Parachute kids: (I had no clue what this term means until I read the following)
(PAIR.uh.shoot kidz) n. Children sent to a new country to live alone or with a caregiver while their parents remain in their home country. Also: parachute children.
http://www.wordspy.com/words/parachutekids.asp
Earliest Citation:
Craig, a high school senior, lives a fantasy most teen-agers only dream. He and his sister Zoe, 14, live in a sprawling San Marino ranch house, their one chaperon an elderly servant who speaks no English...Craig and Zoe are examples of a phenomenon so familiar in the Taiwanese community that there is a nickname for it: "parachute kids" — dropped off to live in the United States while their wealthy parents remain in Asia.
The parents, mostly from Taiwan, want their children in more open, less cutthroat U.S. school systems, in which the chances of getting into college are much greater.
Parents may place their children with distant relatives or paid caretakers, or simply buy a house for them and have them stay alone. Under these scenarios, the youngsters often live much as adults would, deciding when to go to sleep or attend school and whether dinner will consist of leafy greens or potato chips.
A 1990 UCLA study, using numbers from visa applications, estimated that there are 40,000 Taiwanese parachute kids ages 8 to 18 in the United States; smaller numbers come from Hong Kong and South Korea.
—Denise Hamilton, "A house, cash — and no parents," Los Angeles Times, June 24, 1993 |
住戶編號:2445037
檢舉原因
心情: 
