I hate doing private lessons but I was skint and I didn’t need to leave the house, we could do it on Wechat, so I said yes. There is no end of sixteen year old Chinese students desperate to study abroad and Julie was typical. Her parents, both doctors, had the wherewithal to send her abroad. She was one of the lucky ones.
Julie’s English wasn’t very good. Rather than improving her language skills, she wanted a quick fix which required no owrk on her part. One of my tasks was to ‘help’ Julie write her letter of application so I asked her why she wanted to study abroad and the answer I got was not the usual one. It was much more interesting albeit sadder.
One thing I learnt about Julie is that she loves sports. All she wants to do is play sport all day long. But that’s impossible in her school where academic study trumps everything.
So what was the catalyst which finally made her parents reach for their chequebook? It was a broken leg. She told me the story of her playing basketball at school during PE lesson, falling and breaking her leg. She was taken to hospital and after being all fixed up, the surgeon spoke to her parents and explain that the reason she had broken her leg.
It turns out that her bones were too soft and hadn’t developed properly due to a lack of physical exercise.
Luckily for Julie, her parents have the money to extract her from the damaging situation but they are the minority. There are millions of other less affluent families who are caught in the Chinese system with means of escape.
(Names changed)