Whether it be romantic or platonic, personal relationships influence who you become. They are the foundations for an individual’s happiness and health, and healthy relationships with friends and family fill our days with liveliness and entertainment. We asked a few expats in Beijing to give us insight on the best relationship advice they have ever gotten.

Billy Jin
General Manager of Grand Mercure Beijing Dongcheng

“Every individual is special therefore we need to respect that and treat each friend differently.”

Mina Yan
Managing Editor at Beijingkids

“One of my favorite pieces of relationship advice comes from my best friend from high school. During my last trip home, we met up for dinner to catch up and while on the topic of our relationships, I spilled the beans on the small things that my husband does that gets on my nerves; one of them being how he always throws his laundry halfway into the basket. After I was done she looked at me like I was crazy and said ‘if that’s your biggest concern in your relationship then you need to chill the f*ck out and get over it. No one is perfect in every way, yourself included, but if they’ve got the qualities that actually matter in a long term partner, then we need to chill out and not sweat the small stuff.’ “

Camilla Kongshavn Jovanovic
Mompreneur

“100% transparency. There are no secrets, no judgments. To be able to be open and honest with each other about everything is liberating.”

Tim Coghlan
Beijingkids Board Member, Global Marketing and PR at Xiaomi Technology

“Marry someone smarter than you. Someone who will help you grow and make you a better person.  All couples, but especially mixed culture couples should sit down and find a third party (counselor type) to help if needed and talk through potential future issues before getting married like; will older parents move in with the family? Will you financially support them? What are your education and child-rearing philosophies? Are grandparents full time careers? Where will you live in five, 10, 20 years, and how will you care for parents if you live in another country? And despite all the advice, there is a lot of sh*t and struggle in relationship to go through, this year has brought the worst of it too”

Patrick Fok
Journalist, Feature Story News

“Don’t go to bed before resolving an argument. But I’m not sure if that was good advice… it’s kept me up late many times!”

Tara Gillan
Director of Early Years at Beijing International Bilingual Academy (BIBA)

“Don’t underestimate the importance of self-love. You are responsible for your own happiness and well-being.”

Alessia Chizzoniti
Founder and Director of Blossom Montessori

As much as I love my friends, I never seek advice about my relationship. I may be wrong, but I think that we do not have the same backgrounds, experiences, feelings etc… and relationships are too delicate for such sharing. Having said that, this is from ‘On Marriage’, a poem by Kahil Gibran and it sums up my point of view:”

“Love one another, but make not a bond of love:
Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.
Fill each other’s cup but drink not from one cup.
Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf.
Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone,
Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.
Give your hearts, but not into each other’s keeping.
For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.
And stand together yet not too near together:
For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow.”

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Photos: Courtesy of parents, Beatriz Pérez Moya on Unsplash

This article appeared in the beijingkids 2020 September issue

When we heard that there was a Texan restaurant that serves large portions and combines down to earth comfort food and good old fashioned fun with the Beijing city view, we just had to put it to the test. Tagging along for their date night, we joined Texan couple Tom and Clare Starobynski for a night of good food, drinks, relationship advice, and bull riding! Yeehaw!

At first glance, you get a mixed vibe walking into Rodeo Connection. On one hand, its location on the 26th floor of Junhao Central Park Plaza means you can enjoy the posh Beijing skyline above all the hustle and bustle. But on the other hand, the centerpiece of the restaurant, which you notice the moment you walk in is the giant mechanical bull standing smack dab in the middle. It’s clearly a restaurant created by people who love to drink and party, for people who love to drink and party.

Seated by the window overlooking the city all the way to Sanlitun, the Starobynskis dished on their 18-year marriage while digging into some BBQ favorites. Starting off the night was Rodeo’s snack selection (RMB 198), whose name doesn’t do it justice. They say everything’s bigger in Texas, well, this is one starter that doesn’t disappoint. The “plate” is essentially a long wooden plank filled with onion rings, spicy chicken wings, fish fillet, shrimp, nachos, potato wedges, a bit of salad, and, according to Tom, the best calamari he’s ever had in China.

