More and more high-school-age children in Taiwan are being sent overseas to study these days, nominally as tourists. The most popular destination is the United States, but Australia, Canada, Singapore and Belize, an English-speaking country in Central America, are up-and-coming new Picks. Vancouver, a large city on the west coast of Canada, with its beautiful scenery, mild climate and better social services and law and order than in most of the U.S., is a favorite with parents.

"Adding up the figures for each of the schools, there are already over a thousand pre-college students here from Taiwan," says Chu Yow-lin, president of the Chinese Youth Association, which is aimed at just that group. With their sizeable population concentrated in the chic west side, the Chinese students of Vancouver make up a little community of their own.

Little Kids with Lots of Clout: Although small in years--their average age is just 15--the students boast some rather large connections.

"You've probably of our families before, if I named them," smiles Liu Mu-chen, daughter of the owner of Half Acre Garden, a widely known Peking dim-sum restaurant in Taipei. She reveals that the future heirs of Chu Chi, Hsin Tung Yang, Mentor Hair Stylists and several well-known Taipei construction companies are all in Vancouver. The children of many owners of small and medium-sized businesses, land owners, top-level executives and entertainers are here also.

"They have the most affluent backgrounds of any group of Chinese students that has ever studied abroad," sighs David Wang, a reporter for the Chinese-language World Journal stationed in Vancouver. Chinese students who studied abroad in the old days never had it so good; scraping together the fare to go was hard enough. "But they aren't as mature as college students, and they run up against a lot of problems that their parents can't solve with money." He thinks they're both the most fortunate and the most unfortunate group at the same time.

Disillusionment Is the Start of Growing Up: Behind the Pampered life of luxury lies a darker side.

"When the travel agency notified us that we'd been accepted by the 'Royal Canadian College,' I was really proud. I even bragged about it at school. It wasn't until we got here that I found out it was just a language training school. I was too embarrassed to answer my classmates'letters," says Kung Hsi, who passed up 11th grade at the Taipei First Girls' High School evening class division to come to Vancouver to study with her younger brother. Chu Yow-lin's experience was even more embarrassing. Thinking he was entering an elite school for the aristocracy, he dressed up in a suit and tie for the first day of class. Much to his surprise, when he got there he found all his classmates were speaking Taiwanese. These smart alecks even made fun of him for dressing like a country bumpkin from the mainland.

"Well, disillusionment is the beginning of growing up," Liu Mu-chen says with a poker face and then laughs insouciantly.

In fact, through the arrangements of travel agencies, almost all the students enter private language schools or high schools.

"You see, the tradition in Canada is that colleges offer high school courses and issue diplomas, not college degrees," says T.Leon, headmaster of the Royal Canadian College.

Hampered by their limited English, students from Taiwan usually drop back several grades. Girls can take their time because they don't have to worry about military service and can go home to see their families during vacation. But for the boys, who make up the majority, it's tougher. Some of them have been here for three or four years and are almost 20 but are still in the 10th grade. Frustrated, if they don't wind up drag racing or killing time playing video games, then they're up to all hours of the night at karaoke joints. Before the crowd breaks up, these children with no families to go home to often sing the "Hymn to the Republic of China" together or the song "I'm a Chinese."

Packing the Kids Off First: If their parents had known it would be like that, would they have sent them there in the first place?

"Daddy says Taipei is such a mixed bag he used to worry whenever I left the house," Liu Mu-chen shrugs. "He thinks Vancouver is simple and unspoiled, and I can learn more English, so he sent me here!"

Sometimes the Parents are planning to immigrate to Canada themselves and simply send the children there first to adjust.

According to Cap Fu, vice president of operations of the Summit West Group, the Canadian consulate in Hong Kong is now the country's largest overseas government office, with more than 20 employees. Even so, that's not enough to handle the 50,000 or 60,000 immigration applications it receives each year, including those from Taiwan.

"My parents are only immigrating here for us anyway. My mother is practically deaf and dumb when it comes to English," Robert Tao, a big, strong 18-year-old at the Vancouver Formosa Academy, says sympathetically. "They had to face the rest of the family. When my grades weren't good, they lost face. It sounded a lot better to be sent off to study abroad."

Not having to deal with the joint college entrance exams is the main reason children are willing to go along. That's why Kung Hsi and her brother gave up a life of being waited on by maids and servants in exchange for having to "call home quick for help whenever we have to cook."

