It’s been a hectic year for many people, but especially for Swifties. “Swifties” is a sweet nomenclature for the fans of Taylor Swift, an American singer and songwriter. But you already knew that…

At age 33, Taylor reached billionaire status, broke a Grammy record, and received a musical doctorate degree from New York University. Taylor’s road to commercial and critical acclaim is aspirational. She began composing songs on her guitar at 12 years old and moved from Pennsylvania to Nashville to pursue country music. Her fifth album, 1989, signified a career change to pop music.

During COVID-19, Taylor explored even more genres, from indie folk to lofi productions in albums like Folklore and Evermore. Her newest album will be released in April; it will be called The Tortured Poets Department. Taylor is currently traveling internationally for the Eras Tour, which is a series of three-hour-long stadium concerts that take fans through all her albums, each one having its own distinct fashion, storytelling, and sonic styles, called “eras.”

Beijing City International School has an impressive collection of Swifties, one of which is my friend Margret in Grade 7. Margret and I bonded over our love of music and student-initiated projects. She is practically my little sister, much like how Taylor herself cultivated a sense of sisterhood among her friends and fans. We started a Taylor Swift club involving students from G7 to G12 and will hopefully connect with global Swifties. If the Eras Tour can raise the GDP of an entire country, then we can build communities around shared admiration for our idol’s music journey.

Taylor’s greatest talent is lyricism. Her lyrics are poetic, metaphorical, and full of rich imagery. Both her confessional and fictional songs craft intimate worlds listeners relate to personally. Taylor Swift is magic and brings together people from different generations with her music. Whether you’re a Millenial, Gen Z, or Gen Alpha, there’s something relatable in her music for everyone.

She is a communicator, storyteller, and writer. So, our club decodes and analyzes her lyrics, which explore accessible themes like love, human relationships, and personal growth, but which also glisten with hidden artistic depths. Taylor also drops “Easter eggs” in her songs and music videos, which are clues to her music, business, and personal life ventures. This clever marketing strategy ensures the fanbase’s intrigue, loyalty, and long-term engagement. Our club cracks open these Easter eggs and dive deep into the rabbit hole of Taylor-mania. We’re all mad here; it’s fine.

If you watched Taylor’s documentary Miss Americana in 2020, you’ll know Taylor has lived an extraordinary life. In her own words, she is “imaginative, smart, and hardworking,” and an ideal role model for young women. She is both a sensitive artist and a strategic businesswoman with ambition to burn. Several hardships graced her childhood and career, but she took accountability, re-invented herself, and continued making art. Her strong moral compass and resilient attitude provide an interesting case study for success in the music industry and really, life. So, our club deconstructs Taylor’s life, from business decisions to personal lessons – her sleepless nights, wasted tears, lost love and friendships, rising from the dead, greatest achievements, and greatest mistakes. We can all learn a few tricks from Tay Tay’s “Anti-Hero” playbook.

Finally, Taylor is a generous philanthropist. She frequently donates to charities and uses her music for charitable causes, from writing the song “Ronan” to raise awareness for child cancer to improving American public school education. She also funded a fan’s college experience in gratitude for her support. To honor her legacy, our club also raises money for charities close to our hearts such as Help a Child Smile, Roots and Shoots, and Migrant Children’s Foundation. We do so by selling handcrafts and snacks related to Taylor Swift’s self-branding. Taylor’s public persona has remained humble and down-to-earth despite reaching astronomical fame over the years. Her brilliant marketing skills tell the fascinating, adventurous story of a complex protagonist. She is both a role model and a main character, and our club aims to reflect her intelligence and creativity.

If you want to join, check out our poster and scan the QR code.

Images: Helen Wang

Study in Beijing or venture aboard? Boarding school or day school? IB or AP? Preppy or sporty? 

Families in Beijing are overwhelmed with a surfeit of high school options. Firstly, there is an air of prestige and merit around college preparatory schools in the US. Think of the halls lined with ivy, the small classes in big libraries, how romantic! However, studying abroad is challenging too. Many rumor that it can turn teenagers wild or break them down.  

Here are three students from Beijing City International School who are now in the US, with the right experiences to debunk the right myths.  

Green Guo moved to Deerfield Academy as a freshman. Deerfield is one of the oldest boarding schools in the US, founded in 1979 within Massachusetts. It is also a member of the Eight Schools Association, the Ten Schools Admissions organizations, and the Six Schools League. 

Green chose to study abroad for a diverse social environment. At an American private school like Deerfield, she could “perceive new perspectives while sharing her own”. There are many “mind-opening interactions” which she “never even thought was possible” within her hometown. 

