Because this is Hong Kong, and if you want to get into a good high school, and then a good university later in life, this is what you do here, unless either A) your kid has really high IQ and would skip years or B) you are rich and don't mind just paying your way through international schools.
My kids are not case A), and I'm not rich enough for B).
Schools here ask you "what credentials do you have (other then regular education)?", "have you won any competition?", etc. I'm not even doing that much, compared to other really competitive families.
From the Wikipedia page for the examination required to get into Universities in HK, the number of test takers in 2020 is:
52,687 [0].
This doesn’t include students using international exams to get in, but that seems to be a fraction of this number.
Still very challenging but not 1 billion challenging.
[0]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hong_Kong_Diploma_of_Seconda...
There are 14 universities in Hong Kong of which 4 are well ranked. I would say the chances of getting into a decent university for HKers is actually much easier than for Mainland Chinese students.
There are some traditional families who feel the need to do a lot of extra curricular activities and tuition just so that there kid can go into the three prestigious subjects of law, medicine and finance but that's not all families.
>> Because this is Hong Kong, and if you want to get into a good high school, and then a good university later in life, this is what you do here, unless either A) your kid has really high IQ and would skip years or B) you are rich and don't mind just paying your way through international schools.
Sounds like the plot of GATTACA. Maybe people who don't live there should not hand out advice too easily?
Why do you feel the need to do so many extra-curricular activities related to child education? Can't you take your kids to the park, show them stuff and talk to them about it? One of the cool things that most adults forget about childhood is that everything is new for kids. Even stuff that kids are used to; they have really only scratched the surface of- they haven't had the time or the life experience to deeply understand things, but they also haven't had the life experience to become jaded or cynical. Spending some time around them doing stuff that is not homework, can be fun, or at least interesting.
Do you want to be unfulfilled?
If you truly cannot find joy in anything, then you are likely suffering from depression, and you should go see a doctor. It won't get better by itself.