There's another common phenomenon in this little community: brother-and-sister pairs. Many 18- or 19-year-old sisters live together with a brother a few years younger.

"My brother would never have gotten into college in Taipei, so my parents wanted me to come along and help look after him," Yeh Pi-chien, who sports short hair and a pair of large earrings, says with a tone of resignation. "But I'm just a year older than he is. I can't order him around, and I can't tell our parents too much--it's a real hassle."

There are examples of things turning out well for these students--Kung Hsi, for instance, lives next door to a retired professor from the University of British Columbia, who looks after her quite a bit. He found out she had a talent for singing and teaches her voice lessons each week for free. But generally speaking, the students' plight is not encouraging.

Two Steamed Buns: According to regulations of the Employment and Immigration Canada, children under the age of 20 may not live by themselves. If their parents own a house in Vancouver, things aren't so bad, but if they live with so-called "host families," you often hear stories of their "not getting enough to eat."

As far as he knows, Chu Yow-lin says, many host families cram two students in a room and don't even let them open the refrigerator door, even though they bring in on or 700 Canadian dollars a month each. Usually all they get to eat are sandwiches. "One little boy was wolfing down his food at a get-together we had once. When I asked him why, he said he had only had two steamed buns to eat all day. 'Actually I could have eaten ten,' he told me, feeling very ill treated. They're still growing!" Chu says indignantly.

Compared with whom they make friends with, the problems of food and shelter are minimal.

"Children their age are loaded with energy and are starting to take an interest in the opposite sex. If their parents aren't with them, there aren't any restraints on their behavior, and it's easy for problems to come up," points out Chien Hsu-pang, secretary for overseas Chinese affairs in Canada, stationed there by the Overseas Chinese Affairs Commission.

If you seek for confirmation among the students themselves, they freely admit they almost all have a friend of the opposite sex. "But don't tell our Parents!" they say, adding a big but.

Where there's smoke there's fire. A while back, it's said, one student's mother rushed in from Taipei to take back her 15-year-old daughter, who was already living with a boyfriend. "If I hadn't handled it right away, I'd be a grandmother by now!"

Tighter Gateways to College than Taiwan's: All their hardships and difficulties notwithstanding, the biggest goal of students in studying abroad--getting into college--remains a distant dream for many.

According to the British Columbia Department of Education, foreign students graduating from high schools in Canada still have to pass the provincial exams and the TOEFL test to be accepted to a college or university.

"Some language schools claim to offer 10th-, 11th- and 12th-grade curriculums, but the diplomas the students work so hard for actually don't even qualify them for the provincial exams," says Cap Fu, indicating where the crux of the Problem lies: Their programs aren't recognized by the department.

Even if the students manage to switch to a public high school, they have another difficult hurdle to get by: There are only two colleges and universities in all of British Columbia. The University of British Columbia doesn't accept foreign students as undergraduates at all unless they've obtained an immigration visa, and Simon Fraser University has a quota for foreign students of just 4.5 percent. "Colleges that do accept foreign students usually require TOEFL scores of over 600, which is even higher than graduate schools," Chu says.

Because of market demand, an immigrant couple from Hong Kong opened last September what they call Vancouver's first private college--Lincoln University. According to Queenie Tin, she and her husband went through "special channels" to cooperate with New York State University, which set up the curriculum. Once students have finished their four years, they can go to the United States to receive a degree, provided they pass the public examinations at the University of British Columbia. The center has only two departments at present, in computers and business management. Even though no one has ever graduated and obtained a degree, so it's impossible to know if the system really works, the center has already accepted nearly 90 students from Taiwan.

Since there aren't that many colleges in Canada, why not study in the U.S.?

"Visas are hard to come by," says Amy Hung, who is currently studying at the Lincoln College Center. Quite a few people who come to Vancouver and find out things aren't quite right try to switch to the U.S., but they usually wind up coming right back. "Sneaking in the back door won't work."

Spending Money Without Getting Yelled At: As a rule, things are a lot easier for students if their parents have applied for citizenship. As Canadian citizens, the students not only have more chance of being accepted to college in Canada, but they also enjoy priority in being accepted to college in Taiwan as an overseas Chinese, if they've lived overseas for more than five years. It's a sore point with many people in Taiwan -- the students avoid doing their military service and enjoy special privileges on top of it.

