为何香港公立学校里的白人学生越来越多？
香港——几代人来，只有富裕的西方侨民的子女才能在香港赫赫有名的国际学校接受教育。如今，这些学校的招生竞争越来越激烈，入学费用可以超过100万美元，使这些学校进入了全世界最贵私立学校的行列。
Recent changes to the city’s demography — prompted by Chinese politics and global markets — have driven up tuitions and resulted in a dramatic shift in the complexion of the city’s schools: An increasing number of ethnic Chinese students are now enrolled in international schools, and many more white students are occupying desks in Cantonese-language public schools.
受中国政治和全球市场的影响，香港的人口结构近来发生了变化，这种变化导致了学费的上升、以及香港学校中学生肤色的巨大改变：越来越多的华裔学生现在在国际学校就读，而更多的白人学生则出现在粤语公立学校的课堂上。
“Private schools here are bloody expensive you know, and we have twins,” said James Runciman, a Briton, shop owner and father of two 6-year-olds who are set to begin second grade in September. “We just can’t afford to send our kids to these schools,” he said of the private international schools, which replicate the curriculums of Western countries, including the United States, Britain, Canada and France.
“你知道，这里的私立学校贵得吓人，而我们家有双胞胎，”英国人詹姆斯·朗西曼(James Runciman)说，他是香港的一个店主，也是两个六岁孩子的父亲，他的孩子今年9月就要上二年级了。“我们负担不起把孩子送到这些学校读书的费用，”他指的是私立的国际学校，这些学校有与美国、英国、加拿大和法国等西方国家同样的课程设置。
As students return to school next month, there will be more white students in public schools than at any time in the city’s history, a telling indicator of how Hong Kong is both shaking off its colonial past and losing its draw as a magnet for the West’s wealthiest workers.
随着学生们在下个月返校，公立学校校园里也将会有香港史上最多的白人学生，这强有力地表明，香港已经摆脱了昔日的殖民时代，也失去了对西方最富裕的工作者的吸引力。
Last year 818 white students were enrolled in the city’s public schools, according to the Hong Kong Education Bureau, which labels all Caucasian students “white” regardless of nationality or self-identification.
根据香港教育局的数据，去年，有818名白人学生在香港公立学校就读，在教育局统计里，不管学生的国籍或自我认同，所有白种人的学生都被标为白人。
That number represents a small fraction of the overall public school population, but is indicative of a 44 percent increase from 2013, when only 556 white children attended public schools.
这个数字只占公立学校学生总人数的很小一部分，但与2013年的数字相比上升了44%，2013年时，只有556名白人学生在公立学校就读。
Robert Adamson, a professor of curriculum reform at the Education University of Hong Kong, said white students were increasingly attending public schools because they had been priced out of the city’s international schools by a newly rich immigrant constituency: mainland Chinese.
香港教育大学课程改革教授罗伯特·亚当森(Robert Adamson)说，越来越多白人学生在公立学校就读，因为一个新近富裕起来的群体——来自中国内地的移民——愿意支付更高的学费，而白人学生则被过高的学费挤出了香港的国际学校。
“International schools are in high demand from a new market — mainland China — and fees have increased considerably in recent years,” Professor Adamson said. “Thus, some traditional students are struggling to gain access and therefore look to local schools instead.”
“国际学校现在有来自中国大陆这个新市场的高需求，近年来学费因此大幅上涨，”亚当森说。“所以，国际学校的传统学生无法支付巨额学费，他们因此转向当地的学校。”
Hong Kong, which reverted to Chinese control from Britain in 1997, has long been considered Asia’s pre-eminent financial hub. For decades, the world’s largest banks sent Western employees to the city on lucrative expatriate contracts that included money for housing and school tuition. But China’s meteoric rise to become the world’s second largest economy has meant an influx of mainland bankers to Hong Kong. Today, Mandarin is more likely to be heard spoken on a bank’s trading floor in Hong Kong than English.
长期以来，香港一直被视为亚洲杰出的金融中心，香港在1997年从英国回归中国。几十年来，世界上最大的几家银行都曾派西方雇员驻扎香港，这些雇员有丰厚的外派合同，还能报销住房费用和孩子的学费。但随着中国迅速崛起成为全球第二大经济体，大量内地银行家涌入香港。如今，在香港的银行交易大厅里更可能听到普通话，而不是英语。
Still, after a decline in expatriate whites following the 1997 handover, the city has seen an increase in its white population in the last decade. As China has opened its economy, many foreigners have come to Hong Kong looking to open — and work for — businesses eager to gain access to China’s enormous markets and its inexpensive goods and services.
