Name labels, for school books, bags, water bottles, shoes, pencils - you name it and literally you have to name it!

We go through labels like crazy.  At first I bought from the more internationally popular brands like Stuck on You and BrightStar.  I will say, I love Stuck on You's shoe labels and both Stuck on You and Bright Star's pencil labels.  Stuck on You also does fancy stuff like slap bands and products.  

But, and there is always a but, they are pricey for the amount we need.  The kids get A LOT of books, and they all need to be labelled.  

Also, my kids need bilingual labels - with their Chinese and English names - and some of the international sites cannot do this, others can but with time consuming work arounds.

So I researched some other options more specific to Hong Kong.  

Then I found that UR Photo in Hong Kong does labels, including washable ones - got a whole bunch and they are great.  We use these on books, rulers, water bottles, their chopsticks box, and anything that needs a more durable sticker.

HKIOU wins the award for cheapest, and most ancient website - you have to confirm your order by FAX... needless to say, that didn't happen!  We go to their 'stall behind Sogo' in Causeway Bay, to get small cheap labels for pencils, scissors, glue, lip balm and other small items.  Their iron on labels have mixed reviews, so judge for yourself.  See the map link below for the exact location or use this in Google Maps 銅鑼灣駱克道517號.

My recommendation is to get a 'pack' that comes with shoe stickers, pencil stickers, large, medium, small labels to start and maybe some iron on labels.  Then you can see what you use most and supplement with specific orders of those.  We run out of pencil stickers constantly, so having a huge cheap supply of those is great!

Meanwhile, on a local HK moms forum lots of people posted their ideas so I checked them all out and made this list below for your convenience.  All of these ship internationally for a reasonable price or for free.  

Related Links

UR Photo - Hong Kong - waterproof, well made and can even put photos on some labels - good value for the quality
HK IOU - Hong Kong - cheap and cheerful, great for pencil stickers
Fotomax - Hong Kong - can shop online or at one of their many shops 
ID Me Labels - USA - good 'packages' which include laundry safe stickers for clothing tags
Stuck on You - Global - great quality, good 'packages' and special items too
Bright Star - Australia - great quality, good 'packages' and customer service
TinyMe - Australia - name labels, bags, water bottles, wall stickers, more
Cash's - UK - name labels, iron on labels, travel and woven labels too
Mine4Sure -  France - ID bracelets, allergy labels, and the usual name labels too
Name Bubbles - USA - cute designs and allergy stickers too
Name Labels - Denmark - have large sizes and very cool temporary tattoos
Stamptastic - UK - uses a stamp for paper and clothing not plastic
StickerKid - Switzerland - see review from TrilingualMama here
Woven Labels UK - UK - offer ribbons too
GB Name Labels - UK - luggage straps, cool accessories, special labels for scouts

We love school uniforms!  No stress and worry getting dressed in the morning, and no trends to follow.  My kids love their uniforms and wear them with pride.

Our kids are in uniforms 5 days of the week.  We buy them twice a year through the school, and that's it.  Once a year, I stock up on 'weekend clothing' when I am in the USA, and maybe buy a few smaller things the rest of the year.

Besides the uniforms, the kids must wear certain undergarments.  The school doesn't tell you this, you just are expected to know. Yeah for my smart mommy friends who constantly share such gems with me!

• The boys need to wear white t-shirts or singlets.
  
• The girls need to wear white t-shirts or singlets on top and white cotton 'shorts' over their underwear.
  
• They also need a lot of white socks, or with some school black or gray socks too.
• All black dress shoes, and all white sports shoes.  

We buy basic calf length white socks for both kids at Marks & Spencers - either in HK or online since they deliver to HK for a flat rate of 15 GBP we can do one order every year of things we may need (towels, sheets, some children's activity books, etc...)  I also saw that Tesco online has good white school socks now too and delivers to HK.

For the other items, we go to our local wet market, as pictured above.  This is the only place I have found the long white socks my son likes and the white cotton shorts for under my daughter's skirts.  

And yes, while the uniforms last, the socks do not.  They get holes, lose their elasticity, or just plain get lost!  The socks from the wet market seem to get holes, while the ones we order are very well made, but more cotton, so eventually lose their elasticity.  But the main reason we buy socks a couple times a year - is due to growing feet! 

Other locations to shop in Hong Kong

For undergarments: Bossini, Giordano, Chicks, Jusco, WingOn and other major shops in Hong Kong.

For shoes: Dr Kongs always has acceptable shoes for HK schools, they are well made too. New Balance in Tung Chung sometimes has 100% white sneakers/trainers, local malls in housing estates also have shops with less expensive school shoes.  
Many kindergartens require 'kung fu' white cotton shoes for indoor use, wet markets are your best bet. 
 

Uniforms. We have summer uniforms, summer sports uniforms, winter uniforms, winter sports uniforms. Each uniform has their own optional jackets and their required footwear.

My kids are superstars, they always know which uniform to wear on which day, with which shoes.

Today as we were pulling up to school, I suddenly realized Sassy was (very much accidentally) wearing her pink crocs!! As soon as she saw what I saw, she burst into tears. 

Luckily, my Cantonese class starts at 11am, so I would have just enough time to rush home and get her proper shoes.
 
As usual, the principal and vice principal were greeting students at the front gate of the school. I explained the situation while Sassy was still crying in the car. The principal gently helped Sassy out of the car and held her hand while walking into school. 

I hope my little notes helped Sassy to have a better day.

Update:
When I picked Sassy up, I asked her if she received the notes. She then showed me how she left them in her shoes to keep them with her.  

