中国留学热有增无减

In a blue-collar suburb of Detroit, an old school has been converted into a dormitory for 88 students from China. Just outside Philadelphia, four Chinese teenagers live with a teacher while attending another school.

在底特律一个蓝领聚居的郊区，人们将一所老学校改造成了宿舍楼，供来自中国的88名学生居祝在费城郊外，4名中国少年与一位老师住在一起，并在另一所学校上学。

Chinese families are sending their children overseas to study in larger and larger numbers, and at younger and younger ages. The shift is partly due to dissatisfaction with the gruelling gaokao college entrance exam.

越来越多的中国家庭选择送孩子出国留学，留学生也日趋低龄化。这种趋势的部分原因在于，人们对竞争激烈的高考制度不满意。

Mao Ruoqing, who sent his daughter to study outside Philadelphia aged 16, says “studying in China is too hard. His daughter Chuyun says she would not mind taking the Chinese exam but her father is vehement: “I went through it, I know what gaokao is about: you waste too much time on fruitless things.

毛若青（音译）说：“在中国读书太难了。他在女儿16岁时就送她去了费城郊外一所学校留学。毛若青的女儿楚云（音译）说，她倒不介意参加高考。但她父亲强烈反对：“我参加过高考，我知道那是怎么一回事：你要在一些没用的东西上浪费太多时间。

More than 1m Chinese students seem to agree. This year, only 9.15m took the exam, compared with 10.5m in 2010. The Chinese education ministry says 20 per cent of the reduction is explained by overseas study. International schools in China are not an option for most students because of government restrictions on domestic enrolment.

100多万名中国学生似乎都同意这个观点。今年参加高考的考生人数仅915万人，而2010年这个数字为1050万人。中国教育部表示，人数下降20%的原因是留学。中国大多数学生无法进入在国内开办的国际学校学习，因为政府限制本土学生在这类学校注册。

“It is such a pain to take the college entrance exam – you spend a whole year studying a little bit of knowledge over and over again, and then you forget all of it in two years’ time, Lu Kaitong, now a freshman at University of Southern California, says in a documentary about overseas student life made by film-maker He Jiayin.

如今已是南加州大学(University of Southern California)大一新生的卢哲凯在一部有关留学生生活的纪录片（该片导演是贺嘉颖）中说：“高考对我来说是件痛苦的事，我不想花一整年时间去复习这些不断重复的知识，然后过两年又把它们忘掉。

The Chinese mainland is the world’s largest source of students studying outside their home country. Last year there were 340,000, a figure that has risen more than 20 per cent a year for the past several years, according to figures from the education ministry.

中国大陆是世界第一大留学生来源地。中国教育部数据显示，过去几年来，出国留学的人数每年增长20%以上，去年达到34万人。

But the number of younger students is rising even faster. Pre-university numbers rose 30 per cent last year according to official statistics, which do not give a total. Attitudes are also changing. A recent poll of China’s notoriously overprotective parents, published in state media, showed that many now believe high school is the best time to study overseas.

但年龄较小的留学生人数增长更为迅速。官方数据显示，去年中小学留学生人数增长30%，这还不是完全统计。人们的态度也在发生变化。全世界都知道，中国家长最溺爱孩子，但最近对中国家长的一份调查（发布在中国国有媒体）显示，如今许多家长认为，留学的最佳时机是中学。

Chen Wenjing of New Oriental Vision Overseas Consulting in Shanghai, which trains and places children for overseas study, says parents who want their children to study abroad often start as early as kindergarten with bilingual education. “The sooner the children go to study in America, the more quickly they adapt to the life and culture there, she says – and that gets them into better universities.

上海的新东方前途出国(New Oriental Vision Overseas Consulting)是一家留学培训及服务机构，该公司的陈文静（音译）表示，那些打算让孩子出国留学的家长，往往从孩子上幼儿园起就让他们接受双语教学。陈文静说：“越早去美国学习，越快适应那里的生活和文化。而更快适应，就能申请到更好的大学。

Students these days are less affluent too. Last year, three-quarters of Chinese students abroad came from families with income below Rmb300,000 ($47,000) a year, an upper middle class income in the biggest cities.

现在的留学生也不像过去那么阔气了。去年，四分之三的中国留学生来自年收入30万元人民币（合4.7万美元）以下的家庭。在中国的大城市，一个上层的中产阶层家庭的年收入一般不少于30万元人民币。

The shift comes as Chinese families are also emigrating, or considering it, in larger numbers. China last year overtook the UK to become the largest source of Australian immigrants.

在留学人数不断增长的同时，中国也有许多家庭选择移民，或者正在考虑移民。去年中国人超过英国人，成为移民澳大利亚的主力。

Most expect overseas education to guarantee a good job, but a recent survey of the richest 100 Chinese born after 1980 showed only six studied overseas.

大多数人认为，留学经历是找到好工作的保证，但最近一份针对中国100个最富的1980年后出生的人的调查显示，其中只有6人有海外留学经历。

Additional reporting by Yan Zhang

Yan Zhang补充报道