Students from China experience newfound freedom at SHS

As she walked across the quad toward the seemingly simple cafeteria, senior Mengjiao (Katherine) Li, then a sophomore new to Saratoga High, felt confused. There were four lines snaking into the cafeteria, each holding nearly 30 people. She didn’t know where to go or how to buy food. Even from the simple task of getting lunch, it was clear to Li that SHS was nothing like her school in China.

Two years later, senior Chenghao (Jessica) Zhu faced the same situation, but this time, she had a friend, Li, who could relate and thus help her.

Li and Zhu are just two of many students who have emigrated from China in the past few years, coming in part for the educational opportunities in America. Both have struggled in the new country.

The transition to America was difficult enough, and now Li and Zhu face more challenges as they look to apply to American universities.

Moving abroad

In 2013, despite having little knowledge of America, Li’s family decided to move from China to Saratoga, leaving the Chinese education system behind. For families like the Li’s who do not already have relatives in the U.S., paying a hefty fee is one way to procure visas to America.

These families apply through the EB-5 program. In Li’s situation, her father paid $500,000, the equivalent of 10 American workers’ salaries, so that Li, her parents and her 12-year-old brother could all move to America. Each year, only 10,000 individuals are permitted to use this program to immigrate with their immediate family to America, according to CNN.

Despite having the option to live in America, Li’s father continues to work in China to support the rest of the family.

“We have to go back and forth between China and America, and I end up seeing my dad about twice a year for 15 days each,” Li said. “He comes for my brother’s birthday and my birthday. We celebrate together, and then he goes back.”

Zhu, in contrast, lives with her aunt and mother. She will someday stay in America by herself once her mother returns to China.

When Zhu applied to be an immigrant nearly 10 years ago, she hoped to receive a visa on the basis that she had family in America. Because it was her aunt and not her immediate family in America, Zhu’s family planned far in advance, knowing that procuring the Visa would take a long time.

“[We] moved here [last summer] because my aunt lives here, so it’s a relative's visa that takes so many years to process,” Zhu said. “I didn’t imagine that I [would be able] to come here in high school.”

Finding a place in SHS

Along with the tenuous process of obtaining a Visa, Li and Zhu faced the struggle of adapting to a foreign high school. Although they had taken English classes at their schools in China, language and cultural barriers have made communication difficult in class.

“Language is the most basic [necessity],” Zhu said. “Even [when] I had questions at the beginning, it was very hard for [others] to understand me, and I [could] hardly express my feelings.”

Sometimes Zhu would not have the opportunity to communicate with other students and practice her English, as students would often make assumptions based on her accent. Li initially experienced a similar situation but has since found familiarity with her peers.

“A lot of people assumed they would not understand me once they heard my accent,” Li said. “Sometimes they wouldn’t even give me a chance, but now, I have a lot of friends who can understand me.”

The school held other cultural enigmas for Li, who was especially puzzled by students of Indian descent, as they looked extremely different from the people she was used to seeing.

“I had never seen an Indian before when I first came, so I actually thought they were Africans,” Li said, suddenly biting her lip and widening her eyes as she realized that she was speaking to a reporter of Indian descent. “Don’t get mad at me! Now I totally understand the different [ethnicities].”

Although Li and Zhu did not have Link Crew to help them adjust to a new school, they did have the option to take English Language Development (ELD), a class that helps new learners of the language. While Li did not take the class because it did not fit in her schedule, she said ELD served as the means by which many of her friends from China “got the most help.”

In addition to ELD, guidance from friends has allowed Li and Zhu to adjust to SHS.

When Li first moved here, she relied on her neighbor, senior Michelle Cen, to help guide her around school. After their initial conversation, Cen and Li developed a close bond. Cen helped Li understand the school system and how to speak with counselors to receive assistance. 

“[I didn’t feel like] I was doing any service for her because we just naturally ended up as friends,” Cen said. “[Li] is super sweet and bubbly, and since we were neighbors, we decided to go to a lot of school events together.”

