From 2001 to 2012, more than 200,000 children were born in Hong Kong - almost all of whom have Hong Kong residency - to parents who are Chinese mainland residents. Not eligible to attend public schools in the mainland, many of these children have to cross the border every day for school. Stuck in the middle, they seem doomed to suffer exhausting, several hour-long daily commutes just to get education.
Choosing a school for their children is a stressful decision for any parent. For a Shenzhen resident surnamed Zhang, her second child's only chance for an education lies across the border in Hong Kong.
Her daughter was born in Hong Kong in 2010, making her one of the more than 200,000 mainlander "shuangfei" (a term which refers to these children's parents and literally translates as "pair of non-Hong Kong residents") children born in Hong Kong. Zhang is now anxiously waiting to hear at which school her daughter has been allocated a place.
"Hong Kong primary schools only set aside 8 percent of the overall enrollment quota for children like mine. If we're unlucky, my daughter will have to go to a bad school," Zhang shared with the Global Times, arguing that this "lottery" arrangement represents Hong Kong's "discrimination" against this group of children.
But she still feels grateful that her daughter can go to a Hong Kong primary school, regardless of its quality. She has virtually no chance of going to a school in the mainland.
Since her daughter has the right of abode in Hong Kong and does not have a mainland hukou (household registration), she is not able to enjoy free education in Shenzhen's public schools. Shenzhen's private schools are too expensive for average middle-class families like Zhang's.
The number of students that cross from the mainland to Hong Kong reached 30,000 in 2015 and this number is expected to peak from 2016 to 2018 at 65,000 to 85,000.
"Before making our decision to send her to a Hong Kong school, we thought about sending her to a public school in Shenzhen. If that was possible, it would mean we could have more time with the children, without her crossing borders every day. But we don't have the chance," said Zhang.
An optimistic person, Zhang is trying to look on the bright side, focusing on the advantages of Hong Kong's kindergartens. But what they are doing is their only choice.
"It is a choice of no choice," said Zhang, "It is hard to say when the government will solve the problem. The children cannot wait. They need to go to school."
A hard choice
In the past three years, Zhang has been traveling to and from Hong Kong every day to take her daughter to kindergarten. She said she is relatively lucky as she lives near the border, but it still takes around three hours every day and her daughter doesn't get enough rest. "It is rather hard for children," said Zhang, adding that it is common for children that live further from the border to spend four or five hours a day traveling.
Hoping to end this exhausting daily ritual, Zhang researched public schools in Shenzhen. She discovered that her daughter will have to go to a "private school built for children from Hong Kong or another private school." In 2012, the Shenzhen education bureau banned local public schools from enrolling students that are registered residents of Hong Kong or Macao.
Even if so, the decision to send her daughter to school in Hong Kong was not made lightly. "Once you choose this path, you need to stick to it until the end," Zhang told the Global Times. "There is no way back."
Since the mainland and Hong Kong use different education systems, including the language of instruction and whether the child learns traditional or simplified Chinese characters, it would be very challenging for a child to switch midway through their primary or middle school curriculum.
Because Zhang's oldest child is studying in Shenzhen, it is not possible for the whole family to move to Hong Kong and rent an apartment there. Once it starts, Zhang - who quit her job when her daughter was born and is unable to work currently due to the long daily commute - will live this life for at least 10 years.
There are also potential problems the family is yet to face. Zhang said her daughter has not mentioned anything about discrimination against her yet, "maybe because they are too little to have this concept." But there has been no shortage of media reports about shuangfei children being discriminated against in Hong Kong's school.
A forum post on Shenzhen-based szhome.com described how the poster's friend's daughter was called "mainland girl" by her Hong Kong kindergarten classmates, who shun her because she cannot speak Cantonese.
This kind of discrimination comes against the backdrop of heightened tensions between Hong Kong locals and mainlanders.
In 2012, a newspaper in Hong Kong published an editorial entitled "Hong Kong people have had enough!" which protested pregnant women from the Chinese mainland giving birth in Hong Kong, and implied mainlanders are locusts.
There have also been demonstrations against "parallel traders" who cross the border from the mainland daily to buy goods that are relatively cheaper in Hong Kong, creating shortages in the city.
