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Packed into a grey minibus, 22 Chinese parents are trundling down a bumpy driveway towards Cobham Hall, a girls boarding school set in 70 hectares of Kent countryside.
22位中國家長擠坐在一輛灰色的小型巴士里，沿著一條崎嶇不平的車道向科巴姆堂學校(Cobham Hall)緩緩行進，這是一所位于肯特郡鄉間、占地70公頃的女子寄宿學校。
The red-brick Tudor mansion, with its octagonal wing turrets, looks like something out of an Enid Blyton novel. But there is nothing fanciful about the battle Asia’s rich are waging to secure places for their children in top British boarding schools – an export market worth about £1bn a year to the UK.
學校的紅磚都鐸式大樓及其八角形配樓，看起來好像出自伊尼德•布萊頓(Enid Blyton)的小說。但亞洲富人為確保子女入讀英國頂級寄宿學校而發起的戰斗，則絕沒有什么奇幻元素——對于英國來說，這一出口市場每年帶來的價值高達10億英鎊。
The Financial Times joined the Chinese parents on part of a week-long tour organised by Gabbitas, an education consultancy which advises on applications. By day, the group visits schools and by night, they enjoy retail events laid on by Harrods, the Bicester Village designer shopping centre and Asprey the jeweller.
英國《金融時報》部分參與了中國家長們長達一周的學校考察之旅，此次活動是由提供入學申請建議的教育咨詢機構Gabbitas組織的。家長們白天考察學校，到了晚上則參加由哈羅德百貨公司(Harrods)、比斯特購物村(Bicester Village)的精品購物中心以及珠寶商愛絲普蕾(Asprey)等商家舉辦的零售活動。
“These parents are extremely high net worth,” explains Ian Hunt, the organisation’s managing director. “These are people who would not blink at spending £30,000 a year for 10 years for their children’s education . . . They start with the premise that Chinese education is too linear and constricting, and we try to show them the holistic environment in which the English system operates.”
Gabbitas的常務董事伊恩•亨特(Ian Hunt)表示：“這些家長都擁有極高的資產凈值。為了子女的教育，他們連續十年每年花費30000英鎊都不會有任何猶豫……他們一開始就普遍認為，中國教育過于按部就班、壓抑孩子天性，我們則試圖向他們展示英國教育系統運行的整體環境。”
Pupils from Hong Kong and mainland China now account for nearly a third of all overseas children at British boarding schools, and the numbers are growing steadily.
來自香港和中國內地的學生目前在英國寄宿學校外國學生中的占比約為三分之一，而且這一數字還在穩健增長。
Given that Liz Truss, UK education minister, visited Shanghai just last month to find out how the city achieves its enviable success in maths, reading and science, it might be surprising that the Chinese are travelling in the opposite direction in search of good schools.
英國教育大臣利茲•特拉斯(Liz Truss)上月剛剛訪問上海，考察上海何以能在學生的數學、閱讀以及科學教育方面取得令人羨慕的成就。而中國家長為了尋找好學校卻奔向了相反的方向，這或許令人有點驚訝。
Wendy Le, an entrepreneur from Guangzhou, has a 14-year-old son at Whitgift School in Croydon, and is on the tour to find a place for her daughter, who is three.
Wendy Le是一名來自廣州的企業家，她有一個14歲的兒子在克羅伊登(Croydon)的惠特吉夫特學校(Whitgift School)就讀。她也參加了學校考察之旅，為自己年僅三歲的女兒物色學校。
“Chinese schools just want academic results, especially the sciences, so pupils cannot learn about art and music,” she says. “Also, we don’t have experimental equipment in Chinese schools, so children can’t do anything practical themselves.”
她說：“中國的學校僅僅看重學習成績，特別是自然科學類科目的成績，因此學生們無法學習藝術和音樂。而且中國的學校缺乏實驗設備，孩子們沒辦法自己動手實踐操作。”
Ms Le says she has a £50,000 annual budget for her son’s schooling, and is surprised when asked whether she misses him while he is away. “No!” she laughs. “Schools have many holidays in the UK, so he comes back six times each year. That is enough.”
Wendy Le表示，自己對兒子學業的年度預算是50000英鎊，在被問到兒子不在身邊自己是否想念他時，她露出了驚訝的表情。“當然不會！”她笑道，“英國的學校有很多假期，因此他每年可以回家六次，這已經足夠了。”
At each school there is tense question-and-answer session where parents grill teachers on whether there is a cap on the number of Chinese pupils.
在訪問的每一所學校，都會有一個氣氛緊張的問答環節，家長們會反復盤問老師，學校對于中國學生的人數是否設有上限。
“We don’t want your children to come to a school that’s full of Chinese children,” says Arabella Stuart, director of admissions at Sevenoaks, a co-ed boarding and day school. “We want pupils to have a genuine international experience.”
七橡樹中學(Sevenoaks)的招生主管阿拉貝拉•斯圖爾特(Arabella Stuart)表示：“我們不希望您的孩子來到一所全是中國學生的學校。我們希望學生能夠擁有真正的國際化體驗。”七橡樹中學是一所男女合校的寄宿兼日間學校。
After further badgering for exact figures, she says that the school would not allow more than two children from the same “cultural background” in each boarding house.
