Expensive Preschools Do Not Harvard Grads Make

Yesterday on the cab ride over the driver told me that everyday he goes 15 kilometers to pick up a kid from preschool and drives him back to our complex. I was perplexed, so I asked why the kid doesn't simply attend the nursery school in the complex. The driver said that the parents didn't think our preschool was good enough, and that this preschool is a dual-language preschool with a huge price tag.

I told him that our preschool isn't cheap either, at $300 a month. He said the other preschool costs $1,000 or so. I know for those of ye faithful readers in the US $1,000 for preschool sounds like peanuts, but for most Chinese families $1,000 is their average monthly income. Imagine spending something like $3,000 for preschool in the US, when you could have sent your child to one that costs only $1,000.

Sure, we could easily send Juju to a $1,000 a month preschool, but I refuse to when I can send her to a perfectly good one close to home. I understand why expats send their kids to such expensive schools: they need to be instructed in English and they (more likely probably their parents) feel more comfortable with other (mostly) white kids. I also know why Chinese parents send their kids to such schools, but I think it's overkill.

Many Chinese parents will do just about anything to get their kids fluent in English. They almost see it as the ticket to future happiness and nirvana. Sure, I want Juju to speak English, but I also want her to grow up amongst Chinese kids. I want her to have a sense of ethnic identity so that she views her Chinese heritage as a source of pride rather than shame.

If you've never lived in a place where you are an ethnic minority, maybe it's hard for you to understand how I feel. If you read kimchimamas blog perhaps you'll get a sense why the issue of race is so important to a lot of us Asian moms. I was born in China and grew up in Beijing until I was 12. In elementary school I was always taught to be proud to be Chinese. Now I know a lot of it was propaganda, but as an impressionable young child I fully believed what my teachers said. That pride sustained me through my earlier years in the US when things were difficult.

When we moved to Bethesda, Maryland, where I attended a bit of elementary school, then middle school and parts of high school, mainland Chinese, especially mainland Chinese children, were still a rarity. I knew I couldn't compare to my rich Jewish classmates. They lived in huge houses, their parents drove nice cars, and they wore nice clothes from the Gap. How laughable everything seems now! I have long stopped shopping at the Gap because of its lack of style, but back then there was nothing I wanted more than to wear stuff from the Gap, but alas, it was out of our price range. My parents and I shopped at Kmart and its other cheap chain store cousins.

My classmates made fun of me for my accent, my clothes, my attitude, and my Chinese-ness. However, none it of bothered me for too long because I was convinced that they were wrong and that they werejust jealous they weren't Chinese themselves. Sure, at my worst moments I had sometimes wished I, too, had blond hair and blue eyes, but those moments were rare and fleeting. I always knew I was smart and capable, simply because I firmly believed all Chinese people were.

Over the years I lost a lot of my awkwardness and traces which hint at my third-world origin, but I never lost my ethnic pride. I kept up my Chinese, when almost every other child of Chinese immigrants I knew shed their Chinese when they took up English. I refuse to speak Chinese mixed with English, a common habit carried by many Chinese, in the US or in China. Consequently, I have yet to find someone who has native fluency in both Chinese and English like I do; American born Chinese usually know pathetically little Chinese (Mr. MP is such a shameful example) and immigrant Chinese Americans tend to lose their Chinese but also never quite conquer English. Part of the reason is that unlike, say, French and English, Chinese and English are so dissimilar; to know both is simply a lot of work. The only person whose language skills I truly admire is my dad--his accomplishments deserve a blog all by itself. He regularly publishes in the most authoritative financial journals or magazines in China and his written English is just as good.

Perhaps it is a bit presumptuous of me to say so, but I think I know why these Chinese parents send their kids to such ridiculously expensive preschools--so they can create an artificial English environment so their kids can turn out like me. My command of English can easily fool native speakers into thinking that I must have been born and bred in the USA. I have not one but two degrees from one of the most prestigious colleges in the world. Ironically, I was able to accomplish all that because of my strong ethnic identity, built back when I attended daycare and elementary school in China with classmates who were all poor as dirt like we were. When people were unkind to me because of my race, it didn't confuse me or hurt me--I saw it as their fault, not mine. Back when I was younger and more idealistic, I wanted to succeed, get straight A's and win awards not just for myself but to gain respect for my people.

When Juju was born, how I could give her a strong sense of ethnic identity was always a question lurking in the back of my mind. Her daycare had a sprinkle of Asian kids and almost no blacks or Hispanics. She's smart--sooner or later she would figure out that life in the US is just so much easier as a white person (please, don't just write this statement off--really think about it for a long moment). Then what? I always drew blanks. Would she turn out like her dad, who doesn't really think he's Asian until he's looked into the mirror? Would she turn out like one of my bschool classmates, who is Asian American but refuses to associate with anything such? Would she turn militant or aloof when she suspects people are unkind to her because of her race?

When we decided to move to Beijing, I let out a sigh of relief inwardly. I want her to grow up amongst children who look like her; I want her to never have to question whether she belongs; I want her to be a proud little Chinese girl who someday will bring that pride to her Chinese American friends. If she has problems with her friends from school, I want these children's quarrels to be caused by differences in temperament or silly things such as dolls and toys, not a heavy issue such as race. I have no doubt that one day she will return to America and be a proud American. When she does and encounters racial discrimination, I hope her maturity and pride will enlighten her to the right way to approach such disheartening, confusing and frightening moments.

In the end I feel sorry for these Chinese parents; they want the best for their kids but go overboard at times. Many of the Chinese kids who attend preschools run by foreigners don't really speak English, and from my experience, I know how much angst it causes a child when he/she can't communicate with friends at school. If they really want their children to succeed, let them have a fun childhood and make sure they are proud of their heritage!