Discussion keeps the world turning.
This is Roundtable. Have you noticed?
Your friends and coworkers are going on vacations one after another.
In the peak of summer, it's customary for people to take a break, go travelling and shopping, and simply enjoy a moment in life with family and friends.
And it seems like a great moment for businesses too.
Hello, I'm Limey and this is Roundtable.
Today with New Hulling and Brighton Yeats, we find out what's new and what's popular this summer.
So, making plans for the summer can be a headache and a big deal for many families.
Some people start making plans one year ahead.
I mean, trying to book tickets and hotels, days, and maybe looking into potential choices or tutorials or training camps or anything that the market has to offer for their children.
So, why is it a big deal? Well, in China, when you start a family, when you start having kids, you start a plan with the kids' perspective in your plan as well.
So, previously, I didn't think about summer vacation as a big deal because it's not my vacation.
I am not leaving work for two months yet with a kid.
It is basically the kind of really long time, quality time you can spend with your kid.
So, for many parents, they would take their annual leave during this period of time and taking their kids out for certain trips so that they can spend time together.
How long is the summer break for kids in China?
The summer break for kids in China lasts for around 30, well, actually 60 days whereas the winter break lasts for 30 days.
So, really. That's for a long summer break, compared to the rest of the...
I know the US also has long summer breaks, I think.
But I mean, in South Africa, generally, you won't have a holiday period that exceeds 30 days for kids.
I think two months is pretty extensive.
But that being said, we also don't have summers that are as extreme as some of China's region's summers.
So, maybe that has something to do with it.
Yeah. Also, the semesters are organized differently in the US than in China.
Yeah, and two semesters.
Two semesters. Yeah. So, for example, in South Africa, there's four semesters, so it splits up differently as well.
And the thing is, the length of the holiday is not the only factor in the...
It comes to the consideration of the planning.
You want the kids to spend this time to do a little bit of reveal of their academic work.
You want them to perhaps develop a new hobby during this period of time.
You want them to prepare for the coming semester.
You want them to have fun.
You want them to spend time with you.
You want them to pick up a new good habit or so.
So, the thing is, parents do want a lot of things to happen for their kids.
At the same time, you also are facing the fact that kids are no longer at school.
They're no longer supervised.
Some of them are staying at home, minding their own...
Watching TV. Exactly. And then you don't want them to spend the two months doing absolutely nothing.
So, you need to prepare an advance, I suppose.
You want them to be safe.
You want them to be entertained.
You want them to grow up a little bit in the sense of taking care of themselves.
So there are a lot of target to hit.
And in the meantime, also many challenges to overcome.
Right. So in South Africa, you mentioned earlier, there are four semesters.
So the holidays are broken down into smaller pieces.
Yeah, around 30 days. 30 days.
And then what are parents choices?
Yes, when it comes to taking care of their kids while there are still at work.
I mean, there's different things to consider.
So obviously in South Africa, safety is a big issue.
You can't let kids kind of wander the streets alone or kind of do anything completely autonomously whether it's during the day or in the evening.
So finding care for kids is a big thing, especially if you don't have leave as an adult.
But that being said, we also have ample camps.
We also have the sort of terrain and scenery where outdoorsy activities on a daily basis is entirely possible and highly entertaining.
We also have a lot of domestic travel venues that kids can be sent to enjoy time away from their specific city or regional, whatever it may be.
So generally during those times, that is kind of what's available in terms of remaining in South Africa.
Generally, it's outdoorsy activities with heavily supervised.
But then also, there can be summer camps organized or the schools can actually arrange camps for kids outside of the school, even during the school holidays.
Well, parents can kind of arrange domestic travel that involves them as well if they have the leave.
And then of course, some families are also in the privileged position to be able to take their kids overseas, which we will probably get into because I highly disagree with.
In the meantime, we see that in the United States, many parents enrolled their children in affordable summer camps organized by community centers, churches, or local government programs.
Very similar to South Africa.
As an infill, we see the country offers public services, including summer programs organized by schools and also the local governments.
And also, we see in France, for example, the government and local places and local governments also provide a range of holiday programs for children, including sports, arts, and cultural activities.
Actually, here in China, we have those things as well.
One interesting distinction I see here is that many of these activities we mentioned in these countries actually would hire volunteers to supervise the kids.
And most volunteers are actually college students.
So you have the college students spending their summer holidays taking care of primary school middle school high school kids.
So that's a fun approach, I guess.
And also, we see here in China, we also have libraries and also what we call Shao Nian Gong Youth Palace.
