Belonging

Over the last ten years, when I have been out in Changping with one or both of my kids in the late afternoon, I often get asked a question that is preceded by the stranger looking my kids' clothing up down and around. 

"Where do they go to school?"

This is occasionally followed up with some comment on their changing clothes so quickly or wondering what they are allowed to wear at their school.

It didn't take long for me to figure out they were looking for the school uniform. Public schools and many private schools in China have a dress code. Usually these look like track suits (this link is also the sounce of the image below). The uniforms' colour schemes and geometric patterns vary by school. Our apartment complex, for instance, is across the street from Changping No. 2 High School (北京市昌平区第二中学), so there are a lot of students among our neighbours who sport the blue and white sweatshirts morning and night. There are a few others as well, but mostly No. 2.

Sometimes I would think that people were less interested in whether my children were getting a proper education and more about how our foreign family could fit into the neighbourhood. I wondered if they were trying to determine by school clothing our social standing. Did we live in the right apartment building, did we have the right connections, had we spent every last 五角 on tutoring and cram classes for our children to get into school, and the right school at that? Had we taken the necessary steps to belong, or were still outsiders? 

So when Myles was finally accepted to a high school, I couldn't wait to see what the uniform would be like. I could see so many benefits to the school uniform, and not just the simplified laundry and weekday wardrobe choices. School-issued clothing signified academic acceptance, of course, but also a degree of social acceptance as well. My son would be able to walk around Changping looking like someone who belonged somewhere. Who belonged here.

But I am getting ahead of myself. In my posts relating this whole investigation and admissions process, Myles hasn't even applied to the high school yet. Of course, I have already revealed where he is enrolled this fall, and it is not a high school. But for a time in August, I was looking forward to the idea of Myles joining the track-suited masses around town.