Headline February 22, 2017/ ''' CHINESE -*STUDENTS IN*- AMERICA '''

''' CHINESE -

*STUDENTS IN*- AMERICA '''

CHINESE STUDENTS TEND to be far wealthier than  their  American counterparts, particularly in public high schools.

Even among the middle-class students at Oxford, the Chinese kids stirred up envy, and some resentment, by flaunting a multiple versions of just released  iPhones   [Student Korbin had only one].

So, Student Korbin immersed himself Americana: football games, big-box stores, even a christian megachurch with its own rock-band. He was hardly alone in the  American adventure.

*MICHIGAN has become a particular popular destination for Chinese public-high school students in the United States, and more than a dozen kids from Shenyang lived nearby*.

Even at Oxford, where Korbin and 23  other students ended up because their academic program in China and its agent, the BBC International Education Group, had partnered with the school, there were  19 more Chinese kids/students  brought in by a Beijing-based company Weiming Education Group

The two crowds didn't mix much, in part because most of the Weiming students lived in a dormitory at Rochester College,  a liberal arts Christian school, half an hour away. Korbin felt lucky with his American home stay.

Korbin's Chinese housemate, Oscar Kou, who liked to talk about his father's fleet of luxury cars, spent several thousand dollars on a laptop so powerful that blew out the fuses in their host's family's house.

Making American friends wasn't as easy or as simple as Korbin had imagined. In the hallways at Oxford High School, whose student body numbers 1,845 the Chinese kids clustered together, chattering in Mandarin.

Korbin longed to interact with his American classmates, but every time he tried, the conversations fizzled when he couldn't understand their cultural references or slang. Still, Korbin made no secret of his mission.

''I'm a Chinese boy,'' he told his classes,''but I really, really want to make American friends. It's the most important thing to me.''

Perhaps his best chance came at the homecoming dance. As he walked across the floor under the lights of a disco ball, Korbin worked up his nerve and asked a girl to dance. 

She just laughed. Another girl, another rejection. Finally, the third entreaty succeeded.  -just as a slow song started up and the dancers turned into a tangle of embracing couples.

Korbin's feet stopped and his arms locked at his sides: ''I totally froze,'' he says. The girl drifted off to rejoin her friends, leaving Korbin alone, wondering if a  *Chinese boy could ever find his footing in America*.

So the great story continues: If your initial encounter with William Skilling took place in the Beijing Capital International Airport, as mine did, it would be easy to take the man in crisp Khakis and a button down for a missionary.

As superintendent of Oxford Community Schools,  Skilling did see himself as a sort of evangelist for global education. On this trip to China, his 19th, he was reviewing plans for Weiming to build a multimillion-dollar dorm on land bordering  Oxford High School.

For Skilling, the dorm project was the culmination of years of networking with Chinese officials, educators and businessmen. 

His first foray into the China market came in 2008, when with the Chinese government's help he started what would become one of the largest Mandarin-language programs in American schools.

Today more than  2,300  students in Oxford schools, K through 12, take daily classes in Chinese. The Mandarin classes were also part of a local government plan to lure Chinese investment  to southeastern Michigan.

The Chinese government lauded Oxford's program, and Skilling parlayed that recognition into sister-school arrangements with 20 Chinese schools.

One major deal was struck with Korbin's public school in Senyang, which opened an international school for Chinese students aiming to go to an American high school with a famous name.

With that deal, Skilling had lined up his first supply of Chinese students for Oxford. He also devised a way around the United States regulations that restricted international students to just one year in public high schools, by having a local college sponsor the second year.

The second year was important: Chinese families want their children to have enough time to prepare for the American college process.

Soon, Oxford was attracting Chinese companies with even bigger ambitions. In a trip to Michigan in late 2012, Weiming's president, Lin Hao, laid out a vision in which  10,000  Chinese students would enroll in high schools in the United States.

If the number of Chinese students reached a certain threshold from 80 to 100 students, Weiming promised   to build a multimillion-dollar student center and dormitory, at no cost to the school. And just about then.....

*Korbin The Patriot is Born*

Korbin's campaign for American friends succeeded at one point, but the group of jocks and slackers that adopted him wanted him to them in hazing other kids, including the few African-Americans at the school. 

''I tried so hard to make American friends, but I lost all of my own Chinese style and character,'' he narrates.

Stung by the experience, Korbin buried himself in his studies  -and emerged as a patriot. In September 2015, he posted a picture on social media of the  Chinese flag  with the words  ''Great China!''. 

At school he nearly came to blows with a student who was badmouthing the Chinese ''dictatorship''.

Korbin and Oscar left their host family and moved with four other Chinese students under the care of a local grandmother.

His interactions with American students dwindled anyway, because everyone in his  college-level-classes the requirement to maintain his visa during his second year  -was Chinese.

Still, Korbin remembers his senior year fondly. His grade point average rose to near the top of his class   -a 3.96  -and his standardized-test scores climbed just in time for his college applications.

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