Chinese families seeking to escape a competitive education system have found a haven in Thailand

CHIANG MAI, Thailand (AP) — 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.

By third grade, his son was regularly finishing his day around midnight.

“You went from traveling lightly to carrying a very heavy burden,” Wang said. “That sudden switch, it was very hard to bear.”

Wang, who traveled often to Chiang Mai in northern Thailand for his job in tourism, decided to make a switch, moving his family to the city that sits at the base of mountains.

The family is among a wave of Chinese flocking to Thailand for its quality international schools and more relaxed lifestyle. While there are no records tracking how many are moving abroad for education, they join other Chinese expats leaving the country, from wealthy entrepreneurs moving to Japan to protect their wealth, to activists unhappy with the political system, to young people who want to opt out of China's ultra-competitive work culture, at least for a while.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This story is part of the China's New Migrants package, a look by The Associated Press at the lives of the latest wave of Chinese emigrants to settle overseas.

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.

“Southeast Asia, it’s within reach, the visa is convenient and the overall environment, as well as people’s attitude towards Chinese people, it allows Chinese parents to feel more secure,” Zhang said.

A 2023 survey by private education company New Oriental found Chinese families also increasingly considering Singapore and Japan for their children's overseas study. But tuition and the cost of living are much higher than in Thailand.

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.

The trend has been ongoing for about a decade, but in recent years it’s gathered pace.

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.

“Parents were really in a rush, they wanted to quickly change to a new school environment" because of pandemic restrictions, said Grace Hu, an admissions officer at Lanna International, whose position helping Chinese parents through the process was created in 2022.

Du Xuan of Vision Education says parents coming to Chiang Mai fall into two types: Those who planned in advance what education they want for their kids, and those who experienced difficulties with the competitive Chinese education system. The majority are from the second group, she said.

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 “peidu,” or “accompanied studying,” the goal is academic excellence, often at the expense of the parent’s own life.

That concept has become twisted by the sheer pressure it takes to keep up. Chinese society has come up with popular buzzwords to describe this hyper-competitive environment, from “neijuan” — which roughly translated means the rat race that leads to burnout — or “tang ping," rejecting it all to drop out, or "lie flat.”

The terms reflect what success looks like in modern China, from the hours of cramming required for students to succeed on their exams to the money parents spend hiring tutors to give their kids an extra edge in school.

The driving force behind it all is numbers. In a country of 1.4 billion people, success is viewed as graduation from a good college. With a limited number of seats, class rank and test scores matter, especially on the college entrance exams known as the “gaokao.”

“If you have something, it means someone else can’t have that,” said Vision Education's Du, whose own daughters attend school in Chiang Mai. "We have a saying about the gaokao: ‘One point will topple 10,000 people.' The competition is that intense.”

Wang said his son William was praised by his second-grade teacher in Wuhan as gifted, but to stand out in a class of 50 kids and continue to get that level of attention would mean giving money and gifts to the teacher, which other parents were already doing before he was even aware of the need.

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 Chiang Mai, freed from China's emphasis on rote memorization and hours of homework, students have time to develop hobbies.

Jiang Wenhui moved from Shanghai to Chiang Mai last summer. In China, she said, she had accepted that her son, Rodney, would get average grades because of his mild attention deficit disorder. But she could not help thinking twice about her decision to move given how competitive every other family was.

“In that environment, you’ll still feel anxious," she said. "Should I give it another go?”

In China, her energy was devoted toward helping Rodney keep up in school, shuttling him to tutoring and keeping him on top of his coursework, pushing him along every step of the way.

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.’”

He has time to pursue hobbies and hasn't needed to see a doctor for his attention deficit disorder. After bonding with one of his teachers about snakes, he is raising a pet ball python called Banana.

Wang says his son William, who is now 14 and about to enter high school, finishes his homework well before midnight and has developed outside interests. Wang, too, has changed his perspective on education.

“Here, if he gets a bad grade, I don’t think much of it, you just work on it,” he said. “Is it the case that if he gets a bad grade, that he will be unable to become a successful adult?"

"Now, I don’t think so.”

