My 3-year-old daughter cried on her first day of school in China. She clutched onto me in the classroom and didn’t want to let go. This came as a shock since she had spent the previous year happily attending preschool in Los Angeles.
What surprised me wasn’t her reaction — it was how unsettled I felt.
“Don’t worry,” one teacher said in Chinese. “Just leave quickly, and we’ll take care of her.” I followed her advice with a knot of worry in my stomach.
As a first-time mother, I felt anxious about putting her in a completely unfamiliar environment: a different language, a different culture, and new faces.
Minutes later, my phone rang. A teacher called to tell me that after I left, my daughter had stopped crying and started looking around the classroom.
Like many first-generation Chinese Americans chasing the “American dream,” I spent a decade checking off the big milestones: graduate school, a full-time job as a journalist, marrying young, and eventually becoming a parent.
My husband and I have lived in that American rhythm for the past 13 years. For a long time, raising our child in the US felt not only natural but rational.
Family time
This winter, I returned to Qingdao, China, to celebrate Lunar New Year with my family for the first time in 10 years. I missed the family reunions, the festive atmosphere, and the food from my hometown.
I was especially excited to bring my daughter, who had never experienced the holiday. To help her immerse herself in Chinese culture, I decided to enroll her in a local school during our two-month stay.
Right away, I noticed how different the classroom looked compared with her preschool in the US. The room was decorated with red lanterns and Lunar New Year crafts made by the children. In the US, the holiday often goes unnoticed in public spaces.
I didn’t expect how strongly I would feel the differences between the two education systems.
Provided by Grace Cong Sui
Teachers constantly kept me updated
On the second day, my phone buzzed while I was working at a local coffee shop.
The teacher had sent a couple of messages. At first, I panicked — in LA, that usually meant something had gone wrong. Instead, the messages were surprisingly detailed.
“Hi, Oli’s mom, she’s doing great today. She started eating vegetables at lunch and had some milk in the afternoon,” the teacher wrote in Chinese. The message was followed by 10 close-up photos.
I saw my daughter smiling while eating, going down a slide, reading books, and playing with other kids. It was the first time I had such a clear picture of what her day at school looked like.
Over the following weeks, I received similar updates every day.
In LA, I rarely knew what my daughter’s school day looked like beyond a general schedule. Occasionally, a group photo would appear on the school’s Facebook page, mixed in with pictures from other classes.
Provided by Grace Cong Sui
Mealtimes were closely monitored
Every day, the teacher also updated me about her eating, napping, and mood.
One day, they told me that since my daughter didn’t like the rice and vegetables, the kitchen had made a different meal just for her.
“We switched her meal to bread and a cookie. She likes it!” the teacher wrote.
I was surprised — not because of what she ate, but because of how closely the school monitored the children’s eating habits.
Back in LA, I usually guessed how much she ate by checking her lunchbox. Teachers rarely discussed it unless I asked.
The right decision
The school in Qingdao has a small farm on campus. The children feed rabbits and ducks when the weather allows.
On colder days, they play in an indoor gym.
Her preschool in LA had a large lawn where kids could run around and play outside. Seeing these different setups made me realize how much childhood is shaped by where you grow up.
In the classroom, the school in China also had strict rules about screens. TVs were used only for educational purposes. When I picked my daughter up, she was usually playing with toys or chatting with the teacher.
At her preschool in LA, the children often watched cartoons for about 30 minutes while waiting for their parents to pick them up.
Watching her sleep peacefully after a busy day, a question kept coming back to me: Which system is better for early education?
Toward the end of our two-month trip, I wondered whether we should move to China for her schooling. During the 13-hour flight back to the US, I kept thinking about it.
Now that we’re back in Los Angeles, I asked my daughter on the drive to preschool whether she misses China.
She said she loved the school in China — but she had also been missing the US.
