There is also a lot of pressure on the children who go to these schools. I know children (primary school age) who go to some of these schs and if they get less than 90% on a test they think it's bad!!!! These are six and seven year old children!
Test results and academic performance are everything! There is also a lot of pressure for the children to join as many extra curricular classes, e.g. music lessons et, as possible.
Most children that I know who go to these schools have extra english, maths, drawing, music lessons after school and at weekends.
I have yet to meet (after 15 yrs in HK) non local children who go to these schools.
Sorry if that's not very encouraging and helpful but these schs are very competitive.
All local schs in HK use to teach in English, until the govt. decided children would do better in their native language, so the majority of schools switched to cantonese.
Some schs, e.g. the most prestigious ones, were allowed to continue teaching in English. A lot of people want their children at these schools, hence competition for places is fierce.
You might want to consider-
Shanghai Victoria Academy (they follow the IB prog, and teach mainly in English, although I think Chinese, Chinese History and some Maths are taught in Cantonese)
Delia Memorial School (not sure how good this sch is, but a lot of non local children go here)