Rodney Feng plays the acoustic guitar in Chiang Mai province, Thailand, Tuesday, April 23, 2024.(AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit)

Rodney Feng plays with his pet, an albino ball python called Banana, in Chiang Mai province, Thailand, Tuesday, April 23, 2024. (AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit)

Rodney Feng arranges his clothes after returning from school in Chiang Mai province, Thailand, Tuesday, April 23, 2024. (AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit)

Rodney Feng plays with his pet, an albino ball python called Banana, in Chiang Mai province, Thailand, Tuesday, April 23, 2024. (AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit)

Rodney Feng plays with his pet, an albino ball python called Banana, in Chiang Mai province, Thailand, Tuesday, April 23, 2024. (AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit)

Chinese mother Jiang Wenhui, left, records her son Rodney Feng playing the acoustic guitar in Chiang Mai province, Thailand, Tuesday, April 23, 2024.(AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit)

Chinese mother Du Xuan, left, picks up her daughters May Yu, center, and Annie Yu from school in Chiang Mai province, Thailand, Tuesday, April 23, 2024. (AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit)

Chinese mother Du Xuan gestures during an interview with The Associated Press in Chiang Mai province, Thailand, Tuesday, April 23, 2024. (AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit)

Vice President Kamala Harris gave a speech Friday focused squarely on abortion rights to voters in Georgia, where news reports have documented women’s deaths in the face of the state’s six-week ban.

Meanwhile, lawmakers are scrambling to ensure that the U.S. Secret Service has enough money and resources to keep the nation’s presidential candidates safe amid repeated threats of violence. The efforts follow a July assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump at a Pennsylvania rally and after a second apparent attempt last weekend at his golf club in West Palm Beach, Florida.

With early voting beginning Friday in three states, voters are split on whether Harris or Trump would better handle the economy, a new AP-NORC poll finds.

Follow the AP’s Election 2024 coverage at: https://apnews.com/hub/election-2024.

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Her family lived in Wisconsin when she was growing up and her parents worked at the University of Wisconsin in Madison.

She told the crowd of thousands she has Wisconsin “cred” and on a recent visit went by the house where her family lived.

“Every time I land the governor says ‘welcome home,’” Harris says.

MADISON, Wis. — Vice President Kamala Harris’ rally on Friday in the Democratic stronghold of Madison continues a long tradition of Democratic candidates for president drawing huge crowds in the capital city of the battleground state.

Harris attracted a capacity crowd of about 10,000 people at a stadium where Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders drew a similar size in July 2015, which was the largest Sanders rally up to that point.

The largest political rally in Madison the past 20 years occurred In October 2004 when Democratic nominee John Kerry and rocker Bruce Springsteen attracted about 80,000 people on the streets surrounding the Capitol. Four years later in 2008, candidate Barack Obama filled a stadium on the University of Wisconsin campus with about 19,000 people in attendance.

Obama was back with Springsteen in 2012 for a rally outside the Capitol that drew an estimated 18,000 people.

Hillary Clinton, the Democratic nominee in 2016, famously did not campaign in Wisconsin after her primary win. She narrowly lost the state to Republican Donald Trump that year and many Democrats blamed that on her not campaigning in the state.

There were no large rallies during the 2020 campaign because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Harris stop on Friday was her fourth to Wisconsin as the nominee and first to Madison. Trump has been to Wisconsin for five rallies this year and during the Republican National Convention, which was held in Milwaukee.

Harris will speak at an evening rally in the heavily Democratic state capital of Madison, where some voters said they’re eager to hear more about where she stands on issues.

“I’d like to hear more details,” said Rabindra Upreti, 51, of Madison. He said he especially wanted to hear her talk more about her plans for the economy, especially how she will bring down housing costs.

“I don’t know how she’s going to cover that,” Upreti said. “I want her to break down more details.”

Brittany Thompson, 34, of Madison, also wants more information about her plans for affordable housing.

“Her story is compelling, but I would like to hear more,” Thompson said.

While Madison, home to the University of Wisconsin, is a Democratic stronghold, the race statewide in Wisconsin is expected to be tight.

During her speech Friday in battleground Georgia, Harris shared the story of Amber Thurman, a mother who decided to have an abortion after she became pregnant again. She developed sepsis and died while waiting more than 20 hours at the hospital for a routine medical procedure after taking abortion pills.

The vice president said Thurman “should be alive today.”

Harris blasted Donald Trump as a threat to women's freedoms and their very lives, warning Georgia voters that he would choke off access to abortion if he returns to the White House.

The Democratic vice president’s visit came days after ProPublica reported that two women in the state died after they did not get proper medical treatment for complications from taking abortion pills to end their pregnancies.

Such deaths, Harris said, were not only preventable but predictable because of laws that have been implemented since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Although Georgia’s six-week ban allows abortions in early pregnancy to save a mother’s life, critics say the law has created dangerous confusion for doctors about when they’re allowed to provide care.

A Beverly Hills fundraiser featuring Barack Obama is expected to bring in over $4 million for Kamala Harris' election effort.

