Red Lantern Diary: Seattleite’s dispatches from Hong Kong

Of all the things I thought would be difficult about living in Hong Kong - and being a parent in general - I never imagined that getting my daughter into preschool and then kindergarten would top the list. The word, “nightmare,” comes to mind as I go from school to school here, watching three year olds learn to read and write and making decisions that elicit disapproving emails from kindergarten admissions directors. Who would have thought? Then again, in this hyper competitive market, I shouldn’t have been surprised. In any case, I feel like I’ve been applying to schools since we first decided to move to Hong Kong two years ago, and that’s because in fact, I have been.

It all started two years ago, as we prepared for our move and I called my friend, Jen, who had previously lived in Hong Kong with three young children, to ask about preschools. At the time, Elisa was just over eighteen months old. She explained that in Hong Kong, children begin preschool at 2 years, 8 months, and the scramble to get into the “right” school was somewhat akin to an eighteen year old trying to gain access to Harvard.

Some international preschools are part of an elementary – or as they say here - primary school while others are standalone. Admission into primary school begins at age 3, 4, or 5, depending on the school. All require lengthy applications and many “assessments” where the children are scheduled into small group visits for testing and observation. This usually happens between two and two and a half years old. If a child cries or clings to a parent, he is automatically disqualified.

After applying to several preschools and being placed on waiting lists, we eventually decided on several criteria: we chose to avoid schools that required an assessment on the grounds that this was not something we desired for our daughter at two years old; we would not consider at so young an age enrollment in a preschool that was part of a primary school; we did not want our daughter in an academic environment where she would be learning to read and write at 3; and we wanted a school with a nice outdoor area to play. With this in mind, one school ermerged as our first choice. We sent in our applications, held our breath, and waited.

In the meantime, I enrolled – after clearing another wait list – in a mommy/baby program at one of the schools. I hoped to gain insight into this crazy process and make new friends. I started the program relieved, believing that although I had not yet secured a spot in our preferred preschool, I had completed all my applications and there was nothing further I could do.

My relief was ephemeral. Within weeks, concerned mothers began asking me where I had submitted applications for Primary school. I was surprised and told them Elisa was just two. They laughed at my innocence and explained that in Hong Kong, schools allow kindergarten applications from birth and that in fact, two was already a bit late. They then asked me where my husband’s firm maintained a “debenture.”

It was the first time I had heard this word. I soon learned that “debentures” are long-term debt instruments sold to parents and companies by schools to raise funds for capital projects. Families and employers are able to purchase them to leapfrog other students in the application process. At the Chinese International School (CIS), one of the well-respected schools in Hong Kong, a debenture, or as the schools calls it, a corporate nomination right, costs HK$600,000 (roughly US$80,000), and 11% of their students attend under this scheme. A scandal last summer revealed that Chinese International School debentures were being sold on the second-hand market for HK$3 million.

Many companies purchase and then offer debentures to employees as an enticement to work in Hong Kong. Unfortunately, my husband’s firm does not. So, we joined those families applying for the remaining open spots. However, this does not spare us from additional admission fees. As part of the application, non debenture parents must agree to pay an “individual nomination right” for the bargain price of - again I’ll use CIS as an example - HK$75,000 (approximately US$10,000). The school holds this non interest bearing sum until the day your child graduates or withdraws from the school, when it is refunded to parents.

At this point, any sensible person would take a another look at local schools. “What is the harm in learning a little Cantonese?” I asked myself. Why not simply bypass the international schools that - due to shortages in space - left over 300 children without any school at all last year? Well, as it turns out, Chinese schools are no picnic either. Children begin academic studies in a primary school at 3 and by age 5, it is not unusual for them to be doing homework until 11 pm. One of my Chinese friends told me of several children she knew who had suffered from stress undergoing the intensity of local schooling. Their parents had sensibly moved them to the kinder, gentler, international system.

The academic rigor of local schools may be justified by the complexity in learning to read and write Cantonese, but still, I didn’t want my daughter doing 6 hours of homework at night at the tender age of 5. And so my saga continued as I began to call, one by one, the international schools and make appointments to tour the schools.

