The Melting Pot

This book so far is about a Chinese boy named Edward Low, his father owns a store in George st paramatta, Australia. Edward sometimes helps his dad in the shop e.g the first day of school he didn't go because he was helping his dad. sweep the floor, straightened newspaper collections and other stuff. Some of my wonderings were further in when there father told them each child had to go to china for 3 years to learn the way, my wondering was why did he have to learn the chinese way?.