Or actually, these are activities.
Sounds wonderful. Well, these are some fun names we see, but actually they provide very affordable activities or extracurricular classes for kids to enroll.
The thing here is that they do not actually provide the kind activities that would allow you to send your kids to in the morning when you go to work and pick them up in the evening when you get off work.
It's more like around two hours, three hours, which can be a little bit difficult if your kids really need around the clock kind of care or supervise.
So I guess age really matters here if it's relatively younger students, let's say in primary school who is yet to know his or her way around the city to the youth palace or for library, then perhaps the parents will have to invest more time and thinking into making a perfect plan for them, whereas perhaps for more mature older students in junior middle school, high schools, then perhaps they can find their own way to places where they can keep themselves entertained and educated in some cases.
And so what parents generally expect for the children during the holiday, I mean, the first thing I think I can think of is to make sure that the children can get their homework down.
So it is a vacation, it's a holiday, I mean, students need to go home bringing their own homework.
Bringing their own homework?
Yes, they're supposed to finish with an afternoon.
That would never happen.
It would never be a case where a kid would be like, I'm going to provide myself with my own homework today.
You would have to really crack the weapon terms of getting kids to arrange their own work if it's not during the school time.
Oh, sometimes it's arranged by the parents.
You have the kind of homework from school and then you have the kind of homework from the parents.
In general, I feel like parents are looking for a safe, enjoyable and inbreaching holiday.
For sure. In the look for activities that can provide both fun and learning opportunities and helping kids develop new skills, interest and social connections.
And these have been the goals for parents for at least tens of years.
For our parents, it was like that.
It was just in our generation, in my generation, we didn't have that many choices.
No, I was just sent to my grandpa's home.
Oh, that's true. Who will oversee my homework assignments and other activities.
Actually, I enjoyed the time in my grandparents' home quite a lot to the extended relatives.
I think it's a different experience, but I feel like nowadays in order for the kids, well, I think kids are still going to the extensive extended family or relatives' homes.
There are more activities.
From what I've seen, it's still definitely very common.
I mean, just even in Xi Jinping's example, on my way to work in the summer in the mornings, I more often than not see very young kids, I would say, between the ages of three and eight being cared for by seemingly their grandparents.
So it is definitely still an ongoing trend.
Yeah. In my generation, I think that was quite easy, comparatively speaking, because when I gradually grow up and become adults, and I noticed this trend of massive migration of people living originally in rural areas, looking for jobs in urban areas, and more often than not, their families are separated.
And more often than not, their kids have to stay with their parents in their hometown to begin with.
So I don't know. If it's possible, perhaps the parents could arrange for their kids to come to the city where they work and be united for them, be united with them, even just for two months or a one month.
Yeah, I think some common activities happen for kids during summer breaks, as well as winter breaks include, go to your parents if you don't live with their parents already, and go to your grandparents again, if you don't live with them already, and signing up for some interesting, extracurriculum courses, and the final one would be travel with your family.
And finally, money can be an issue here.
Because if you have the money in your pocket, you can afford it.
There are plenty of courses that you can sign your kids up for in the market, extracurricular trainings.
Maybe you want your kids to brush up on their math, English language, or Chinese language, or any other...
Super fun summer holiday, brushing up on my maths and English skills.
I only did one. That happens a lot.
I know, poor kids, I feel sorry for them.
When I was a kid, I remember I can sign up for a entire semester of English classes with around 300, and that is less than 50 US dollars.
That is quite cheap, but I'm talking about over 20 years ago.
Nowadays we see that with...
A month. No, no, no, a whole semester around three months.
Three, okay. Yeah, so really not bad.
But the thing is now we get to see there are more and more choices when it comes to extracurriculum classes.
You can go polish your English or math skills if you want by saying you, I'm actually am talking about your parents, and at the meantime you can also learn a special kind of sport that you pick, be it basketball, as common as basketball in Tibetan or as special as horseback riding.
Oh, a question. Yeah, there are a lot of different choices.
From the youth palace, I suppose.
Not really sure. But also karate if you enjoy that, and there is also an art related genre, a huge one ready for you to explore.
Piano would be the easiest choice.
Guitar, violin, and I think for some kids they would also go for traditional Chinese instruments.
And singing lessons, I guess too.
Singing lessons as well, of course.
So with all these different choices, it's kind of hard for parents to pick the one that is mostly suitable for their kids.
But I think that's a good opportunity where dialogue between parents and kids becomes very important because yes, as a parent you still need to have the final say about what you think is best for your kid in terms of how they spend their time during those lengthy vacation periods.