Source: seattlepi.com Mariners blog
http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/redlantern/archives/135493.asp?from=blog_last3

Education chief Michael Suen Ming- yeung is today expected to announce the reopening of all schools on Monday, ending the extra-long Easter holiday for younger students.

Primary and special schools, nurseries and kindergartens were shut on March 13 following a flu outbreak and the death of three children from unknown causes.

Secretary for Food and Health York Chow Yat-ngok and senior officials from the Department of Health and the Education Bureau met yesterday to discuss the reopening.

An announcement was expected after the meeting but an official said it was decided to wait until today to allow medical authorities another day to study hospital admissions.

“The most important thing now is that flu viruses have been found not to be especially cruel. They are just normal viruses,” Suen said.

He said the bureau is in constant contact with schools and parents should have no fears about allowing their children return to lessons.

The Centre for Health Protection has recorded no significant upward or downward trend in infections over the past few weeks with the average remaining at 76 cases per 1,000 consultations at private doctors.

The center said there were no hospital admissions yesterday of children suffering from serious flu complications and no new influenza outbreak had been reported in the past 24 hours.

The vice-president of Hong Kong University’s infection research center, Ho Pak-leung, said there is no serious danger to children as data has shown no mutation of the flu virus.

Hong Kong Education Policy Concern Organization chairman Mervyn Cheung Man-ping said an early announcement of the reopening would help parents and warned the Education Bureau it faced a firestorm of criticism if there is a repeat of the hasty manner in which it shut schools earlier for the Easter break.

Cheung also urged the bureau to brief schools on the latest sanitary policies and to provide them with abundant supplies of items such as facial masks and sanitizers. He also expects the bureau to shorten the summer break since schools are on course for the minimum number of prescribed school days this year.

Source: The Standard, Hong Kong
http://tinyurl.com/27qz73

Hong Kong shut all primary schools and kindergartens, halting classes for more than half a million students, after four children with flu-like symptoms died.

“We have been working closely with the Department of Health and the secondary schools the last few days to know more about this spread,” said Anna Chan, an officer with the Education Bureau.” The young get contaminated more easily.”

Hong Kong announced the closures late yesterday, five years after severe acute respiratory syndrome killed 299 people and crippled the city’s economy. The government closely monitors influenza outbreaks, with the airport screening all incoming passengers for signs of fever.

“At this time of the year, it’s a viral soup everywhere,” said Peter Cordingley, the Manila-based spokesman for the World Health Organization’s Western Pacific region. “There is nothing exceptional in what is happening in Hong Kong at the moment.”

Two of the children who died tested positive for influenza A, the Health Department said. It declined to cite influenza as the cause of the deaths. Another two children died after suffering flu-like symptoms, the department said, adding that tests haven’t yet confirmed the presence of influenza A.

China’s government will cooperate with its “Hong Kong counterparts to control this flu incident so it does not spread,” Li Changjiang, head of the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine, told reporters at a press conference in Beijing today. He didn’t say what action China would take.

“Little Drastic”

Closing schools “might be a little drastic, but it’s a reassurance to the community,” Hong Kong Secretary for Food and Health York Chow told reporters today.

The influenza viruses circulating in Hong Kong this year are predominantly type B and a variant of the type A (H3N2) strain that caused epidemics in Australia last year, including the deaths of three children, said John Nicholls, associate professor of pathology at the University of Hong Kong.

In Hong Kong, “there is a large number of kids being infected,” he said. Actual deaths from the disease are still very low, he said in an interview yesterday.

A 7-year-old boy died at the city’s Tuen Mun Hospital and the school closed amid the flu outbreak, state broadcaster Radio Television Hong Kong reported. A 3-year-old and 27-month-old have also died. No common factors between the deaths have been identified at this stage, according to the government.

“High Anxiety”

“If you look back to SARS, you can understand why there is a high level of anxiety in Hong Kong,” WHO’s Cordingley said. “Hong Kong is a very jam-packed-tight type city and it’s the perfect place for transmission lines to thrive.”

The deaths will be investigated to see whether the virus is mutating, Yuen Kwok-yung, a University of Hong Kong professor in microbiology, said at a press conference yesterday.

The Hospital Authority said it has earmarked HK$20 million ($2.6 million) to implement measures up to the end of April to cope with a surge in demand for public hospital services.