Such things also had a cost. Deerfield has a rather low Asian population, making it difficult for Green to “embrace her Chinese identity”. She felt the social pressure to “talk and dress in a specific way”. Without her perfectionist parents, she found herself at odds with finding who she truly is. 

Balancing rigorous academics, extracurricular activities, and social life was draining, too. Outsiders marvel at the vivid school life dictated all by a teenage girl herself, but few understand the enormous responsibility it needs. Green felt she lacked critical self-growth . She felt all these conflicted feelings in her bones, as if she “had a taste of real life”. 

Secret tip: Reach out for help. Although it is easier said than done, Green encourages students to “keep an open mind and talk to people”, because it is unhealthy to wallow in negative emotions. Boarding school is tough without the pampering and warmth from parents at home, but resilience is key. 

Bella Shao moved to the Spence School in New York City in tenth grade but studied ninth grade there again to ease the academic transitions. The Spence school is an all-girls day school located in Manhattan, ranked fourth among the best private schools in New York. 

Bella’s parents immigrated to the U.S. for their daughter’s education, but the family’s cultural transition was arduous. The adults had language barriers, and Bella felt alienated as a Chinese introvert among American extraverts. Squeezing into the Upper East Side high society was “particularly difficult during the first year”. 

Secret tip: Have self-confidence and don’t overthink! If there was one thing Bella wish she could tell her past self, it would be to “let it all happen naturally”. She was insecure at first because “most students had studied here since kindergarten”, but later she was elected to the school’s student council and “found her concerns unnecessary”. 

Elena attends The College Preparatory School, an elite day school in Piedmont, California. Surprisingly, Elena encountered no academic challenges, and no social obstacles either. Like the Upper East Side, Piedmont is a tight knit community where everyone knows everyone, but Elena found neighbors she “trusted and loved from the bottom of her heart”. Her Chinese lifestyle turned 180 degrees, but she is “happy with the way things are right now”. Elena made new friends, explored romantic relationships, and learnt the tricks of independence. However, she does regret leaving behind her old friends in Beijing. She wishes for a place to preserve the old in her new life . 

Secret tip:“Trust me, having your mom here is great!” An important reason why Elena adapted so well to her new environment is because of her mother. Socially, the mother and daughter are like best friends. They attend the Ladies Luncheons together as sisters. Privately, her mother guides her through the difficult times. Elena always had a home to return to because home is where the heart is.

Images: Courtesy of students

This article appeared in the jingkids 2022 Teen Takeover issue

If there is one thing families in Beijing never cease to talk about, it is choosing the right universities and colleges for students. 

In the SAT prep classes, the parent rendezvous, and the graduation ceremonies, you can hear two polarizing views on higher education. Some think “big name” universities are the only means to gain an advantage in any career. Others find it useless beyond their first job after graduation. Once a student becomes a worker, no employer gives university titles a second glance. 

Nevertheless, both views have one thing in common: The university experience itself is important. It can be life-changing, bland, miserable, or magical. The question really is, how should students choose universities? 

Five high schoolers share their own university selection experience: From the midnight essays, the draining extracurriculars, the coffee-scented interviews… they have been through it all. 

Helena Zhao is a recent graduate from the Dulwich International School Beijing (DCB). Despite her Canadian nationality, she applied to universities in the UK and US. Eventually, England won over her heart. Her two dream schools, Oxford and University College London (UCL) are in London (obviously), a city Helena described to be a “melting pop of cultures and opportunities” with everything “at your fingertips”.  

Oxford and UCL have a traditional focus on liberal arts, which flatters Helena’s major of interest: philosophy. They also offer “tutorials”, which is a small circle of students led by a tutor to build individualized education. Moreover, Oxford has a “collegiate system” that locates students into smaller colleges, so they can connect easily with other likeminded classmates. Such luxuries are expected from one of the top tier institutions in the world, but ranking was not why Helena chose her schools. It was because she could “picture” herself “studying there for the next three years”. 

Pro Tip: Research, research, and research! Helena urges everyone to attend virtual college fairs, tours, and panels. This way. students can follow their own “mind, heart, and soul”. The worst thing is succumbing to peer, parental, or societal pressure. Applicants are choosing their own lives, and therefore they know best.

Qinglan Du, a recent graduate from Beijing City International School (BCIS) is also headed to England. At four years old she had loved Cambridge because of its beautiful autumn leaves. Now at 18, she still loves Cambridge, but this time because of its excellent law program. 

According to Qinglan, Cambridge is one of the few schools that offer law as an undergraduate program. If she chose a university in America, she would have to “choose an alternative major similar to law” before studying law in graduate school. 