Pencils. With two kids in primary school, pencils are a quickly disappearing commodity in our house. They need 3-5 sharpened pencils in their pencil case every day.

Natty prefers tic tic pencils, AKA mechanical pencils, while Sassy prefers wooden pencils, but they each use both.

While we love local school, we have no love for local pencils. They always seem to come with broken or crooked leads, splinter upon sharpening and just plain die. So on our annual trip to the USA, I stock up on Ticonderoga pencils, black for Natty and yellow for Sassy (only because they don't make pink).

Sassy loves to use small handheld sharpeners to sharpen her pencils down to one or two inches long before she retires them. Natty rarely uses his, preferring his tic tic. The tic tic pencils here are almost always 0.5 leads, but in the USA they are 0.7 and 0.9. The kids know which pencils take which leads and keep all their leads organized with no help from me. I think the whole mechanical aspect fascinates them, especially Natty.

Another clever USA purchase was a really nice multi-voltage pencil sharpener from Costo, otherwise I would never be able to keep a nice supply of sharpened pencils like in the photo!

Many local kindergartens are part of the 'voucher' scheme which gives HK residents a large discount on kindergarten fees.  With the voucher, half day classes are usually 'free' and full day come in at under 1000 HKD a month.  But it does vary per school.
More details: http://www.edb.gov.hk/en/edu-system/preprimary-kindergarten/preprimary-voucher/index.html

And when you search for a kindy here: http://www.chsc.hk/kindergarten/index_en.html you can easily see which kindergartens are part of the voucher scheme.

The next obvious question, is how to find a local kindy. There is no secret trick, you have to look through the list of kindergartens in your district, look at the descriptions of each school, come up with a shortlist of those that interest you, then start calling/emailing/visiting until you find one that suits you and has space.  

Only *after* doing that step one (making a shortlist), then start talking to other parents in your district and getting their opinions.  Because, at end of the day, it does no good if the parents all direct you to a school that is either full or does not meet your needs or is too far from your house - so having your own shortlist first often helps.  Plus you can always add another school to your list.

It will also make your conversation with other parents go better, as you will already be a bit more aware of the schools and locations and have good questions to ask them, and as a result leave the conversation much more informed.

Kindergartens in Hong Kong offer morning class, afternoon class, whole day class or some combination of the three.  Some are religious, a great many are christian, some are not, many are bilingual, many are Cantonese only.  I would go so far as to say that all offer a loving and caring environment for children.

Just remember, not every kindergarten is for every family.  With all the variety in Hong Kong, you are sure to find one that suits you, in your district.  

Related Links
http://www.topschools.hk/admission-arrangements-for-k1-places-in-kindergartens-for-201516/

NCS.  Non Cantonese Speaking students - this is an important TLA to know.  If your child is already of primary school age and you want/need to go to a local Cantonese medium primary school - you can, but you will have to spend time searching for the appropriate welcoming school that meets your educational philosophy and goals.

There are two basic approaches to this:

1. At a Designated School for Non-Native Speakers
These are special Cantonese medium schools that have a high percentage of non-native Cantonese speakers. You can find a list of these on the gov website pages. 
These schools each have their own methods of getting newcomers up to speed and will accept older primary year students as long as they have the space. Some will put the older kids down a level or two until they catch up, others will provide extra lessons, some will use a combination.
I saw a school like this take a P5 student, who had little English and no Cantonese and get her to a very decent level of spoken fluency in both within 2 years.

2. At regular Cantonese primary schools that use the standard HK curriculum.
Some schools are more welcoming to foreign students than others, some schools have experience with students arriving with no Cantonese and pride themselves in being able to get them up to speed so they can fully integrate with the local level students.
I have seen a school that has about 10% foreign students, some of which arrived with no cantonese, and this school likes to pull them out of certain lessons and give them small group tutorial during Chinese and math to help them, as well as allow them to use the English version of the General Studies book (sometimes along side the Chinese version) and will sometimes offer bilingual test papers/homework - but it varies and is up to how you want to do it too (this or full immersion). They might also provide after school tutorials or other assistance.
I saw a school like this pride themselves in the students they did this with! They gave me four examples, and of those four I met two of the families, super results!

I also want to add, that many (but not all) of the Designated Schools for Non-Native Cantonese Speakers follow an 'adjusted' curriculum that is not as strict or intense as a standard local school, and with the majority of the students being non-native speakers, the playground language is often not Cantonese. Many of these students either go to a similar secondary school or an English medium secondary school. Some would have trouble going on to a Cantonese medium secondary school. 

Other NCS schools have a 'two stream' approach' whereby one stream studies identical curriculum to standard Cantonese medium schools, and the other stream uses more English and has a gentler Cantonese curriculum.

So it really depends on your academic goals and your education philosophy - i.e. gentle bilingual approach or full immersion approach, to get by in Cantonese conversation, or to be able to be fully literate in written Chinese. 

Related Links

You can read more about NCS students and schools from the EDB Website 

In May 2013, the HK Standard newspaper interviewed me and other NCS parents in this article, and school principals in this article.

Three different views on NCS schools in HK:
Caught Between Hong Kong's Two Systems
Tearing Down the Walls of Segregation
Racism in the Classroom

Recent news in HK:
Court Action against Racially Segregated Schools (SCMP, use Chrome, right click link and choose 'Open in Incognito Window)
From July 2013, a change of thought in the EDB's treatment of NCS students.

Photo: Sassy with some of her friends at primary school