Flu outbreaks were confirmed at three primary schools yesterday, the Centre for Health Protection said on its Web site. The outbreak is suspected to have spread to 20 other schools, it said.

Last week, 13 cases were confirmed, still below the peak of 22 recorded during 2007’s flu season, the center, part of the government’s health department, said. Hospital admission rates due to flu among children younger than five years old and the elderly, while rising, are still below those recorded during the peak seasons in the past two years, the center said.

Hong Kong had 140,783 kindergarten and 410,516 primary students the school year ended July 2007, according to the Hong Kong Education Bureau’s Web site. The closures affect children aged between 3 and 11.

Resistant Viruses

The current northern hemisphere flu season is the strongest in four years, and hasn’t been this severe this late in the season in more than 10 years, said Craig Maxwell, a JPMorgan Chase & Co. health-care analyst in London, in a note to clients.

The jump in flu cases is happening because this year’s vaccine is effective against fewer than half the strains infecting people, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.

Scientists have also found strains of the H1N1 seasonal flu virus capable of evading Roche Holding AG’s Tamiflu antiviral drug in 20 countries in Europe, North America and Asia-Pacific during the past three months.

The prevalence of resistant viruses ranges from 3 percent in Australia to 66 percent in Norway. In Hong Kong, 11 out of 116 samples from patients infected with the H1N1 virus harbored resistance to the pill, the World Health Organization said in a statement on March 6.

Source: Bloomberg
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aVeAzaASQsLE&refer=home

Concerned by the whopping number of children in the age group of six to 59 months suffering from anaemia, the government is taking several steps, including providing supplementary and fortifying food and vitamins supplements to rectify the malady.

Health and Family Welfare Minister Anbumani Ramadoss told Lok Sabha on Wednesday that 69.5 percent of children in the age group of six to 59 months are suffering from anaemia of which 63 percent are in the urban areas and 71.5 percent in the rural areas.

“Anaemia is a multifaceted problem. The important reasons for widespread anaemia are inadequate intake and absorption of iron from cereal based diet, inadequate consumption of green leafy vegetables and citrus fruits,” he said.

He also pointed out that poverty and illiteracy are the contributory factors leading to anaemia among children.

Pointing out that the government is highly concerned about the matter; he said Prime Minister Manmohan Singh recently held a meeting to chalk out a strategy to deal with the problem.

The ministers for women and child development, human resource development, rural development and health attended the meeting, he said.

“We have decided to introduce fortified food in mid-day meals,” he said.

He said under the reproductive and child health programme (RCH-11) the government is providing iron and folic acid tablets to all pregnant and lactating women and preschool children to control anaemia.

“Now it has been decided that children six months to five years would be given 20 mg iron and 100 mcg folic acid supplement in liquid form,” he said.

Children in the age group of six to 10 years would be provided with 30 mg iron and 250 mcg of folic acid, while adolescents in the age group of 11-18 years would receive the same dose as adults, he added.

“Children in the age group 0-6 years receive supplementary nutrition. Supplementary food is also provided through national programme of nutritional support to primary education,” he added.

The minister said they are planning to provide vitamin A supplements to children till five years of age. Also, health ministry has launched a pilot project on fortification of micronutrients with flour and oil.

Ramadoss said the government is planning a huge awareness campaign on breast-feeding and the ASHAs or the women health volunteers have been asked to inform the villagers to use locally nutritious food. (…)

He said even children born in affluent families are anaemic. “About 56 percent of children in affluent families are anaemic.” (…)

Source: Times of India, India
http://tinyurl.com/288psg

Chinese parents might feel proud in a way: they have beaten pop celebrities to top their children’s “most admired” list, a survey has found.

The survey, conducted by the All-China Women’s Federation among 5,030 children from 28 cities all over the country, asked the respondents to name three persons they admire most. “Parents” were the top choice, followed by “pop stars/artists” and “other relatives”.

The survey, released here Wednesday, also found that among the family members, over 80 percent of children consider their father or mother as the one that influences them most, with 43.1 percent choosing mother and 37.6 percent father.