Pro Tip: Have a “there’s no harm in trying” mindset in applications. Safety schools should be taken seriously because it is important to “prepare for the worst”. Dream schools also need variety and diversity because one can have many dreams! In total, ten to fifteen schools is a good number.

Chris Lu is a junior at Bates College in Maine, Massachusetts. He also graduated from BCIS, with an interest in history, education, and Japanese. These majors did not remind anyone of any career field, so Chris chose to go to a liberal arts college. Unlike most universities, liberal art colleges focus on undergraduate instead of graduate school. This is for curious and clever souls who need more time to decide on a career path. 

Bates College is a member of the New England Small College Athletic Conference, which is the Ivy League equivalent for liberal arts colleges. With a “less than 2,000 population”, the bond between students and professors is close, just like a precious family. This was exactly what Chris wanted, and worked hard to get. 

He began to research since the end of grade 10 and finished TOEFL and SAT in grade 11. That is his first piece of advice: Plan early. Secondly, focus on GPA instead of standardized tests. “GPA is much more important than SATs”, Chris remarked, and this is especially true for IB students. Admission officers “love how difficult DP is, but not how watered-down SATs are”. 

Finally, there is Linda Huang, another recent graduate from BCIS. Many would know her as a recurring Jingkids intern, and now she is setting off to Tufts University in Boston. Linda sees Boston as the perfect balance of urban life and rural quietude. Some of her family and friends already settled there, making it a safe environment for the 18-year-old who’s no longer a child but not yet an adult. 

Linda is also a politics and international relations major. She chose Tufts because of its civic engagement and social justice groups. Students there are “open-minded, globally engaged, and passionate about things beyond personal wellbeing”. Building powerful social connections and meaningful friendships will not be a problem for Linda. 

Pro Tip: Do not rely 100% on agencies. Many Chinese families use “agencies” to apply for colleges, hence the term “manufacturing kids”. Agencies run a highly capitalized market, cashing in on worried parents and ambitious students. They write essays, personal statements, and resumés for anyone who pays, and also help with prep, choosing extracurriculars, subjects, and career consulting.

Images: Courtesy of students, Pexels

This article appeared in the jingkids 2022 Teen Takeover issue

Dear Older Hélène,

I am now halfway to 30, and I never, rarely, sometimes, often, always wonder if you will forget me before you forgive me – for being me. I now hate every crisp laugh, couth chatter, and aching fragment of your lonely, mature mind. Later, my hate will be haggard, and your regret will be fresh.

To live is to regret. To write is to bleed (on paper). To remember is to torture (a scared child). My hellish days and ways are your poetry; My dying naivety is your legacy. My stolen lullabies become your elegy; Your worldliness is my indignity. You remember me like a glass mural. When I grow up, this mural falls from your softest walls, your youngest years shattered. And despite your best efforts, you won’t glue me together again.

Secretly, you will wish I can stay a little longer, to keep the cottage of the adult world warm, to heal the winter weathers of hurt. Preciously, you will wish to bury me in the poetry of your childhood burning in fears, tears, and candles. Then, you will be numb. You will be defined by what I couldn’t change. You will erase every corner of my haunted home and its doors so hard to close I left open. Finally, you will tear down chapters, calendars of my life falling apart and me staring blankly at it, alone, at the helplessness of it all.

This persists and resists me to ask you, will you be innocent enough to read this, stupid enough to miss me? If yes, then don’t ever, ever teach me: Nothing is forever; being cruel is being clever. Don’t ever change me, because my childish dreaminess is a lie. Don’t ever touch my candy cherries, which you no longer eat. They rot in fake niceties, and to rot is to accept reality.

Please do feel young, air-headed, tantrum-ridden. We a final chance to be wild, a child, before writing tragedies older than our age. Before we hate fine china and fresh porcelain but use it anyways. Before you see me in backlogged dreams, deserted dorms, and painfully, reluctantly, miss me when you lose the best you gained, and don’t know what to lose after it.

Please don’t say goodbye to me because I say that to you. Please count the days because I count them for you.

Love,

Hélène

This article appeared in the jingkids 2021 July-August issue

As an international student, how do you answer questions regarding your nationality? Addressing such inquiries, two international students in Beijing offered unique insights into their identity. An additional spin is that their names are quite similar: Helena柯즐 from Dulwich College Beijing (DCB) and Hélène Wang from Beijing City International School (BCIS).

Have you experienced any forms of racism in China?

Helena: During lunch with an intern last week, a Chinese couple moved away from us after muttering the word “English.” My lunch suddenly tasted like sand. After all these years, I thought these judgmental experiences would end. Experiences like this make it seem like speaking English is blasphemous, arousing apprehension, especially as there are numerous videos of violence against Asian Americans online – though, that mainly happens in the US. In China, it’s eye-daggers and avoidance that hurts.