Once Li learned of Zhu’s arrival during the first week of school, she immediately wished to provide the same support for Zhu that Cen had for her. As a result, Zhu felt more comfortable.

“[Li] not only helped me fit into the curriculum but also became one of my best friends,” Zhu said. “Her help made me feel much better when I [arrived in] the unfamiliar country.”

A lesson in American education

Like nearly 50,000 other students each year, Li and Zhu emigrated from China in hopes of finding more educational opportunities.

Upon their arrival, the two quickly noticed that Saratoga High’s academic culture was significantly more relaxed than that of their previous schools.

In China, their schools followed a stringent schedule, starting classes as early as 6:30 a.m. and ending as late as 10 p.m. Though the school day allowed for self-study sessions, many students continued working past 1 a.m. The intensive academic pressure took its toll.

Even as a middle school student, Zhu said she would often have four to six hours of homework a night and found herself struggling to keep up.

“We always said, ‘Homework can never be finished,’” Zhu said. “Teachers do not check homework in detail, [so] we [have to] be responsible for ourselves because normally a teacher teaches more than 100 students.”

Due to an  academics-focused culture, many students in China do not participate in the extracurriculars so valued by American schools.

“We did have time for sports, but people would rather go to sleep,” Zhu said. “We still had over seven sports teams, and they were pretty good.”

The academic pressures faced by students in China are said to be among the toughest in the world, fueled by class rankings and by the system’s focus on testing. From a young age, students are already on a course to ace standardized tests. The national entrance exam zhong kao serves as students’ only way to enter competitive high schools.

When applying to college, students are required to take another national entrance exam called the gao kao, which tests  Chinese language and literature, math, a foreign language and either science or history.

“Your whole future relies on one test,” Li said. “If you have a stomach ache and you do bad on the test, then you will go to a bad college.”

Nearly 8 million students take the test, and each year, students study more and receive better grades, resulting in a harder test that has become nearly impossible to be successful on.

Often, such competition led Li to earn C’s and D’s on her math practice gao kao tests in China. At SHS, she has instead received high A’s in her math classes. Yet while the math and science subjects have been easy for Li and Zhu, history and English courses have proven more difficult.

In English 10, Li earned low grades both semesters.

“I just didn’t know anything,” Li said. “I had [English 10 and AP Language and Composition teacher Ken] Nguyen, and I never knew what he was talking about.”

Now, through daily conversations, Li has improved her English and has been receiving A’s in English class.

Despite some difficult classes, Li believes that America provides students with a wide range of opportunities and allows them to find their own interests. In China, students would not receive credit for completing extra enrichment classes such as ceramics and art, but here, she finds that students can pursue their interests while being recognized for them.

After taking a class that would not have been for credit in China, Principles of Engineering (POE), Li fell in love with engineering and decided that she wanted to pursue it in addition to psychology in the future.

“Last year, I took the POE class because I liked a boy who was also going to take that class,” Li said with a soft laugh. “So really, I should say thanks to him. I became more and more engaged in the class, and in the end I absolutely loved it. I’ve even introduced it to my friends.”

Li’s first day at SHS also became the first time she visited multiple classrooms in one day.

In China, students stay in the same classroom for the entire day, while teachers come to the classrooms to teach different subjects. As a result, students end up staying with the same classmates for the entire duration of their high school careers.

“You get to know each other really well, so you know that he’s good at this and she’s not good at this,” Li said. “If you’re only with [the same 20] people for four hours a week, [like at Saratoga High,] you don’t know what your friends are like until you make really good relationships with them.”

Currently Li and Zhu are working on their college applications, which they fairly trying, not only due to their difficulty with the English but also because of the complexity of the application process.

Although Zhu said that the system is “more complicated and comprehensive” than that of China, she still prefers the American system.

Zhu believes that becoming accustomed to the American culture is a challenge that is pushing her to grow as a student.

“America has [more] opportunities, and I can develop more here,” Zhu said. “[My parents] think young people should go to [an opportunity-filled] stage to explore.”