Fu Guoliang, editor-in-chief of the People’s Education magazine, recalled a similar survey done a few years ago, where Chinese parents failed to make it into the top three positions as their children invariably chose pop stars as their most adored persons.

“The survey sent us a new message concerning parents-children relations in China,” Fu said. “With children admiring their parents so much, it creates a favorable environment for family education.”

Source: Xinhua, China
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-02/27/content_7681883.htm

While eight students in a special-needs class were learning math at Juvanpuiston School, an 11-year-old boy suddenly threw the pencil he was using before hiding under his desk and screaming. The boy apparently lost control of himself after losing a dice game he was playing with his classmates.

Juha Kiilunen, 32, the teacher in charge of the class, comforted the boy, but the rest of the class did not stop as assistant teacher Heli Salminen, 32, took care of the other seven students.

This was one of the scenes The Yomiuri Shimbun observed during a recent visit to Espoo in southern Finland.

Juvanpuiston School is a comprehensive school covering six years of primary and three years of middle school education. The municipal government-run institution has three special-needs classes for slow learners and students with behavioral problems. There are a total of six teachers in charge of these three classes. Thanks to careful instruction, more than 10 percent of the students in the special-needs classes can go back to regular classes.

Juvanpuiston School has fewer than 32 students per class, including regular ones, with an average teacher-student ratio of 1:12.

“We don’t neglect the education of any single child,” Principal Ossi Airaskorpi, 52, said as he observed the special-needs class that was restored to order when Kiilunen calmed the boy down. “Every child receives the attention they require.”

When the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) released the results of the 2006 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) it conducted in 2006, Finland again ranked in the top class, as it has since the survey was first conducted in 2000.

Japan, in contrast, has realized through the PISA that scholastic abilities among its children have been significantly declining.

As the third assessment, the 2006 PISA was administered to a total of about 400,000 15-year-olds in 57 countries and territories, including some that do not participate in the OECD, such as Hong Kong and Taiwan. Among the OECD participants, Finland was ranked at the top in both scientific and mathematical literacy, while taking second place in reading literacy. In the 2003 PISA, the country took first place in all three domains.

Experts have pointed to Finland’s philosophy of education as the driving factor behind such high levels of scholastic performance. The Finnish way aims at helping all students–including those in special-needs classes–develop their scholastic abilities in small-group instruction, rather than focusing on pulling up a limited number of the brightest students.

The history of this philosophy dates back about 90 years. Finland laid down a free education policy in 1919, two years after becoming independent from Russia. In 1968, the law on comprehensive schools was enacted, by which basic education for children was extended to nine years from four. During the nine years, everything from tuition and learning materials to school meals, health checks and transportation are free of charge.

The 2006 PISA shows that the variance in student performance between Finnish schools was within a range of 5 percentage points, the lowest figure among the OECD participants. Moreover, teachers working at the primary and middle school levels are required to earn at least a master’s degree, while their pay system also has been improved over the past decade or so. By motivating teachers well, Finland has turned itself into a “major educational power.”

The fate of Finland, which has a population of just more than 5 million and lacks rich natural resources, has largely depended upon human development.

Finland’s National Board of Education, an advisory panel to the Education Ministry, establishes basic policy, based on which about 450 municipal governments compile respective curriculums. These curriculums are distributed to public schools, which account for more than 95 percent of all schools at the basic-education level.

Local governments compete against each other in their respective education programs as nationwide achievement tests are conducted every year that show variance in students’ performances among schools.

“Our deliberate and continued investment in education has again been rewarded with the top position in the PISA ranking,” said Education and Science Minister Sari Sarkomaa, stressing the success of Finland’s national policy.

The National Board of Education has been receiving inquiries from more than 100 countries worldwide, and welcomes five to 10 organizations every week for tours to observe local schools.

Answering a question during one such tour, Irmeli Halinen, head of the board’s Preschool and Comprehensive School Education Unit, said: “The principal [aim] of our education is to improve the skills and abilities of all the children we teach.”

Source: The Daily Yomiuri, Japan
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/features/language/20080214TDY14002.htm

Ryuta Kawashima, the scientist behind the smash-hit “brain training” games on Nintendo DS portable consoles, turned down the chance to become a millionaire, saying he’d rather work for a living.

