Not long ago, I wrote a piece about the murder of a Chinese student in the UK and parachute kids and discussed the phenomenon of young Chinese students studying overseas. In the US, 1/3 of international students are now from China.

The trend of Chinese students coming to the US to study, despite the Trump administration’s new directives on immigration enforcement and international travel, will continue, and a variety of businesses, from American colleges and private K-12 schools, middleman agencies, tutoring and test preparation services, to local restaurants and luxury goods companies, will continue benefiting from this trend.

There’re other gainers, too.

I recently came across an American family, and the mother told me they accommodated three high schoolers from China in their house. She complained that one of them spent most of his time playing video games and he ignored her advice and supervision. “I called his mother in China, but she told me to let him be,” she told me.

I also know someone who rented out his house last summer through Airbnb to a Chinese family whose son was attending summer camps to improve his English.

Just yesterday, I saw an ad on craigslist, posted by an agency’s housing coordinator, trying to find a Chinese American family for one of their clients, a 15-year-old high school student from China. Requirements included: a furnished room, the internet, food and transportation to and fro school, and airport drop-offs and pickups. The offered payment was $1200 a month.

For some young Chinese students, this is a good opportunity to break free from China’s education system where creativity and imagination are secondary to learning rigid academic curriculum and abiding by authority.

But for some other students from China, leaving home and studying overseas by themselves at such a young age, sometimes against their will because their parents want them to succeed, can lead to bitterness, disappointment and even despair.

I’ll continue exploring this phenomenon in my future posts.