The Friday event is intended to be smaller than other blowout fundraisers for the Democratic ticket over the past year in the beating heart of America’s entertainment industry, which have featured entertainers such as Lenny Kravitz. The minimum donation for a ticket is $50,000, according to a Los Angeles-based consultant.

It will be held at the home of James Costos, the former president’s ambassador to Spain, and his partner Michael Smith. It’s not the only fundraiser for Harris to be held in the Los Angeles area on Friday. Hillary Clinton was slated to appear at an event hosted by Sybil and Matthew Orr, said the consultant, who insisted on anonymity to provide private details for the events.

Nearly eight years removed from office, the $4 million figure raised by Obama suggests he has still has lasting star power in Hollywood.

Harris’ campaign is airing a new ad in battleground North Carolina, aiming to highlight Trump’s ties to the embattled GOP gubernatorial nominee and top Trump surrogate.

The ad alternates between Trump’s praise for Robinson and the lieutenant governor’s comments in support of a statewide abortion ban without exceptions. It comes as Harris is set to give a speech Friday focused squarely on abortion rights in Georgia, where news reports have documented women’s deaths in the face of the state’s six-week ban.

Her campaign says Harris’ ad is its first to link Trump to a down-ballot candidate. The rollout follows a CNN report Thursday about Robinson’s alleged posts on a pornography website’s message board. Robinson has denied writing the posts, which include racial and sexual comments. He said wouldn’t be forced out of the race by “salacious tabloid lies.”

Trump campaigns in Wilmington on Saturday, but a person on the Trump campaign, and a second person familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal planning, told AP that Robinson will not be with him.

The Harris campaign says the ad is part of its $370 million in digital and television advertising reservations between Labor Day and Election Day.

In addition, the Democratic National Committee is running billboards in nine places across North Carolina, including Robinson’s hometown of Greensboro, showing a photo of him standing alongside Trump. There’s also text of positive things the Republican presidential nominee and former president has said about Robinson.

President Joe Biden invited a special guest to his meeting with his Cabinet on Friday: his wife, Jill Biden. It was her first time attending.

Biden called on her to update the group on a new White House effort to change the approach to and boost funding for research into women’s health issues.

The first lady said “incredible progress” had been made since she and the president launched the initiative in November after she learned about “huge gaps in our understanding of women’s health.”

She called out several departments and agencies, including Health and Human Services, Veterans Affairs and the National Institutes of Health, for committing hundreds of millions of dollars to spur research and innovation.

The first lady said she’ll be making a new announcement on Monday in New York.

She said the steps taken so far are “building momentum for this research” but added, “We have to keep moving forward.”

In-person voting for this year’s presidential election has officially begun, kicking off the six-week sprint to Election Day.

Voters lined up Friday to cast their ballots in Minnesota, South Dakota and Virginia, the states with the first early in-person voting opportunities. About a dozen more states will follow by mid-October.

Some of the voters who cast ballots Friday suggested that they didn’t want to wait, hoping to avoid the potential for trouble or chaos at the polls after a summer of political turmoil.

Other early voters might opt for early in-person balloting instead of mail-in absentee ballots to ensure their votes get counted, given the ongoing struggles of the U.S. Postal Service.

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has often sought to sow doubt about mail voting and encouraged voters to cast ballots in person on Election Day. But this year, Trump and the Republican National Committee, which he now controls, have begun to embrace early and mail voting as a way to lock in GOP votes before Election Day, just as Democrats have done for years.

At a polling site in Minneapolis, Jason Miller arrived well before the polls opened at 8 a.m. and was first in line. He was among roughly 75 people who cast ballots in the first hour at the city’s early voting center.

“Why not try to be first? That’s kind of fun, right?” said the 37-year-old house painter.

The Teamsters Rail Conference, which represents 70,000 members, endorsed Kamala Harris and Tim Walz on Friday.

The announcement comes as a flurry of Teamsters locals back the Democratic ticket even though the national union declined to make an endorsement in the presidential race.

“The lives and livelihoods of railroaders are more dependent than most workers on decisions made by the federal government,” said the Teamsters Rail Conference, which cited Democrats’ support for worker-friendly regulations like paid sick leave.

The rail workers’ endorsement differs from a previous statement from the Teamsters’ national leadership, which cited Harris’ stance on rail strikes as a reason not to endorse her.

Vice President Kamala Harris said she’s “very proud” to have earned Taylor Swift’s endorsement but poked at the pop superstar over the Super Bowl in a new video interview released Friday.

The Kansas City Chiefs defeated the San Francisco 49ers 25-22 to win February’s game.

Harris and Swift supported opposing teams. Harris, a former San Francisco district attorney, is a 49ers fan, while Swift backs the Chiefs. Her boyfriend is Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce.

