Competitive parenting in China: 'School starts at 7.30am and I pick him up at 9.30 in the evening. We usually arrive home around 10pm. Then he studies again'

At three-and-a-half years old, Shanshan's daughter is more than two years away from starting primary school, which begins in China at the age of six. But she has already spent two years at an early education centre in an effort to give her a head start in foreign languages before she goes to school. "She was one-and-a-half and she didn't even speak properly, but I was feeling pressure from my peers and from the internet and social media," Shanshan said. "We sent her to these courses where you basically have a teacher playing with the kids and talking in English….