1997年回归之后，派驻香港的白人数量有所下降，尽管如此，香港的白人人口在过去10年里却有所增加。随着中国开放了本国的经济，许多外国人来到香港开办渴望能进入中国的巨大市场、利用中国廉价商品和服务的公司，或为这类公司工作。
From 2006 to 2016, the number of white residents increased by 60 percent, to 58,209 from 36,384. The majority of those whites were from English-speaking countries, including Britain, the United States and Australia. But as of 2006, 16 percent of whites in the city did not speak English at home, according to a government report that cited German-, Italian- and French-speaking residents. The government tracks the number of “whites” as an “ethnic minority” in the city, but its statistics do not break that down by nationality.
从2006年到2016年，香港的白人居民人口增长了60%，从36384人增加到58209人。这些白人中的大多数来自英语国家，包括英国、美国和澳大利亚。但据一份政府报告显示，截至2006年，香港16%的白人在家里不说英语，而是说德语、意大利语和法语等语言。政府将香港的“白人”作为一个“少数族裔”来统计，但政府的统计数据没有把他们按国籍进行细分。
Since the 2008 financial crisis, Western firms have been less willing to offer employees gold-plated relocation packages. And white workers in the city are no longer just bankers, but also small-business owners, middle managers at tech start-ups and baristas in coffee shops.
自2008年金融危机以来，西方公司不再那么愿意花重金外派员工了。而且，香港的白人工作者不再只是银行家，还包括小企业主、技术初创企业的中层管理人员，以及咖啡店里的咖啡师。
“Many low and middle-management people are not given the same packages when asked to move here,” said Jacqueline Cohen, an American who moderates a parents group on Facebook for expatriates with children in public schools.
“许多中层和基层管理人员在被派驻这里时，没有得到(和以前)一样的待遇，”杰奎琳·科恩(Jacqueline Cohen)说。她在Facebook上为有子女在公立学校就读的外籍人士主持一个家长群。
But as expatriate packages have declined, prices at international schools have increased. Tuition at international schools can exceed $42,000 a year, excluding so-called debentures, which can exceed $1 million at the most prestigious and expensive schools.
但随着外派待遇的下降，国际学校的学费却在上涨。不包括所谓的“债券”，国际学校的学费可以超过每年4.2万美元，而“债券”在最著名、学费最贵的学校可以超过100万美元。
Debentures are lump-sum loans that incoming students are required to pay to the school on top of regular fees. Large debentures often come with the promise of admission at some selective schools. The loans, used for capital projects at the school’s discretion, are sometimes reimbursed at graduation, but can also be bought and sold on a secondhand market. Some debentures, however, depreciate and are never returned.
学校要求新生购买的债券是一种一次性贷款，是在常规的费用之上。一些严格挑选学生的学校通常伴随录取承诺要求学生购买大额债券。这些贷款被用于学校自行决定的资本项目上，债券有时在学生毕业时会归还，但也可以在二手市场上买卖。但是，有些债券会贬值，而且永远不会被归还。
Increasingly, many of the students at international schools are Hong Kong locals or the children of mainland Chinese parents. Foreign students once made up 100 percent of those schools’ populations. In 2017, however, foreigners accounted for less than 75 percent of students at primary international schools. Local students accounted for 21.6 percent of the student body, and “nonlocal Chinese,” a Hong Kong government designation for mainlanders, made up about 4 percent, according to the Education Bureau.
香港国际学校里越来越多的学生是香港本地人、或有中国大陆的父母。这些学校曾经100%是外国学生。但在2017年，外国学生在国际小学的比例已低于75%。香港教育局的数据显示，这些学校里，本地学生占学生总数的21.6%，非本地中国人(香港政府对内地人的称呼)约占4%。
Hong Kong prides itself on being a diverse, international city but it is also largely segregated — not by law but by custom.
香港为自己的多元化和国际化而自豪，但香港在很大程度上也存在种族隔离——不是因为法律，而是因为习俗。
For many white parents, however, a Chinese-language education is an added reason to send their children to public schools and a chance for them to better integrate in the city.
但对许多白人家长来说，中文教育是让孩子上公立学校的又一个理由，也是让他们更好地融入香港的一个机会。
“We consciously put our children into Cantonese schools,” said Ms. Cohen, whose children are 11 and 12. “They need to know the language to be a full member of Hong Kong.”
“我们有意识地让孩子上粤语学校，”科恩说。她的孩子分别是11岁和12岁。“他们需要会说粤语，只有那样才能真正成为香港社会的一员。”
Katherine Ferreira, Mr. Runciman’s wife and the mother of twins, Vicente and Florencia, 6, also said learning Cantonese was an important factor in deciding to enroll her children in public schools.