But I think it's also a good opportunity to speak to your child and say, look, what are your interests, what are your hobbies, what are you potentially interested in taking up, do you see yourself doing in the future?
And I think that dialogue is a lot more important than sitting down with a kid and saying, discussing travel plans for your homework.
Yeah, exactly. So I think it's a good opportunity to kind of make decisions for your kids, but informed decisions based on the conversations that you have with them.
Oh, definitely the word informed is a keyword here because you would assume, we would assume as parents we know more about the world than the kids, but not necessarily.
We don't. And when they talk to their classmates, their friends, they started to basically cultivate this new hobby or new habit about gaming, not only gaming, but also for example, artificial intelligence.
Do you know there's AI related toward, let's say study tours as well as extracurriculum classes that you can sign up for?
There's coding related ones.
I didn't even know there are such options yet for some kids.
The reason that they wanted to go to these classes is that their friends go there and they want to spend time with their friends and after trying out one or two little tasks that their friend brought, they realized they like this subject as well.
So yes, talk to your kids.
There are so many options out there in the market.
Some of the options are quite old.
I mean, I remember being sent to a course or a training session where I was exposed to computer technology and I learned how to type and that was it.
Apparently, things have changed and they have evolved over time and apparently AI is one of the hottest items and options that parents are eyeing for and they're willing to pay big money for that.
Oh, yes, but you should at least, well, I think for parents, they should, again, if the idea is brought to buy their kids or if you think making sure that your kids speaks artificial intelligence is important, make sure you also do some research because there are cases that for certain AI related study tours or short term extracurricular courses, there are certain problems.
For example, some of the organizer of such classes would say that, ah, I would give your kids a name, immersive experience related to artificial intelligence.
How immersive? Can I like crank my own AI?
Yeah, that's the idea. That's what you are going to assume if you hear words like this.
Also, they would ask you, well, they would tell you that they're sending your kids to major big name companies to see how AI is working in these places for in real life scenarios.
But many of these promises are only, let's say, deep.
Yeah, they're not delivered for sure in certain cases.
So you want to do the research, making sure that your kids are sent to a legitimate to courses.
So the parents are responsible to make sure that whatever courses or pertaining to AI that they're sending their kids to are legitimate and reliable and offer what it is being promised.
Of course, the parents have the responsibility.
But then we're talking about parents and people potentially paying big money for a kind of service that they can purchase in the market.
Do you think it's also the responsibility of market regulators out there as well?
That certainly presents a challenge for the regulators as well, for them to know what kind of services are being offered and whether they are straightforward and delivering what they're promised?
Yeah, I guess to a certain extent it is up to them to be able to ensure that the services that are being offered are relatively affordable to the general masses.
Incidentally, and the reason I know this specific example about this not up to standard AI extracurriculum classes is that regulators are in place and they have done their speculation.
Well, actually, yeah, they've done the research and they figured out these not up to standard ones and they reported and that's why I know them.
So definitely we do need more regulations and supervisors in place in the market.
But also think these are good areas where parents can justify spending great sums of money on their children.
I think it makes, to me, not being a parent, but just putting myself in a parent's shoes.
I think it makes a lot more sense to spend greater sums of money on activities that would develop my child further and allow them to potentially develop skills that could see them become, have a greater chance of becoming successful in the future rather than spending huge sums of money on elaborate summer camps where they just spend our time outdoors having fun or going to France, whatever it may be, which are valid, exciting opportunities but don't necessarily give your child an edge going forward.
We're spending fairly large sums of money on AI courses or music lessons or sports lessons or whatever it may be to develop a certain skill.
To me, spending money on a child's development that can yield actual results makes more sense.
What if I tell you I can combine both?
In a summer camp or a study trip because it has been quite popular here in China.
So like a more inclusive experience where you can offer a lot of activities in one setting.
Yes. And taking your kids to different places, a certain kind of study tour.
For example, if the kid is super interested in plants or knowledge about different plants, they take you to a natural park or different types of theme parks making sure that you are also accompanied with a certain expert with knowledge about these areas and allowing you to conduct actual on-hand activities with certain plants making samples, learning your knowledge while having fun in these different places.
These types of study trips have been quite popular this summer.
Yes. I think one of the reasons is because perhaps due to COVID people have not been able to travel for themselves, especially parents and they feel like they've been missing out.
