CHIANG MAI, Thailand—The competition started in second grade for DJ Wang’s son. Eight-year-old William was enrolled at a top elementary school in Wuhan, a provincial capital in central China. While kindergarten and first grade were relatively carefree, the homework assignments started piling up in second grade.
Chinese mother Jiang Wenhui, left, records her son Rodney Feng playing the acoustic guitar in Chiang Mai province, Thailand, Tuesday, April 23, 2024.Eight-year-old William was enrolled at a top elementary school in Wuhan, a provincial capital in central China. While kindergarten and first grade were relatively carefree, the homework assignments started piling up in second grade.“You went from traveling lightly to carrying a very heavy burden,” Wang said.
Jenson Zhang, who runs an education consultancy, Vision Education, for Chinese parents looking to move to Southeast Asia, said many middle-class families choose Thailand because schools are cheaper than private schools in cities like Beijing and Shanghai. Within Thailand, the slow-paced city of Chiang Mai often ends up being the top choice. Other options include Pattaya and Phuket, both popular beach resorts, and Bangkok, though the capital is usually more expensive.Lanna International School, one of Chiang Mai’s more selective schools, saw a peak of interest in the 2022-2023 academic year, with inquiries doubling from a year earlier.
In Chinese society, many value education to the point where one parent may give up their job and rent an apartment near their child’s school to cook and clean for them, and ensure their life runs smoothly. Known as “,” or “accompanied studying,” the goal is academic excellence, often at the expense of the parent’s own life.
Back in Wuhan, parents are expected to know the material covered in extracurricular tutoring classes, as well as what is being taught in school, and ensure their child has mastered it all, Wang said. It’s often a full-time job. In Thailand, Rodney, who’s about to start 8th grade, has taken up acoustic guitar and piano, and carries around a notebook to learn new English vocabulary—all of it his own choice, Jiang said. “He’d ask me to add an hour of English tutoring. I thought his schedule was too full, and he told me, ‘I want to try and see if it’s OK.’”