因家長們進一步軟磨硬泡要求她給出確切數字，斯圖爾特表示，學校不會允許每個寄宿公寓中來自同一“文化背景”的學生人數超過兩人。
Creating the right mixture of international and British pupils has become a vexed issue for the schools, who rely on wealthy foreigners to pay the £27,600 a year average boarding fees which are rising beyond the reach of UK middle classes.
對于學校來說，在國際學生和英國學生之間形成合適的人數比例關系，已經成為了一個棘手的問題。學校依賴富有的外國家長支付年均高達27600英鎊的寄宿學費，這筆日漸上漲的費用已經超出了不少英國中產階級的承受能力。
Mark Mortimer, headmaster at Warminster School in Wiltshire, is one of many headteachers offering lower weekly boarding fees for a handful of parents, in an effort to boost pupil numbers from London and the home counties.
多所學校的校長向少數英國學生家長收取較低的每周寄宿費用，試圖通過此舉提高來自倫敦以及周邊郡的學生人數。威爾特郡(Wiltshire)沃敏斯特學校(Warminster School)的校長馬克•莫蒂默(Mark Mortimer)就是其中一員。
Gabbitas’s Mr Hunt believes that if the number of overseas pupils goes beyond 45 per cent, the school ceases to be British, deterring both local and foreign parents. “Because of the commercial pressures it’s a difficult decision to make – if a school knows that they can fill a place with an international pupil but that will tip them over the threshold, that’s a difficult balance,” he says.
Gabbitas的亨特認為，如果海外學生人數占比超過了45%，學校就將不再是純正的英式學校，在英國本地家長和外國家長眼中都將失去吸引力。他說：“受商業壓力影響，這是一個非常難以做出的決定——如果學校知道，他們可以招收一名國際學生，但這么做將導致學校的外國學生人數超過閾值，這將是一個很難把握好的平衡。”
Back on the road, Hong Yong Shi, a businessman from Chengdu, says it is worth facing the intense competition for places in Britain, if only to escape China’s gruelling gaokao college admission test for school leavers. “All children will have to leave home at some time,” he says. “Chinese parents figure out that it is best for the future if they make a sacrifice by sending them away to school when they are young.”
重新上路，來自成都的商人洪永世（音譯）表示，在英國為尋求入學機會而面對激烈競爭是值得的，就算只是為了逃避中國令人筋疲力竭的高考招生制度。他說：“所有的孩子或早或晚都必須離開家。中國的家長們認識到，為了未來打算，最好的辦法就是由他們做出犧牲，在孩子年紀尚小的時候將他們送到學校。”
Two way trade in education
教育領域的雙向貿易
As Chinese parents push to get their children into British boarding schools, one Shanghai-based company is trying to tempt UK parents to do the opposite.
就在中國家長為了讓自己的孩子入讀英國寄宿學校而努力時，一家總部位于上海的公司正在試圖吸引英國家長反其道而行之。
William Vanbergen, an old Etonian, is founder of BE Education – a consultancy originally set up to help Chinese students get into the UK’s top schools.
威廉•范伯根(William Vanbergen)出身伊頓公學，他創立了必益教育(BE Education)——這家咨詢公司創立的初衷是幫助中國學生入讀英國頂尖名校。
But now that BE has set up its own British-style boarding schools in the Chinese cities of Changzhou, Chengdu and, soon, Zhengzhou, Mr Vanbergen is trying to persuade hard-up UK residents to send their children to China for a bicultural education at a keen price.
必益教育現已在常州、成都等中國城市建立了自己的英式風格寄宿學校，在鄭州的學校不久之后也將落成。范伯根試圖說服手頭緊張的英國民眾將自己的孩子送到中國，以低廉的價格接受二元文化教育。
“Our new boathouses are designed to make Eton jealous,” Mr Vanbergen says, as he describes his trio of schools which combine traditional English traits with Chinese ones.
范伯根在介紹自己的三所學校時說：“我們的新學校就是要讓伊頓公學眼紅。”這些學校兼具了英國與中國的傳統特色。
“As well as having good academic results, pupils who’ve been to one of our schools will speak fluent Mandarin, have a real understanding of China and have their own Chinese friends,” he adds. “If they put that on their application form to Goldman Sachs, it will definitely mark them out.”
范伯根補充稱：“除了取得優異的學習成績以外，在我們學校就讀的學生還能說一口流利的漢語，真正地理解中國，并擁有自己的中國朋友。如果他們將這段經歷放在高盛(Goldman Sachs)的申請表中，將無疑使他們脫穎而出。”
At £15,000 a year, BE’s boarding fees are about half what they would be in the UK. The schools’ pupils are roughly two-thirds Chinese and one-third international, although the vast majority of the overseas contingent have expat parents living locally. Mr Vanbergen hopes that the school’s British alumni will be the country’s future representatives in Asia.
必益教育一年的寄宿學費為15000英鎊，大約為英國本土的二分之一。學校的學生約三分之二是中國人，三分之一為國際生，不過絕大多數外國學生的家長都是在中國當地生活的外派人員。范伯根希望，學校的英國校友能夠成為英國在亞洲地區的未來代表。
“These are the people who will take Britain and the western world into China once they’re older,” he said.
他說：“這些孩子長大以后，將成為帶領英國和西方世界進入中國的領路人。”