And they don't want the same thing to happen to their kids and now that COVID is gone and the traveling restrictions is gone as well, people, parents might think that it's worthwhile to have my kids go travel the world and experience what I have been missing and put them, I don't know, whatever he or she might get from that experience.
I wouldn't want that for my kids.
I would be like leaving my kids at home and then going out and experiencing what I was missing and say, sorry kids, this is my time to go.
You're not a parent yet.
That's why you're saying all this.
No, no, for sure. You're not mean like 10, but on that.
Two months holiday. On that, we discussed it a little bit before the show and I think that overseas travel is a very impactful worthwhile experience for all individuals, but I personally feel that it's a lot more impactful on adults than it is on children.
So for example, I traveled extensively around the globe as a child but don't really recall much from it or I don't feel like I gained much from it and I would definitely rather have had those funds available to me now as an adult as opposed to having had that money spent on me as a child.
I don't know, but during China, you've found a job in China, maybe a different person in South Africa who hasn't had that experience might think twice about it.
Yeah, but as an adult, I don't think that any childhood experiences led to this path.
And look, I think that for me personally, I think it makes a lot more sense to spend that money on developing a child's skills or passions or hobbies rather than just taking in them on lavish holidays because I personally feel that those sorts of lavish holidays are a lot more impactful on adults than children.
But that being said, if you do have the funds available to go overseas with your kids when they're young and also potentially help them with overseas travels when they get a little bit older, then that's great.
Then you're obviously in a very good financial situation.
Well, the thing with businesses and services and also the potential clients is that oftentimes when parents or when a customer can't afford something, that means they can buy it more than once.
Yeah, yeah. So parents who can afford to send their kids to traveling overseas probably can afford it when they're older.
So it's just a matter, just a part of the plan that they've made for their kids.
I mean, who's to say they haven't planned anything else for their kids?
And I think... Nothing was planned for me.
So, yeah, it went a lot on all of these crazy trips as a kid, but then as an adult, it was kind of my parents were kind of like, well, it's your turn now.
If you want to go overseas, you've got to sort that out by yourself.
You're an adult. Yeah, no, that's what I'm saying.
But there are a lot of rich families that they take their kids all around the world and then when those kids become adults, they take that money that they would have spent on family vacations and just give it to the kids and say enjoy partying in France for two weeks.
Oh, that sounds like a really good family as well.
Yeah, exactly. It's just jealousy month.
Even, I mean, I went on a vacation like two weeks ago and had a great time and came back and then as soon as I opened social media, I saw this person's going to France, this person's going to Italy.
So, I think summer's definitely a time to enjoy yourself, but it's also a time to maybe stay away from social media if you don't want to have a FOMO.
And coming back from that ideal yet too good to be true kind of scenario, what we're saying here is every kid is different.
Every family is different, maybe for some going to an overseas or enjoying overseas trip is vital in their growing period or growing, let's say, experience.
But for others, maybe taking on certain extra curriculum courses would help them find a hobby that enjoy.
So I think there's no right answer for everyone.
Different strikes for different folks.
Exactly. It really depends on, it also depends on where you grow up.
For instance, in China, you have the language barrier, if you travel overseas and you get the kids more likely, they're not, don't know the local language and they don't necessarily know what's going on.
And whereas, let's say, a child in Europe, with the Shingan area and the policy, they've been exposed to foreign languages so they know their way around.
And traveling is so easy too because you can literally visit European countries, dozens of European countries by train, like the way we visit cities in China, for example.
It's incredible. Yeah, I think it's really important that parents take into account where they are and kind of experience they would like the kids to have, making while they're making the plans.
And the last thing about this year's travel is that people are complaining that the services and packages are becoming more expensive.
And that is naturally so because the label car is going up and how do we strike the balance?
I mean, certainly we'll want those in the business to make the money and or live the life that they can, with dignity, live.
But on the other hand, we also want services to be affordable.
And what do you think parents can do going forward?
I think we do not have to meddle because again, different parents, different families have different situations and can make different decisions.
And we've already seen that the explosion of different choices and possibilities in the market, that is actually a good thing because you can choose the relative expensive ones and if you are from a really good background and you can also choose to cut down or cut away one or two extra curriculum classes for your kids.
And either way, you can assure your kids with a happy and safe and enjoyable summer vacation.
It's tricky because I think everything is becoming a lot more expensive.
So I think that all activities going forward involving parents and kids just requires maybe more planning than was done in the past and more budgeting.
So I think a lot of things are possible through extensive planning and budgeting depending on your financial situation.
So there you go, more jobs demanded from the parents.
