"Finally, #### (name withheld) got two offers out of 7 US schools he applied: Hotchkiss in CT, New England and Georgetown Prep near Washington DC. H is a typical rural prep school among the top 8 or 10 schools according to rankings. GP is a catholic Jesuit boy's school and is one of the oldest schools in US (I think it was established even before the birth of US itself).

Very hard decision for #### and us all, but most of our friends recommended the co-ed Hotchkiss. Anyway, we have a few more days to make a decision. What's amazing is the number of applicants from China, thousands of them all over the country. This scared Hong Kong parents a lot as these schools cannot increase intake just because of more interest from mainland China. Some schools just shift their usual quota from HK to China, so it is becoming incredibly competitive for everyone.

I took #### to Hotchkiss last summer, in the 3-states bordering area (NY, CT and MA). Simply said, it is beautiful. It's really like Yorkshire moor or Lake District in England.

I think we have done enough. Nothing is free of risks and we have to trust the systems and the boy himself in the coming years.....staying back in Shanghai has its own problems, not least the scare of exposure to the radiation from across Japan or nearby (we are building dozens of nuclear plants mostly in the east coast)! You might have heard that every store in Shanghai yesterday ran out of salts. You will laugh at the reasons: people think they are (1) radiation-protective; and (2) radiation-free as all the future salts from the Pacific are contaminated. We are not panicked but it so happened that we are running out of salt and cooking oil today. Not sure if we can re-stock over the weekend. This is the power of rumour and panicking: we may not get killed by radiation but by lack of daily necessities such as salt.........

Perhaps there is a lesson for all of the urbanisation going around in China and elsewhere: we are so much dependent on the distribution systems, petrol, electricity etc that large city population can't survive beyond a few days if a really bad disruption has occurred. Country life in Cornwall or Scotland sounds so much more enticing......

David Fuller's view Well done ####! Please congratulate him for me. I know Hotchkiss and it is a very fine school in a beautiful part of Connecticut. I hear some of these schools are replicating themselves in China but how much more adventurous to attend in a western country. I think only good can come from these programmes in terms of future understanding, tolerance and cooperation.

I had not heard the salt story but can understand the concern over radiation. However remote the risk the fear is visceral even though vastly more people have been made seriously ill by fumes from coal-burning fires and power stations than radiation.

The pastoral pleasures of country life aside, I would rather take my chances with the distribution system in an urban environment.