The problem is, many parents apply through immigration consulting agencies. All they hear is they have to pay such-and-such fee and fork over so much cash. In two or three years, they may have spent nearly a million NT dollars and not even received an application number. The parents can't immigrate, and the children can't come home. That's when the generation gap isn't just as wide as the Taiwan Strait any more--it's more like the Pacific.

"We don't have any goals. We just take it one day at a time,". Secot Hsu is very young, but he talks like he's been through a lot. "I used to blame my parents, but now I'm tired of arguing now."

"Actually, you can see our parents must have guilt feelings," Robert Tao says. "Some of the things you'd get yelled at for doing in Taiwan you can get away with here--like money, for instance."

To make amends, parents provide their children with all the financial support they can, but that only creates bigger side effects.

"Some parents buy their kids a big house or a sports car when they don't even have a driver's license, and they wind up getting in big trouble," David Wang says. Tossing money around like that has raised eyebrows among some of the locals.

Michael Ko says some of his schoolmates borrow money from him and purposely never pay it back. And some of the other students say they've been taunted as "oranges."

"If the parents haven't managed to immigrate, the children over here become marginal people, without roots on either side," says Wang, director of the Far East Trade Service, Inc. Branch Office in Vancouver.

In view of the students' difficulties, many well-meaning people are doing their best to help them.

A Handle for the Chinese Community: Chang Wen-chung, director of the North American Affairs Council's Seattle office, for instance, often contacts the Ministry of Foreign Affairs about their military service problems.

Some grown-up "overseas students," who have fulfilled their military obligations or finished junior college in Taiwan, have organized a club for them called the Chinese Youth Association. Besides holding lots of outdoor activities to let them work off steam so they can fall asleep as soon as their head touches the pillow when they get home, the older members help the students with their homework or find doctors or lawyers for them in case of emergencies.

"These kids don't know anything about insurance. I ran across a student who was sick once. He had 20 or 30 bottles of medicine he had brought with him from home set out in front of him, and he asked me which ones to take," Chu says, torn between tears and laughter.

Chien Hsu-pang, who worked behind the scenes to get the club going, says there was a deeper motive in setting it up. "These kids are young and have lots of money. We were afraid gangs or undesirable types might go after them or to lead them astray." With a club where everyone can look after each other, there won't be so much of chance for them to be taken advantage of. And if a problem does come up, the community will have a handle for dealing with it.

David Wang believes the children are better off with the club than without it, but there are still many problems that can't be solved without the presence and concern of the parents or of the government revising its military service policy.

Where Are They Running To?: Another club outing is fishing for crabs at White Rock Beach near the U.S.-Canadian border.

After lowering the traps and waiting for the crabs to be lured in, the students all get together and play guess fingers. It's a simple game, but as old as they are they still have a great time. The losers have to run off to White Rock Bridge, far away on the horizon. Their lives are all before them.

Let's go! Everyone starts running. But who knows where they're off to?

(Editor's Note: The students' names have been changed to protect their privacy.)

[Picture Caption]

Beneath the "punk" exterior may lie a lonely heart. These high school students from Taiwan studying in Canada were photographed at White Stone Bridge.

(Right) A new kind of resident has moved in to Vancouver's classy west s ide--high school student from Taiwan.

Bowling is a popular recreational activity with many students.

(Left) Lincoln University Centre is located in a shopping mall, and students' fancy cars can often be seen on the parking lot.

The rec room in one student's home not only has a pool table and body-building equipment but also a Jacuzzi big enough for several people.

The University of British Columbia is the academic institution most sought after by Taiwan students in Vancouver.

Sisters who go overseas to Study with their younger brothers often double as mothers.

(Left) The city's Chinatown district is a major spot for students looking for the kind of food they like.

（Right） A new kind of resident has moved in to Vancouver's classy west s ide--high school student from Taiwan.

（Left） Lincoln University Centre is located in a shopping mall, and students' fancy cars can often be seen on the parking lot.

Bowling is a popular recreational activity with many students.

The rec room in one student's home not only has a pool table and body-building equipment but also a Jacuzzi big enough for several people.

The University of British Columbia is the academic institution most sought after by Taiwan students in Vancouver.

（Left） The city's Chinatown district is a major spot for students looking for the kind of food they like.

Sisters who go overseas to Study with their younger brothers often double as mothers.