In WIRED’s Autocomplete Interview, which Harris sat for earlier this week, she noted the split with Swift over the Super Bowl but said, “Who’s mad at anyone for being loyal to their team?”

On Swift’s endorsement, Harris said, “I am very proud to have the support of Taylor Swift” and described the singer-songwriter as “an incredible artist.”

“I really respect the courage that she has had in her career to stand up for what she believes is right,” the vice president said.

Swift announced her endorsement shortly after the conclusion of Harris’ debate on Sept. 10 with Republican Donald Trump.

Swift has a dedicated following among young women, a key demographic in the November election, and her latest tour has generated more than $1 billion in ticket sales

Washington, D.C., has a new tourist stop that surely will be made over once the next president settles into office.

“The Peoples’s House: A Washington Experience” is set to open on Monday, covering three floors in an office building a block from the White House.

The education center boasts a full-scale replica of the Oval Office decorated just as President Joe Biden’s currently is — right down to his desk, the armchairs in front of the fireplace and the weathered family Bible resting on a side table.

But it won’t look that way for long.

The plan is to update the replica Oval next year after either Democrat Kamala Harris or Republican Donald Trump is elected in November and assumes office, and the décor is set.

The replica will always mirror the Oval Office of the sitting president, so it will be updated regularly, said Stewart McLaurin, president of the White House Historical Association.

The nonprofit organization raised money to open the education center.

Admission is free; timed tickets are required.

Vice President Kamala Harris has grown more open about her gun ownership in recent weeks, but on Thursday she for the first time said what she’d do with the handgun she owns.

Speaking during a campaign event hosted by the talk show host Oprah Winfrey, Harris was addressing her efforts to cut down on violence and pass a new ban on assault-style weapons, when she referenced owning a handgun — surprising Winfrey.

“If somebody’s breaking into my house they’re gettin shot,” Harris added. She continued: “I probably shouldn’t have said that. My staff will deal with that later.”

A live stream with Vice President Kamala Harris and talk show host Oprah Winfrey billed as a “Unite for America” rally kicked off Thursday night with more than 230,000 viewers on YouTube alone even before Harris joined, as the Democrat looks to digital-first events to reach voters.

The event was hosted by Winfrey from suburban Michigan, one of this election’s key battlegrounds, and leaned on celebrities like Brian Cranston, Jennifer Lopez, Chris Rock, and Meryl Streep, but also the stories of ordinary voters to promote Harris’s message.

“I want to bring my daughters to the White House to meet this Black woman president,” said comedian Chris Rock.

Donald Trump appeared before Jewish leaders in Washington D.C. on Thursday to talk about antisemitism.

But as the former president is wont to do, he took a large detour at the top of his speech, name-checking his Republican allies in the crowd, discussing the Green New Deal “scam” and pontificating about his polling numbers at length.

Trump was roughly an hour late to his speech, which was slated to begin around 6 p.m.

“Kamala Harris has done absolutely nothing. She has not lifted a single finger to protect you, or protect your children, or even protect you with words... I’m here to tell you today that this ugly kind of antisemitic hate for all of us — bigotry and hate — will be turned back ... starting at noon on Jan. 23rd," he said.

"With your vote, I will be your protector and defender and I will be the best friend Jewish Americans have ever had in the White House.”

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during a campaign event on Friday, Sept. 20, 2024, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during a campaign event on Friday, Sept. 20, 2024, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)

Minneapolis residents cast their votes at the City of Minneapolis early voting center, Friday, September 20, 2024, in Minneapolis, Minn. (AP Photo/Adam Bettcher)

Minneapolis voter Jason Miller casts his ballot at the City of Minneapolis early voting center, Friday, September 20, 2024, in Minneapolis, Minn. Miller was the first resident in line to cast his vote. (AP Photo/Adam Bettcher)

Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz speaks to supporters at a Democratic campaign office in Macon, Ga., Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024. (Arvin Temkar/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP)

Republican vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, speaks at a campaign event in Raleigh, N.C., Wednesday, Sept. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Karl B DeBlaker)

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris joins Oprah Winfrey at Oprah's Unite for America Live Streaming event Thursday, Sept. 19, 2024 in Farmington Hills, Mich. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris listens as she joins Oprah Winfrey at Oprah's Unite for America Live Streaming event Thursday, Sept. 19, 2024 in Farmington Hills, Mich. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)

Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump speaks at the Israeli American Council National Summit, Thursday, Sept. 19, 2024, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump acknowledges the crowd after speaking at the Israeli American Council National Summit, Thursday, Sept. 19, 2024, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)