The self-confessed workaholic — who says he has no time for games, even his own — is instead busy at his job, trying to come up with new inventions aimed at Japan’s growing elderly population.

“Not a single yen has gone in my pocket,” said the soft-spoken 48-year-old professor with round-rim glasses.

“Everyone in my family is mad at me but I tell them that if they want money, go out and earn it.”

His brain-training software, which incorporates quizzes and other simple mental stimulation, is credited with introducing a new demographic to video-game machines as older people try to prevent senility.

Royalties from the brain training software for the Nintendo DS alone have reached 2.4 billion yen (22 million dollars), with 17 million titles sold worldwide since its debut in Japan in May 2005.

Under the rules of his employer, state-funded Tohoku University, Kawashima could take up to half the proceeds with the rest going to the school.

But Kawashima, married to a high-school classmate with four sons, is happy to live on his annual salary of around 11 million yen (100,000 dollars).

“To hear this may put you off — but my hobby is work,” he told AFP in an interview at his office in the northern city of Sendai.

Asked whether he ever thought of taking the royalty money and moving to a tropical island, Kawashima simply said: “I wouldn’t know what to do there. If I had such time to spare, I want to do my research.”

Indeed, it seems like nothing gets in the way of work. When for instance he decided last year to lose 20 kilogrammes (44 pounds), he just cut down on food, he says, adding: “If there is time for physical exercise, I want to use it for research.”

Kawashima became interested in brains when he was a teenager, saying that he “wanted to put my brain in a computer so it would be around to see the last day of humanity”.

While that ambition may still be a long way off, Kawashima pours his portion of the royalties from his work into funding research. He has built a 300-million-yen laboratory at the university’s Institute of Development, Aging and Cancer where he works, and another lab worth 400 million yen is due to be completed in March.

Kawashima has received public praise for his apparent philanthropy, but says other researchers have the right to earn money from their work if that is what motivates them.

People can train their brains just as they do their bodies, Kawashima says.

He no longer uses his own software to keep his own brain nimble, he says, confident that his research work is enough.

Now in the fourth year of an education ministry-funded project looking at youngsters’ brain development, he says he does not yet know how children’s minds are affected by long hours playing video-games.

“Having fun is not studying. Making them study is not to entertain children but to pressure them to make efforts. People fall to lower and lower places unless they are driven to go higher,” he said. (…)

Source: AFP
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5gMwDe1ovbiILhtf3JKM2Ez79rGvA

More than 42,000 Year 12 students in Queensland have just been notified of their university course offer for 2008.

A teacher friend, based in a large Brisbane high school with a significant enrolment of Australian students of Asian parentage, commented that offers into science (medicine), pharmacy, dentistry and other related careers were keenly sought and gained by those students.

The success of students from Asian backgrounds in academic performance has been the subject of several recent cross-cultural studies both in Australia and in the United States.

The general conclusion is that Asian families who have settled in Western countries appear to approach their studies more seriously than non-Asians and aim to achieve high grades.

A recurring theme of many of these cross-cultural studies is that children from Confucian heritage cultures (especially, China, Korea and Japan) academically out-perform their Western counterparts.

This conclusion is also supported by research from the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER). It recently reported that university entrance rankings for Anglo-Australian students averages 70/100 while for Australian students of Asian background it is 79/100.

A survey of 2600 Year 11 students in state and public schools in Sydney was conducted by Paar and Mok (1995) who reported that children born of Asian families residing in Australia were more likely to gain a university place than people born in Anglo-Australian families.

This survey also showed that the parents of Asian-Australian children placed a greater importance on their children going to university than did their Anglo-Australian counterparts.

My teacher friend suggests their parents back up the efforts of teachers to encourage their children to do well at school.

The influence of parents on a child’s education is well documented. A fascinating result was found by a study of South Australian final-year primary school students in 2000, comparing Asian-Australians to their Anglo-Australian peers.

The study, by academics Justine Dandy and Ted Nettelbeck, confirmed the popular belief that Asian-Australian school students do more homework than Anglo-Australians.

In the US over the past two decades, the academic achievements of Asian-American children have been recognised not only by classroom teachers, school counsellors and administrators, but also by the general public through the mass media.

