China’s ‘parachute kids’: young, determined, but not always prepared

File Photo: Xinhua

It used to be that Chinese students in American schools were largely limited to graduate students, independently making the decision to live and study abroad. Gradually that trend shifted, with more students coming from China to earn bachelor’s degrees at American institutions. Now, the population is widening once again, with vast numbers of Chinese students studying in the U.S. from ever-younger ages.

Bill Zhou is a resident of Rowland Heights, California, though he was born in Shenzhen. Zhou and his wife are currently housing just such a student: Hsu, also from Shenzhen, who is living with Zhou (a paid arrangement) while he attends Southlands Christian School, a private, religious institution.

Although Zhou is a caring and solicitous guardian for Hsu, he knows there are many people taking advantage of the trend who are far less conscientious than he is. In a recent Lost Angeles Times article, Zhou described his reservations about the current system – or lack thereof.

“They don’t know if the school is good. They don’t know if the home stay is good. But everyone else is doing it, so they do it, too,” Zhou said, addressing the parents of so-called parachute children, who earn the nickname by “parachuting” into the U.S. by themselves, unaccompanied by family. After placing his ad for a home stay, Zhou received replies from parents of children as young as 6, expressing interesting in his offer, according to the article.

Based on statistics, Zhou has reason to be concerned. A recent article in Sixth Tone, sister site of Thepaper.cn, cited data from U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, which stated that the number of Chinese students enrolled at U.S. secondary schools increased from just 637 in 2005 to more than 46,000 in 2015. Currently, Chinese students make up half of all international students in the American secondary education system.

Those numbers are reflected in Chinese society and even popular culture, where a new television drama titled “A Love for Separation” debuted several months ago, according to Sixth Tone. But even as the choice to send young teenagers abroad becomes more accepted and popular, some worry that neither parents nor the parachute children themselves quite know what they’re getting themselves into.

“It is a common misunderstanding that studying in a private American high school is easier than school in China,’ the mother of a Chinese student currently enrolled at an American prep school told the author of the Sixth Tone article. “My son is under enormous pressure to compete with accomplished peers. He was very lonely during his first year of high school, and found it hard to assimilate into an unfamiliar environment.”

Chinese parents send their teenagers abroad for a variety of reasons. For some students, it is to escape the rigid Chinese education system; for others, it is a second chance to recover from bad grades or a low score on China’s college entrance exam. For still others, it is simply a lifelong dream – one which doting parents are loathe to deny.

This trend isn’t going anywhere soon, judging from the latest statistics. What could and should increase, however, is the understanding of what it means to be a parachute child: bright, brave, and perhaps just a little bit reckless.