Visitors walk on a road under cherry blossoms surrounded by a tea garden in Yongfu town of Zhangping city, Southeast China's Fujian province on Tuesday. Xinhua

Big decision

Xie Gang, a school psychologist with the Fremont Unified School District, said the family decision to send a teenager across the Pacific Ocean to the US is huge. "It takes the efforts of the family, parents, child, and other individuals involved to help make this transition as smooth as possible. Remember, adolescence is a synonym of versatile and vulnerable."

The majority of these parachute teens are alone, their parents remain back in China mostly because they still need to work to support the family.

As for lodging, parachute children either go to boarding schools or live with host families. Either way, they need to make an effort to adapt to a foreign culture and surroundings on their own.

At Grier, Emily Chen and her Chinese classmates stay at the school dormitories, a standard room with two beds and one bathroom.

"We want our Chinese international students to assimilate to the local culture and English language quickly by walking out of their comfort zones," said the school principle on orientation night in September 2013. Smart phones are not allowed in classrooms in case Chinese students might use them for instant messaging and chatting with friends at home.

Difficult adaptation

Chinese students are asked to speak only English on campus, and they share a room with American students. "I struggled to initiate a conversation with my roommate Jackie at the very beginning," said Emily Chen. "Loneliness was my first impression."

Subject learning at the beginning is also challenging. "I couldn't follow the teacher's instruction and had no clue about the algebra and mathematical jargons they are using," said Emily. "So I used a tape recorder and listened several times to make sure I understood."

Herald and his wife would make international phone calls to Emily's cell phone on Friday night, when the school loosened its policy and granted family time. "My wife would start sobbing and my daughter would cry also," Chen recalled. "I remembered at least two to three times I told my daughter to come back if she really felt sad. She was only 15 and still a kid."

Food is another headache. Emily usually strolled 10 minutes around the school food court, which is full of American salad, burgers, pizza and cold drinks, and ended up with a cup of noodles. "Stir fry and hot dishes are what I'm so used to. But at Grier, the mixture of the student population does not bring in a nice offering of Chinese food," said Emily.

Fortunately, the influx of Chinese students has boosted the growth of culinary businesses in the neighboring Birmingham area. Chinese cuisine shops featuring Sichuan spicy food and Shandong wheaten products draw regular patrons from boarding schools like Grier.

"We all so look forward to weekends so we can take a taxi to Chinatown and have a treat for our Chinese stomachs and taste buds," said Emily. "After one semester, we all felt more comfortable with the new environment, and homesickness was not an issue any longer."

Living with host families

Many overseas Chinese students live with host families and attend private schools like the Fremont Christian School in East Bay, California. American immigration law gives Chinese families little choice: International students can only attend public schools for one year and must reimburse the school district.

California is a top destination for these students due to its closeness to China and its long history of adopting Chinese immigrants and cultural influence.

Ling Guo is a stay-at-home mother and hosts four Chinese international students at her two-story, four-bedroom single family home in the Fremont, Bay area. By contract, her responsibilities include shuffling the four back and forth between school and home, as well as providing three meals a day.

Guo arranges for two students to share one room, and charges $1,000 monthly for each. "I saw an ad from a local agency hiring host families," said Guo. "I called them to set up an interview and field check then they sent me these four Chinese kids."

All attending a local Christian school for their junior years, the four students come from different parts of China with various family backgrounds. "Three of them are hard-working kids, and the other one only likes playing video games and online shopping," said Guo.

Guo said a host family in a way acts as the guardians of the Chinese students. "I always tell them to go to work if I see them wasting their time. But they don't like the extra supervision other than what they get from school and their parents," Guo complained. "I tell them your parents' money is hard-earned. Cherish it!"

Living habits

Other host families have issues with the living habits of the Chinese teens. "Most of them are self-centered and don't know to care about other people," said Maggie Lin, who has been hosting international students for more than six years in San Francisco.

Many children like to stay up late and still take showers even if it's already midnight, said Lin. "Each time I open the doors to their rooms, it's like a scene after a tornado touched down."

Lin noticed most of the Chinese teens are addicted to the virtual cyber world and show no interest in face-to-face communications. "With the majority of them being the only child of the family, they are spoiled in many ways," said Lin, adding lack of sympathy and passion are the most worrisome features of parachute kids.

In Peninsular and South Bay cities such as Mountain View and Palo Alto where schools are more prestigious, the cost for living with a host family soars. "A student needs to pay at least $24,000 a year for a single room in Los Altos," said Ivy Liu, the marketing professional.

Luo Ping, a local resident and a mother of two young boys, said she could not understand why Chinese parents send their children to live with host families. "Children need to learn from peer natives about language and culture. A Chinese-speaking host family won't help a lot in this regard," she said.

For Emily Chen and her Chinese girl classmates, their American adventure started as a rough voyage, and has turned out to be a fruitful adventure. "I'm more creative and independent after three years of studying in the US," said Emily. "Now I'm ready for my college years."

Contact the writer at junechang@chinadailyusa.com.