Hong Kong children learn life lessons with the world as their classroom
Stifling environment in the city has forced some who can afford it to take their kids out of the education system to be ‘worldschooled’ on road trips
For six months, while Hong Kong’s schoolchildren bury themselves in textbooks to prepare for examinations, the world is the classroom for the four-year-old daughter and eight-year-old son of Cherry Chau Tsun-to.
Chau and her husband consider themselves a “travelling family”, and aim to educate their children with life lessons on the road. The couple quit their high-paying jobs in Hong Kong to go on a trip around Asia.
Their lifestyle choice is driven by a strong urge to get their children away from Hong Kong’s high-pressure, exam-obsessed education system, coupled with their own weariness of routine office life in an urban jungle.
While not every family in Hong Kong can afford to follow the Chaus, they are not entirely alone. In fact, experts have suggested that unconventional parenting is a growing trend in the city, as Asian parents become more open to breaking with tradition.
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