Their high academic achievement is reflected in the numbers who receive scholarships from leading universities. This success has attracted the attention of many educators and sociologists who are focusing on the potential variables contributing to these accomplishments.

The cross-cultural factors identified in the US studies probably apply in Australia as well: Asian parents traditionally feel obligated to assist their children in any way they can. Asian parents show strong feelings concerning the value of education for their children’s success. Asian parents are willing to commit all their resources to ensure the best education is available for their offspring. Asian parents still preserve the traditional attitude that parents play a major role in their children’s education and career choice. Asian parents try very hard to assert their opinions and to exert an influence on their children’s future occupation.

Anglo-Australian parents on the other hand adopt different cultural factors: Individualism is highly marked and personal choice is generally well respected. A student’s weekend activities are less rigid and task-orientated than for Australia-Asian families. Team sports and other group-oriented ventures are pursued rather than individualised pursuits such as music or language lessons. Anglo-Australian students are more likely to have part-time jobs.

Deputy Prime Minister and Federal Education Minister Julia Gillard recently reported a fall in Australia’s education standards. A 2007 study by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) reports the performances of Australian high school students in the key areas of maths and reading have fallen since 2000 compared to other developed nations.

Anglo-Australian students, particularly at secondary levels, perhaps need to adopt the hours of study typical in Asian-Australian families.

However, most Anglo-Australian families would never countenance the lifestyle sacrifice this would require.

Source: Courier Mail, Australia
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,23067479-27197,00.html

China said it would issue new rules cracking down on “undesirable” elements of online games amid fears of growing Internet addiction as the number of players soars, state media reported on Thursday.

The number of online game players in China rose 23 percent to 40.17 million last year, Xinhua news agency said this week, citing an industry survey. Regular subscribers, accounting for over half the players, soared 30 percent.

The demand propelled online games sales to top 10.57 billion yuan ($1.46 billion) in 2007, up 61.5 percent, the agency said.

The industry’s growth comes amid media reports of soaring rates of online addiction, and officials blaming Internet obsessions for the majority of juvenile crime.

“Although China’s online gaming industry had been hot in recent years, online games are regarded by many as a sort of spiritual opium and the whole industry is marginalized by mainstream society,” Thursday’s China Daily quoted Kou Xiaowei, a senior official with the General Administration of Press and Publication, as saying.

“If we don’t make adjustments, the industry will suffer sooner or later,” Kou said.

China has banned children from Internet cafes and last year ordered their owners to enforce time restrictions in the wake of several cases involving obsessive players dying of fatigue after marathon game sessions.

But attempts to regulate the booming industry have been undermined by a lack of a proper rating system in China and easy access to pirated games online and on street corners. (…)

Source: Reuters
http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSPEK3508320080117

(…) Parents are pushing their children too hard to excel academically at very early ages, says Professor Yang Xiong, director of the Institute of Youth and Juveniles with the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences.

“Parents, many of whom are white-collar workers with good educational backgrounds, place excessive expectations on their children,” he says.

“Some kids are even deprived of a happy childhood since they are trained and supposed to be ‘geniuses.’ Yet a wise approach is to let children be children.”

He warns that though kids today, overwhelmingly in one-child families, are smarter or more knowledgeable than those in the past, they are also facing new problems such as lack of sleep and free time, anxiety over performance and pleasing their parents and even retrogression in their daily-life abilities and skills.

“It’s sad that some primary-school students still don’t know how to tie their shoes or take a bath on their own,” says Yang. Because of all the attention focused on them, he says, “they are also likely to become selfish and self-centered.”

Education these days is overwhelmingly exam-oriented. “Teaching for examination and learning for examination” has been the motto for years, and it’s difficult to change the mindset. The system is much criticized for turning out good test-takers but relatively few well-rounded students who are curious, inquiring and who take the initiative. Passive, not active learners.

The concept of “quality-oriented education” or quality education has been around since the 1980s and Chinese educators have tried to gradually put it into practice since the 1990s, encouraging students to think for themselves and be creative.

Turning out well-rounded, physically and emotionally healthy people is a slow process. Parents push their children to score high, and teachers still focus on the tests. (…)

Source: Xinhua, China
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-01/14/content_7416264.htm