In a blue-collar suburb of Detroit, an old school has been converted into a dormitory for 88 students from China. Just outside Philadelphia, four Chinese teenagers live with a teacher while attending another school.
Chinese families are sending their children overseas to study in larger and larger numbers, and at younger and younger ages. The shift is partly due to dissatisfaction with the gruelling gaokao college entrance exam.
Mao Ruoqing, who sent his daughter to study outside Philadelphia aged 16, says “studying in China is too hard”. His daughter Chuyun says she would not mind taking the Chinese exam but her father is vehement: “I went through it, I know what gaokao is about: you waste too much time on fruitless things.”