朗西曼和妻子凯瑟琳·费雷拉(Katherine Ferreira)有一对双胞胎，6岁的维歉特和弗洛伦西亚(Vicente and Florencia)。费雷拉也说：能学粤语是决定让孩子上公立学校的一个重要因素。
“This is a different continent, so I saw it as a good chance to learn a new language,” said Ms. Ferreira, who is from Chile. “If they’re going to learn a language, now’s the moment.”
“这是一个不同的大陆，所以我认为这是一个学习新语言的好机会，”来自智利的费雷拉说。“如果他们要学习一门语言的话，现在学正合适。”
Primary public school students are required to use English and Cantonese in their regular classes and learn Mandarin too. High schools are typically designated either as English-language or Cantonese-language schools, with the other language and Mandarin being taught as electives.
公立小学的学生在每天的课堂上必须使用英语和粤语，也要学习普通话。高中通常被指定为英语学校或粤语学校，其他语言和普通话被作为选修课来教授。
Aiken Bridges, 13, said he is the only non-Chinese student at the English-language secondary school to which he will return in September. “My friends usually speak to me in English,” he said, adding that he was still nervous when speaking Cantonese outside class.
13岁的艾肯·布里奇斯(Aiken Bridges)说，他是他上的英语中学的唯一一名非华裔学生，他将在9月返校。“我的朋友们通常和我说英语，”他说，并补充说，他在课堂外讲粤语时仍很紧张。
The vast majority of immigrant students enrolled in the city’s public schools are Asian, which the government’s ethnicity statistics do break down by country of origin. Last year there were 6,267 Pakistani students in public schools — the single largest immigrant bloc — nearly eight times the number of white students.
在香港公立学校就读的移民学生中，绝大多数是亚裔，政府在按种族统计的数据中把这些学生按原国籍进行了细分。去年，有6267名巴基斯坦学生在公立学校就读，属于学生中最大的移民群体，几乎是白人学生的8倍。
Unlike whites, non-Chinese Asian immigrants have attended the city’s public schools for decades. Some South Asian families complain of systemic racism, arguing that the schools fail to teach their children Cantonese, the predominant Chinese language spoken in the city, which is necessary for public sector employment.
与白人不同的是，非中国的亚洲移民在香港公立学校就读已有几十年的历史了。一些南亚家庭抱怨说，公立学校存在着系统性的种族主义，他们认为这些学校没有教会他们的孩子讲粤语。粤语是香港主要的中文语言，在公共部门就业必需会说粤语。
(In addition to “white” and the nine most common Asian countries from which students trace their heritage, the Education Bureau also has demographic categories for “other Asian” and “others.”)
(除了“白人”、以及学生来自的最常见的九个亚洲国家外，教育局的学生人口统计中还有“其他亚裔”和“其他”两个分类。)
Hong Kong’s students often rank among the world’s top performers in math, reading and science, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. That reputation, however, comes at a cost. Many students say the schools are high-pressure environments in which rote learning is stressed over critical thinking.
根据经济合作与发展组织(Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development)的数据，香港学生在数学、阅读和科学方面的成绩通常在全球名列前茅。但是，这种声誉是有代价的。许多学生表示，学校里的高压环境更多地强调死记硬背，而不是批判性思维。
Some experts attribute a rise in teenage suicide to the stress and rigor of school. 一些专家将青少年自杀率上升归因于学校的压力和严格。
About 35 students killed themselves in 2017, according to Samaritan Befrienders Hong Kong, a nonprofit anti-suicide organization, a 50 percent increase over 2016. More than 93 percent of high school students reported that school led to anxiety, according to the group.
据非营利的反自杀组织香港撒玛利亚防止自杀会(Samaritan Befrienders Hong Kong)的统计，在2017年一年中，约有35名学生自杀，比2016年增加了50%。该组织称，超过93%的高中生反映，学校让他们有焦虑感。
Western parents are often shocked by the long hours spent at school and the mountains of homework students in Hong Kong are expected to complete. In many cases, expatriate parents who send their children to public elementary schools use the money they have saved to pay for a private or international high school once classes get harder.
在香港，学生每天在学校的时间很长，并要完成大量的家庭作业，这常常让西方家长感到震惊。在很多情况下，那些把孩子送进公立小学的外籍父母们，会在课程变得更难后，把他们省下来的钱花在私立或国际高中的学费上。
“I chose my children’s mental and physical health over their results when they got to primary two,” said Ms. Cohen, the American who moderates the “Cantonese School Parents Group” on Facebook. “After school and their homework tutorial, they will have the time for relaxation and a balanced life.”
“我的孩子读小学二年级时，我的选择是，孩子的心理和生理健康，比他们在取得的成绩更重要，”科恩说，这位美国家长在Facebook上主持“粤语学校家长组”。她说，“在学校和家庭作业辅导结束后，他们将有时间放松，将有一个平衡的生活。”
