Christopher Lay
A Spark, A Pop, A Bang
The same thing happens every Chinese New Year (CNY) holiday: a mass exodus from Beijing. The sky turns blue, traffic reduces to levels otherwise not witnessed since the 2008 Olympics, domestic helpers return to their home provinces, and white collar workers, both foreign and domestic, head for tropical climes. By contrast, during our first winter in Beijing, we remained in the city over the holiday and we enjoyed the experience so much, we have made it a family tradition to stay in Beijing over CNY.
Growing up in Ashland, Oregon, fireworks were officially reserved for one night of the year, Independence Day (the Fourth of July). In Ashland and much of the USA, Independence Day represents a time of backyard barbecues, local parades, warm evenings, and municipal firework displays that seem to draw out most of the town’s residents. For my own family, it represents a time of reunion when my brothers and I gather our families at Mom and Dad’s place to share our successes, console our tragedies, relive our pasts, and argue our differences.
Joy City Chaoyang
As the icy northern winds pummel the city with arctic gales, it’s a good time to consider a day of indoor fun in one of Beijing’s many shopping sanctuaries, such as relatively recent newcomer, Joy City Chaoyang. This 11-story citadel, found on the corner of Chaoyang Beilu and Qingnian Lu, has something for everyone in the family. At Joy City, families can hunt for new clothes, grab a meal, watch a movie on the big screen, get a relaxing massage, ice skate, and play in a play center.
A Sense of Belonging
Since arriving in Beijing over three years ago, our little family has moved three times for a variety of reasons: cost, proximity to work and school, and lack of community spirit. Yet I’m still working on what to call this last reason. Price and proximity were factors that pulled us toward our latest home in Wangjing (Our motto being: we may be on the edge of town, but we’re not in the suburbs). In the end, it was the lack of a sense of community that gave us no compelling reason to remain in the previous two compounds that we lived in.
When Kids Cry
This past summer, while traveling between the sourdough-filled air of San Francisco, California and the coffee-fueled weirdness of Portland, Oregon, Reina came to the realization that she could control (or more like manipulate) the adults around her.
To Ayi Or Not To Ayi?
When we moved to Shenzhen six years ago, we did not even consider hiring an ayi to look after our home. After years of maintaining historical sites and holy places in Haifa, Israel and training staff in museum-standard cleaning, I doubted I could find someone up to the task of caring for my home. Add to that a wife who is an internationally acclaimed gourmet chef and we didn't see any reason to bother with extra help. We could have tried to train someone to clean and cook for us, but neither of us knew how to instill a love of cleaning (something akin to an incurable disease) and a passion for cooking into someone just working for a paycheck. So we happily managed our own humble estate.
United They Stand
On a beautiful Sunday in late March, while the trees were starting to bloom and most sane people were out in the city's parks enjoying the season of renewal, 20 or so high school students - a cross section of Beijing's international schools - crammed themselves into a stuffy, windowless conference room to hammer out the details of the next UNIT-E magazine. Fueled by spent plates of giant waffles and mugs of caffeine-laced beverages, this all-volunteer student crew forsook their free time to ensure that the latest issue reached production and that the precious few 1,000 copies of UNIT-E got to those schools fortunate enough to receive them. Co-founder and editor-in-chief Katherine Tsen, a senior at the International School of Beijing (ISB), explained that they don't have nearly enough copies to meet demand. "At ISB, if I put out 200 copies in the morning, they are gone by the next day. All I can do is send people to the website." Tsen added, "I'm always surprised that people want to read the magazine and use the articles."
Knowing When to Make a Change
In my years as a student, and later as an educator in high schools and universities, I never witnessed the kind of change that Ke Er International Kindergarten has gone through in the past 12 months. In an ideal world, change in a school should be a good thing, such as improved playground equipment or better security. While Ke Er may be able to brag about improving these things last year, that's where the positive changes stop and the decline in quality begins.
Sticker Shock
When a family moves to Beijing for employment reasons, one of the most important questions that must be sorted out is where the kids will attend school. These days, Beijing is flush with options, particularly when it comes to top-notch international schools. However, the international educational scene comes with a high price tag, especially compared to local schools. In an effort to get a grasp of what it actually costs to attend Beijing's international schools, beijingkids sat down with four families and compared costs to understand what the schools are delivering in terms of educational experience and quality.
Naturally, tuition accounted for the lion's share of each family's education costs, but additional expenses for transportation, lunch programs and more accounted for as much as 17.5 percent of education-related costs. Depending on a family's situation, such additional costs could break the bank. Fortunately for our four families, these costs were manageable and were worth the value of their children's education.
Hello and Goodbye
Back in 2008, when I learned we were moving from Shenzhen to Beijing, I was apprehensive at first. We had lived in Shenzhen for three years, but it had taken me nearly two years to really find a circle of like-minded souls that I could comfortably hang out with (mostly slacker artist types). Considering how long it took to find this crowd in Shenzhen, I was concerned that it would take a similar amount of time to network with the artist community in Beijing. Turns out my concerns were unfounded - it took about two weeks.
Don't Fear the Reaper
"I don't want to die, Baba." As these words came out of Reina's mouth one night at bedtime, I could almost hear the gears in my brain shift from neutral to overdrive. Brain to mouth: "Mayday, mayday, we've received no instruction on this topic. Sorry. Brain out." Despite silently praying with intense, albeit brief, fervor that she would simply nod off and forget the subject, Reina followed up with, "I don't want Mama to die either." Then she hurled her face into the pillow and burst into tears. As I sat on the edge of her bed, having an existential moment, I pondered how we got from Curious George to this? More importantly, why didn't she mention me?
