuhan University.)