Ren Yipeng has a busy schedule for a five-year-old. 'Yipeng brings back lots of homework from kindergarten, so it is usually around 11 o'clock when he goes to bed,' says his father, Ren Xingzhi.
But since the boy must be up by 7am to get ready for school, Ren says, 'I put on his clothes for him before waking him so he can get a bit more sleep.'
This year, Yipeng is expected to learn 15 new Chinese characters each day as well as the Roman alphabet, and add and subtract numbers from one to 100. His homework typically runs to four A4 pages every day, so after returning home at 4pm, he is allowed two hours of playtime. After dinner, he dives into homework.
His father, a 36-year-old construction site manager, wishes his son could finish his lessons sooner but realises it's too much to ask.
'Yipeng always wants his homework to look perfect. So whenever he is not satisfied with his handwriting, he erases it and does it again,' he says. 'When he sets a high standard for himself, it's hard for me to push him to write faster.'
Parents across the mainland are eager, if not anxious, to give their children a head start in education. And many private kindergartens, including some that operate underground, respond to this demand by cramming their classes with advanced material meant for older children.