This content was originally published by Radio Free Asia, and it is now licensed for reprint.
As people leave Hong Kong , in droves , in a bid to reduce their children from an education program that is , extremely steeped , in Chinese Communist Party advertising, they are building new life in political societies like Taiwan and the United Kingdom.
Some middle- school parents, asked why they chose to , left their home , amid an ongoing , crackdown , on open dissent in Hong Kong, say it’s for the kids.
But the challenges for children uprooted from friends, college, home and the town they once called house are far from negligible.
Three years ago, the Cheungs emigrated to Taiwan with their family of five, including Yuet, 13, Guji, 10 and Yiu, 8.
They eagerly declared,” We’re going through the gate then,” according to a YouTube video released at the time by Yuet! before giving their relatives a quick hug, and embarking on their new life more than 700 kilometers ( 400 miles ) away.
Around the same moment, the Ho community were taking off for the United Kingdom, with 10- year- ancient Marcus and 9- year- ancient Max.
Marcus stated in a new interview with Radio Free Asia that “my father just said we were going to the U.K.” ” Actually, I do n’t remember the details because we were very young at the time”.
” I always considered leaving my friends and classmates behind.”
The Cheung children claimed that there was n’t much room for opposition to the idea, and that they had some idea of why they were leaving, aside from their parents wanting them to get a better education.
Speech problems
They first encountered Taiwan, where Mandarin Chinese is the primary language of instruction in schools and Taiwanese is also commonly spoken, and because they are Mandarin speakers, they also found it difficult to communicate when they first arrived there.
” I did n’t understand Mandarin at all, or any other languages”, Guji said. ” It was difficult for me to communicate”.
All three of the children were thrown into a system that required them to know linguistic symbol methods they had never been taught, leading to poor results on Chinese tests that should have been simple.
” They all know this linguistic method because they learned it in kindergarten”, Yuet complained. ” But we were in fifth and sixth grade and we did n’t know it, yet 20 marks out of every 100 were for phonetic spellings, so I got 70″.
” The instructors are kinder and less scary when they tell you off, and there’s a little less homework compared to Hong Kong,” Guji said. ” They’re certainly as strict”.
In contrast to what they were in Hong Kong, the Cheungs also get to spend more time with their families than they did being left with a local companion.
Marcus and Max have also had to work very hard to break the language challenge in the U.K. Marcus found leaving Hong Kong, where he was on the football, basketball and swimming teams and school president, rather a wrench.
But there have been compensations, too. In contrast to the educational system in Hong Kong, which has a much lower level of hothouse atmosphere, students are not expected to study at all times of day and night to keep up with requirements.
That gives them more time and energy to do the things they love, including lots of fun outdoor play.
” The pace in school seemed very leisurely”, their father Simon told RFA Cantonese. However, it turned out that he was n’t just playing around; he had written two pages after I examined what he was doing.
” After they caught up in English, communication became easier, and they both like to play football, so it became a lot easier for them to communicate with their friends”, he said.
” I think they’re fairly happy”, he said. ” They’re not particularly unhappy”.
Less pressure
Asked if this was an accurate assessment, Marcus said he prefers life in the U. K., because there’s less pressure.
Bonnie, an expert on early years education, said that children are adaptable and generally manage to settle in after such a transition. She also immigrated to Taiwan with her children.
But they thrive in a setting where they can express their emotions and feel that their families are working together to solve problems.
” First, remember that you’re in this together, and second, give them time and give them space”, she advised. ” I do n’t mind letting my kids see my weakness, because that’s a very real feeling”.
But ultimately, the parents are the ones responsible for emigration, not the kids, she said.
According to her,” children must let go of the people and things they love most because their parents made the choice.”  ,
Marcus, Max and the Cheung children are n’t alone.
BNO visas
The British National Overseas visa program, which provides a pathway to permanent residency and citizenship, has approved 40, 000 Hong Kong minors so far.
Meanwhile, schools in Taiwan reported 129 new students from Hong Kong in the 2020 academic year, and 174 in the 2021 academic year, compared with less than 100 between 2015 and 2019.
According to National Taiwan University sociologists Lu Ching-hu, parents who immigrate from Hong Kong are much more likely than those who remain behind to change the city.
” There is a positive relationship between resistance and immigration”, said Lu, who has studied emigrating Hong Kong families. ” If you are a parent, the relationship is even stronger” . ,
U. K. based Simon said that was a key factor in the Ho family’s decision to leave.
” One of the reasons is that the teaching materials have been changed”, he said. This makes it harder for parents to help kids revise for tests in what has become an , unfamiliar , and , hostile , education system.
There are some subjects in general knowledge class that you ca n’t even discuss, he said. They have already been taught a lot of things, so the teacher advises them to return home and inquire about the true version of history when they ask.
Protests
The 2019 protest movement, which began as a peaceful mass campaign against plans to allow extradition to mainland China, elicited a more , violent backlash , from police than the Occupy Central movement for universal suffrage had done in 2014.
Many people in Hong Kong felt that the city was no longer safe as a result of the clashes, according to Lu.
They would have experienced that sense of danger and crisis when they participated, Lu said, and that is why they started considering immigrating when they considered the future.
Cheung Sang, the father of the three Cheung children, said he would never have left Hong Kong if he had n’t had children.
” ]Beijing ] would n’t have had much influence on my thoughts, and would n’t have been able to brainwash me”, he said.  ,
While the kids are definitely a factor in such decisions, they should n’t be made to carry the burden of the move, warned Bonnie.
” Do n’t put that huge pressure on the shoulders of these children”, she said.
Parents are faced with a new challenge when their children do settle into a new language and environment: whether to stick to their old identities or to go with the flow and accept that they will assimilate.
For emigrating Hong Kongers, keeping up their children’s Cantonese, the city ‘s , embattled lingua franca, seems a pretty important way to remind their kids who they are and where they came from.
But there are practical difficulties, not least the number of hours in the day.
The Cheung children now convert to Mandarin when they are discussing what happened at school that day, and their word choices and Cantonese pronunciation are already being impacted by the new language they are being taught to speak in, according to their mother Connie.
Connie informed RFA that she instructs them to watch Cantonese YouTube videos in order to prevent them from forgetting their mother tongue.
” After a couple of years in the new environment, kids start to ask themselves who they are and where they come from”, Bonnie said.  ,
I keep talking Cantonese with them, she said,” Sometimes we look at photos or I tell them things about their childhood memories,” she said. ” You have to remember that you’re a Hong Konger”.
