Focus
Beijing parents-to-be spend big, hoping to improve kids' future
By Wang Wen (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-03-02 13:25
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 A pregnant woman from Chinese mainland enters Hong Kong through Luohu, the main border crossing between the special administrative region and the Chinese mainland, on Feb 26. About 16,724 mainland women gave birth in Hong Kong in the first half of 2009, according to a report from the Hong Kong Hospital Authority. |
Daisy, a 28-year-old primary school teacher in Beijing, is expecting her second child. She has booked a bed in St. Teresa's Hospital in Hong Kong and plans to deliver her second baby in Hong Kong in July. Daisy refused to have her real name published for fear that if her employer found out, she would be fined three to 10 times her annual family income for having the second child.
She paid 50,000 yuan to an agency in Beijing for accommodation in Shenzhen and Hong Kong before and after the delivery.
She estimates the delivery will cost her 100,000 yuan to 150,000 yuan in total.
"It costs a lot to bring up children and the second baby will cost us so much even before he or she is born," said Daisy.
Daisy and her husband say they are planning to give birth in Hong Kong not only to avoid the heavy fees but also so that the child will get Hong Kong permanent residency, which is granted to every person born in the special administrative region. The couple hopes this will lead to a better life for the child.
They heard about the agency from a friend who gave birth in Hong Kong.
Daisy said the agency takes care of virtually everything for her, including booking the bed in the hospital and taking care of all the paperwork to ensure the baby gets permanent residency. She added that she is completely dependent on the agency but is happy the procedure seems relatively simple.
Three weeks before her due date, Daisy will go to Shenzhen and stay there until she can go to the hospital.
"It is so easy for me and if I had known the process was so simple, maybe I would have given birth to my first child in Hong Kong two year ago," Daisy said.
She went to Hong Kong for the first prenatal examination on Dec 16. It was easy to go through customs because she was still quite thin and few would have guessed she was three months pregnant, she said.
"I heard some women were caught at customs and not allowed in. But when I went through, the customs officers had no idea I was pregnant," said Daisy.
Daisy delivered her first child, a boy, in Beijing and the total cost was only 2,000 yuan. However, she said the process was difficult because she sometimes had to spend an entire day lined up for an examination in crowded hospitals.
"The attitudes of doctors in Hong Kong and Beijing are certainly different," she said.
In Beijing doctors were impatient and did not explain the examination procedure, said Daisy.
The doctors in Hong Kong, in contrast, took the time to answer all her question and were extremely polite, she added.
Daisy said she has consulted several agencies about potential problems she might face bringing the baby back to Beijing but they assured her the baby can grow up in Beijing as a Hong Kong resident with few difficulties. The only things she needs to worry about are going back to Hong Kong every three years to update the child's home return permit and having to pay higher nonresident fees to send the child to school in Beijing.
But, since both Daisy and her husband are not resident Beijingers, despite living and working in the city, they pay extra fees to send their children to school no matter where the kids are born.
However, Daisy is considering not bringing her baby back and moving her family to Hong Kong.
"I want to raise my kids in Hong Kong for the free education, which, compared with that in the mainland, is more connected to the international educational system," Daisy said.
Also as a Hong Kong resident, her second child will get Hong Kong social welfare and a subsidy to go to public kindergarten.
