To take relocate family overseas to HK when they are in fantastic schools?

[Halfeatenlunch]

I have an opportunity to move out of the UK - both of us fully onboard.

Lifestyle will be great, weather is better, good food and more convenient, and culture suits us better.

Financially, kids would be in international schools so no issue on language and so on.

So it's great on all fronts really.

However... our little ones are in simply outstanding schools (primary) and I have a serious fear of taking them out of somewhere they are happy, confident and with a clear path towards 11+ and so on.
If we were to come back, I suspect we will no longer be as ready for the secondaries.

Is this a terrible idea to rip something so good from them?

Good luck with the move! I think you will enjoy it. If you haven't moved internationally before, you should expect it to take a while before you truly settle and find your group. That's normal, and if you keep mixing and keep seeking out the things you personally enjoy (not just the common things like junk trips, which are great but which everyone enjoys so don't really filter for your tribe), then you certainly will. With children it's much easier. Your children seem young enough to adapt well. There are schools here where many children are English-only, and even at the bilingual schools English is the main language that the children socialise in, so that should not be a concern. You should also think about whether you want to live in a building with lots of child-friendly amenities or if you will get that elsewhere. And members clubs (eye wateringly expensive on the private market, but might be part of your compensation package) -- there are several that are great for kids. Exciting times!

Thanks! Yes first time moving international (with children at least). We're applying out of the usual application years so it's going to take a miracle to get a place.

Hoping to find an apartment with a pool, gym, play area and so on at the bottom to save us on those rainy or super hot days. This aspect alone I think might improve quality of life having access to so much.

As it seems like you are / have lived in HK before - how naive is it for me to think it's really important to be near MTR to really enjoy the lifestyle? I know it's smaller and so on, but some expat-y areas require a car which kind of defeats the point.

@Halfeatenlunch let me PM you.

If your dc are close to 11+ age there will be plenty of tutors in HK if needed

At my school in HK I can’t remember if it was 37 nationalities or 37 different languages spoken. But it was an English school doing English exam boards

Oh my. Grab this opportunity to live abroad.

Best of luck! And I agree with PP regarding taking time to settle; it can be hard at first with administrative and bureaucracy but it will get done. My experience is many international schools take mid-year applications (it’s sort of part of their business model to cater to expats floating in and out). Our kids found the truly multicultural school experience really welcoming and intriguing.

I lived in HK for a year (before children) and the travel from there is fantastic. Japan is a 4 hour flight, Thailand and Vietnam are 2-2.5 hours away, Malaysia the same, just such a good spot for further travel. Australia and NZ much more accessible and become a reality for a family holiday. We didn’t live that close to an MTR station, but taxis are very cheap, if you don’t mind a more exciting ride 😁The food is amazing, anything from cheap as chips markets to Michelin stars. A couple of downsides would be the living space - it’s expensive and tiny (but this is obviously dependent on what you can afford and if you have a relocation package). The other would be the groceries. Hard to get anything that wasn’t imported, and the good stuff seemed very expensive. Again, might not be an issue depending on what your lifestyle is like.

To clarify on the above, I was there 2017-2018, so pre COVID and ‘new’ political situation!

So glad to hear this, it's reassuring! So worried about our daughter suddenly losing her confidence but hopefully as you say they will pick it back up once she makes some friends locally...

I wouldn't relocate to an unstable/unpredictable/repressive political situation with kids. But I'd definitely relocate somewhere interesting but stable.

My dcs were born overseas and lived in three different countries including 12 years in China. They both thrived at school and mixed with children of many nationalities. HK is amazing, but as pp have mentioned the culture in both China and HK has changed since Xi came to power.
Do consider carefully the package you are offered - rent, school fees, private medical, flights home per year and also the nature of your overseas contract particularly if your children want to study in the UK later. My ds got home fees despite living in China for 10 years as dh was on secondment from the UK.

Good friends moved back to Europe from HK 2 years ago as things got more draconian, as they couldn’t hack it and worried for the life their children were having. Everyone MUCH happier back in Europe. I think schools are the least of your concerns.

I’ve only been to HK on holiday and that was back when “one country two systems” was still essentially functioning. It was wonderful and I loved the place.

However, I teach in a UK school and we’ve had an influx of students from HK in the last 2-3 years. Some are returning expats and others Chinese HKers. Their families are all pretty clear that HK is not what it once was. It definitely feels like lots of people are making the move the other way now because of the increasingly repressive atmosphere.

I think it’s inevitable that living in one of the most authoritarian countries in the world will encroach on your day to day life to some degree. I don’t think you can escape it completely. Hong Kong now essentially is China.

Go go go!!!! Wish I could take my family out of here!!!!

Out of the uk and somewhere nice abroad

Thanks!

I'm aware of what's happening over there, but (perhaps naively?) I assumed the locals fled because (1) of what's been building up in the years prior and then (2) the really strict lock down, and so they've had enough. But day to day? Can't see difference yet... maybe I'm blind, but PM me if I'm being seriously naive.

Re home fees, I think for university they just have to be ordinarily resident in the UK for 3 years prior, so if they were to pop back by 15 years old I think we should be fine. But thanks for the heads up!

