教育已成奢侈品!月薪3萬還撐不起孩子一個暑假?大綱

What's the latest luxury status symbol in China ? It's not a handbag by Louis Vuitton or Gucci. According to Chinese parents, it's their children. ShelLing out a small fortune for their children's schooling, summer vacations, and extracurriculars is the latest trend for Chinese parents looking to distinguish themselves.
中國最新的奢侈品的標誌是什麼？不是路易威登或古馳的手提包。中國父母們表示，是他們的孩子。對中國父母而言，拿出一大筆錢用於孩子的學校教育、暑期和課外活動是他們彰顯自己的最新趨勢。

This summer, an article titled, “A Monthly Salary of 30,000 RMB ($4,493) is Not Enough for My Child’s Summer Vacation” went viral on WeChat Moments. Written by a high-paid executive mom, it tells the story of how she can hardly keep up with the extravagant overseas summer programs that she lines up for her daughter.
今年夏天，一篇名爲“月薪3萬，還是撐不起孩子的一個暑假”的文章在微信朋友圈瘋傳。這篇文章的作者是一位高薪的高管母親，文章稱，她爲女兒安排了奢侈的海外暑期課程，但她的工資幾乎滿足不了這些課程的費用。

The mother says the total cost of her daughter's education for the summer is 35,000 yuan, including 20,000 yuan for a 10-day US study tour and other tutoring classes that cost up to 10,000 yuan.
這位母親表示，她女兒的暑期教育總共花費了35000元，其中爲期10天的美國學習之旅需要20000元，而其他輔導課程的費用共計達10000元。

Immediately after the post was published, Chinese netizens responded furiously, with many Weibo users asking, ‘Can an expensive summer vacation really make your kids ‘better’ than others?”
這篇帖子一經發出就引起了中國網民的激烈迴應，許多微博用戶問，“昂貴的暑期課程真的就能讓你的孩子比其他人‘更優秀’嗎”？

Other internet users wondered about the intentions of parents making such a sacrifice . “Is this to fulfil the parents' vanity or to make the children happy?”
其他網友質疑父母們做出如此犧牲的目的。“這是爲了滿足父母的虛榮心還是爲了讓孩子開心？”

Linda Xu strongly oppose such criticism. Xu, who works as an Operations Manager in an international automobile company in Beijing, said that she spent less than that of the mom in the post, though the cost of different tutoring classes that she selected for her eight-year-old son to take during the summer “definitely exceeded 20,000 RMB.”
琳達·徐強烈反對了這樣的指責。徐女士在北京一家跨國汽車公司擔任運營經理，她表示，雖然與帖子中的母親相比，她的支出要少一些，但在暑假期間，她也爲自己8歲的兒子選擇了不同的輔導班，而所有的費用“肯定超過了20000元”。

She rationalized her decision by saying, “This is the luxury I didn’t get to enjoy when I was young, and I hope to start early on my kid's elite education so that he can stand out among his peers as he grows older.”
她解釋了自己的決定，稱“這是我小時候沒有享受到的奢侈，我希望我的孩子可以早早地接受精英教育，這樣隨着他慢慢長大，他就可以從同齡人中脫穎而出。”

According to a report on global education expenses, 93 percent of Chinese parents have been paying for kids’ private schools, a figure surpassing that of the United States (46 percent), France (32 percent), and the United Kingdom, respectively, by at least 40 percent.
一份關於全球教育費用的報告指出，93%的中國父母會爲孩子支付私立學校的學費，而這一比例分別超過了美國（46%）、法國（32%）和英國（至少40%）。

The strong emphasis placed by Chinese parents on education has fueled the growth of the children’s education market in China lately. What's more, there has been a myth among Chinese mothers that the quality of education is positively correlated with the price they pay. However, the loosely regulated education market means that the correlation is not always true.
近來，中國父母對教育的重視刺激了中國教育市場的增長。而且在中國媽媽之間還有一個說法，那就是教育質量與他們支出的學費呈正相關。然而，監管鬆散的教育市場意味着這種相關性並不總是如此。

“This irrational phenomenon is unique to the middle class in China ,” writes Yu Xiulan, the Professor of Education at Nanjing University .
“這種不合理的現象是中國中產階級特有的，”南京大學教育學教授餘秀蘭寫道。

She reasons that the country's elite class doesn't have to worry about changing the social status through education, whereas for lower-class households, they simply cannot afford it. China's middle class comes in between, whose anxiety about keeping their current social status urges them to spend a great deal of money in education, even at the expense of their quality of life, in order to make them feel secure.
她解釋道，中國的精英階層不必擔心教育會改變他們的社會地位，而對於平民階層的家庭來說，他們根本就負擔不起這樣的教育支出。中國的中產階級處於兩者之間，他們對保持自身當前社會地位的擔憂使他們在教育上投入了大量的資金，爲了讓自己覺得踏實，甚至不惜犧牲自己的生活質量。