Hélène: Saying I experience racism is stretching, except when I speak English in malls, strangers jerk their heads, roll their eyes, and scrutinize me like a ladybug in a glass jar. It’s understandable since I look Chinese but don’t speak Chinese with my Chinese presenting friends. I am accustomed to strangers’ surprise and sometimes even forget their shock at my English-speaking, Chinese-looking disposition, but my own urge to recoil or flee and the feeling of, “I don’t even know if I am accepted in my hometown” lingers forever.

Were you ever asked to choose one nationality?

Helena: Growing up, I was frequently asked “Where are you really from?” I have a Canadian passport, but I have the word Chinese imprinted on my face. Westerners tell me that I am not fully Canadian as I grew up in China, but Chinese people tell me that I’m not fully Chinese because I have a Canadian passport. So, am I a “fake Canadian” or a “fake Chinese?” Must I be bounded by our nationalities? Do I have to choose?

Society tells me that I must choose, as supposedly only one identity can reside deep down inside. But what is identity? Although leaving me in a quagmire, I, like most international students, am still on the journey of self-exploration. Like the enigmas of color, there lies gray between black and white. I don’t have to only be one thing. I can encompass both. Therefore, to those who ask me to choose a nationality, I will proudly say that I am a Canadian Chinese.

Hélène: My nationality is written on a passport page’s dotted line. I am legally and singularly Chinese. But people still ponder my identity, which grows beyond black ink on a blank page, that I flesh out with non-singularly Chinese things.

My grandparents worked in foreign lands, my parents worked with foreigners, and I attend an international school, speaking English and French. My future university resides an ocean away. My friends scattered around the globe like unshuffled houses of cards. I fill my memory bottle with miscellaneous mistakes made in New York, Toronto, and Tokyo. My identity better fits the label “internationalized Chinese,” because I feel like a world trapped within a person.

How do you choose? How do you feel when choosing?

Helena: My two nationalities are like the forces of yin and yang, pushing against each other, but balancing harmoniously at the same time. I try my best not to conform to societal expectations and abandon either one of my nationalities.

I want everyone to know that it’s okay not to choose. We can be melting pots of cultures, an amalgam of rich histories and cultural traditions. I was once asked if we celebrated Father’s and Mother’s Day in China: I always thought that these festivals are worldwide, not belonging to any specific culture (which they are). Thus, we need to show the world our unique perspectives and identities, that we don’t have to stick any labels on our skins, that we all celebrate international holidays. Reading Gloria Anzaldua’s work on Mestiza consciousness and Borderlands/La Frontera, I realized that like her, I can have multiple identities. According to Anzaldua, there are people who live at the borderlands, meaning the outskirts or in the middle of two different things. Thus, I am both Canadian and Chinese.

Hélène: I feel the question urging me towards, “Where do I belong?”

Not in the East Coast, not at Chinese diners, not in the tongue-tied silence, the languages that won’t belong to me. I am one of those cross-cultured human beings, legitimately educated and internationally fashioned but unable to classify themselves, I don’t know where I belong. I don’t know how to belong.

I used to try fitting in, blending in, like water rolling in rich wine. I could shatter every mirror on my lake, distort every version of myself to match my environment, and I seemed to belong, but it never meant I belonged to anywhere. We all know a friend to all is a friend to none. Similarly, one who belongs to everywhere belongs to nowhere, because to mold is not to belong. It is an illusion to twist between twisted fingers, lacing a little prison to dance around the question, and wait for it… wait for it… because life will answer for me: Where in this fragmentary, passionate world, do I belong?

In the end, who are we really? What are your concluding thoughts?

Helena: Our life is like a narrative, but we are our own writers. We can determine who we are and who we want to be. If you’re unsure of your identity, know that it is okay to feel bewildered. Life is full of enigmas and maybes for us to discover, and this journey won’t be over in the blink of an eye. This is just the beginning.

Hélène: Our story has no ending yet. I have no escape to my own imagination and logic: Where will I go, who I am, and who will I be?

If “home is where the heart lives,” then I have two homes. One is Beijing, the city I was raised in. The other is my city of choice, where I will work, conjecture, and contemplate life. I am like the peanut butter and jam stuck to the bread, for who I am is burning between two layers, intertwined from the neck to spine. The next time you ask, I am the salt and stale sugar, the cynical fur and carmine feather, the forest evergreen and frosted leaves in winter, the blessing and the curse. I am all or nothing. Still, I am me.

This article appeared in the jingkids 2021 July-August issue