@Halfeatenlunch the best way I'd describe it is you feel like a cloak has been place over the people in the city and they aren't behaving

@Halfeatenlunch sorry my finger slipped!

*aren't behaving with free will anymore. Not sure if you've been to Russia / former soviet countries / Xi's mainland China but it's the same feeling you get there.

Feels very oppressive and it did not feel like this before, there is huge tension between new mainlanders and HK locals in the city. It's so hard to describe, it's more a feeling - one of uneasyness.

This did affect my daily life tbh as I felt I could not be myself under the regime. I knew I was being watched. Phone hacked constantly, tv would shut down, if certain words mentioned on the phone to family back home I would lose connection, friends constantly complaining and leaving, kids education changing (my friend works at ESF (English international school) and wasn't allowed to put up Christmas decorations last year due to new mandates - thats entirely new. Certain subjects are banned and new ones introduced, etc. Media is heavily censored and full of propaganda, frankly ridiculous to read as has no bearing on the real situation.

You can block it out and live in a bubble for sure, and have a great time while doing so. But after a while I expect the uneasiness may creep in and it's best to walk in eyes wide open.

There are some really great comments on this thread that I agree with.
I’ve lived in HK twice and it was always my dream to relocate there and make a new life there after university. Back in London now and I do often find myself wondering why we gave it up. I do pine for my former life
But what @fleur89 says is very wise.
Equally though OP, you have already identified that you’re going to be living in the expat bubble and that this means that in a day to day basis the national security law and all the other associated depredations of the rule of law and dismantling of civil society isn’t going to affect you. And you’re right about this. The expat bubble is incredible. The lifestyle is amazing.

And truth be told, even with what I know and my sadness at how much it has changed I would still move back if I could (my husband wouldn’t get a visa these days so it’s not an option now)

Agree with the comments @fleur89 made. As I lived on the Mainland for 12 years I was used to things like phone hacking and was careful about what I wrote on WeChat etc. However, under Xi there were changes eg not celebrating Western holidays, no Xmas decorations, passport needed to buy train tickets, fingerprinting of foreigners when entering China, increased media blackout eg internet issues during important political events etc.
of course HK is not the mainland, but it’s changed and there is a tension between Mainlanders and the Hongkongese.
As an expat you are to a certain extent protected from changes that have happened under Xi.
Yes, home fees are applicable if resident for three years.

In terms of schools, I think you should be ok for places - anecdotally there are quite a few people who moved from HK due to COVID and later because of the changes that have occurred, so spaces are easier to find. My friend is going on a recce this week to move back there - I’ll relay any snippets of interest!

Thank you @fleur89 @LazJaz @ShanghaiDiva and@Asiatoyork - super insightful. It's really refreshing to hear of balanced informed views about this!

My friend has returned to the UK with his children, due to the changes. He said that the atmosphere had become very different, that he could no longer be relaxed and anonymous, and that he was concerned about the restrictions on his children's lives. The whole thing had made him uneasy and life was no longer pleasurable. The balance of pros and cons just swung in the wrong direction.

If he hadn't had children, he might have stayed, but he felt that it had become an unhealthy environment for them to grow in. They were aged from 5 to 13.

I returned from HK in 2022 after 14 years. When thinking of the exodus, I think it's fair to say that for expats who left, covid restrictions were the main driving force, for locals, the political situation was the main driver (in fact most locals supported stringent covid restrictions).

In terms of schools, you'll get a lot of different answers when asked to compare HK and UK schools, and it really depends which two schools you're comparing. My DC were at Kellett and when we came back they were basically at the right level for a UK prep school where the students are above average nationally but it's not a selective school per se. However, friends who moved back to London found that their DC were really behind vs the more academically "focused" prep schools whose pupils are targeting St Pauls, Eton etc. 11+ can also mean a lot of different things depending on whether you live in Dorset or Kingston (in terms of pass requirements) so hard to say how much extra work you'd need to do to prep them for that. Schools typically do not get involved though so you'd have to use tutor/ exam prep centres (of which there are many!).

While there is definitely capacity in the HK international school system overall (because the government encouraged loads of new schools in response to a critical shortage of English medium primary places around 2015 which was short lived), there are clear "tiers" of international school. The "tier 1" schools may well not have places. The less popular (often but not always newer, franchise) international schools are really not international schools- they teach an international curriculum to local kids whose parents don't like the local curriculum (increasingly common given political situation). Problem with that is that the parents effectively determine the culture of the school so some of them have local school levels of homework/ academic pressure in primary (i.e. tonnes) and there are not many playdates/ parties etc. The sport is N/A (although good opportunities for that through the clubs). The playground language is Cantonese. Basically, just be aware of that. Main schools with a lot of UK students are Kellett, ESF and Nord Anglia.

Re being near the MTR, I wouldn't prioritise it. There are loads of buses and taxis/ Uber are cheap. It's a bonus, but absolutely not a disaster to live somewhere without like San Kung./ Stanley/ Pot Fu Lam/ Repulse Bay.

HTH