Next, the Starobynski’s date night took a fiery turn with a Rodeo Connection classic, the flaming Roasted Pork Ribs (RMB 388), a whole roasted rack of fall-off-the-bone tender pork ribs, topped with mozzarella cheese, and set ablaze at your table with a lashing of Rum151. While the ribs are finger-lickin’ good and ever so cool to photograph, don’t get too close, because nothing will ruin a date night faster than singed eyebrows.

The Starobynskis finish off their date night with a nightcap drink, sort of. The latest addition to the Rodeo Connection menu is known as the Food Safari (RMB 298) and the wild name should have been an indication of what was to come. What arrived at the table was one gigantic glass of rum and Coke garnished with an entire roast chicken, a full-size pulled pork burger, a mini slider, a hot dog, a kebab, onion rings, fried shrimp, and buffalo wings. Is it a drink or is it a meal for two? We’re still not 100% sure. But we are sure that this is definitely one for the food pic album and a very fun addition to the evening.

After 18 years of marriage and four children together, the Starobynskis have a lot of relationship knowledge up their sleeves, and their “how we met” story is like the plot of a Hallmark movie. The two caught each other’s eye at a Christmas party back when they were just 14 years old and decades of friendship, love, marriage, and children later, their relationship is as strong as ever. Their secrets? “Always, always have each others’ backs, never put your partner down to others,” Tom tells us. No matter where you are, whether living in your hometown or venturing across the world and settling in Beijing, your partner is your best companion and you need to tackle life together, as a team.

“Always date your husband or wife,” says Clare. Even after you’ve been married for years. And one of the most true-to-life pieces of advice that every mature relationship should take note of is to “learn to love the things you don’t like about your partner. As long as your partner has the most important quality to you, that is what matters.” You’ll never find a person who’s perfect in every way, who’ll never annoy you, and never ever say the wrong thing. But Disney princes don’t exist in real life, and even if they did, I’m sure Prince Charming’s bound to leave the toilet seat up every now and then. As long as your partner has the qualities you value most, the rest is easy peasy.

Before heading home, the Starobynskis took on one more of life’s challenges together as a team – their first (and possibly last) mechanical bull ride! Rodeo Connection is all about having a great time, so if you’re amped up on liquid courage, or finally giving in to sheer curiosity, their mechanical bull is ready to give you a ride of a lifetime and one heck of an evening to remember.

Rodeo Connection
26/F Tower A1, Junhao Central Park,Chaoyang District
朝阳区骏豪中央公园广场A1座26楼
Ph: 5361 0666 / 17801772070

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Photos: Uni You

This article appeared in the beijingkids 2020 September issue

Maintaining a healthy friendship at the best of times requires some work and commitment, but when you are living in different cities, countries or even continents, and juggling a career, home, and raising children, it gets tricky very fast. Weeks or months can easily fly by without meaningful interactions with your close friends. However, all is not lost. Here, we’ve gathered some tips about how to maintain friendships abroad, and specifically, from China.

Manage Expectations

As soon as you can, warn your friends that you may not be able to maintain the same frequency or style of contact as you did before. Saying things like “I care a lot about you and still value your friendship, even if you don’t hear from me as much as you used to” can go a long way to easing the transition and preventing friends from feeling abandoned.

If you have friends who have never lived abroad or even in another town, it may not have occurred to them that staying in touch can be hard. Talking to them through challenges like time differences and technological barriers could make a world of difference.

Don’t Force a Square Peg Into a Round Hole

Friendships that were formed around a shared activity like a sport don’t always transition well to ‘one-on-one conversation’ modes, and not everybody enjoys spending hours on the phone. Don’t take it too hard if your hiking buddies and knitting circle friends don’t pick up when you call nor respond to your long emails in a timely fashion. It’s not your friendship that’s awkward, it’s your medium and it will take time for you to find your new friendship groove.

Expect the Unexpected

Making stable long-distance calls from China can be a pain. WeChat is the most reliable app for making calls but rather difficult for foreigners to set up without a Chinese SIM card. Lucky iPhone users are able to FaceTime one another for free, but the rest of us need to find other alternatives. Regardless of the method you use, allow a bit more time to deal with technical issues when scheduling a call than you may usually do to avoid frustration.

Reframe the Conversation

Saying “I miss you” and “it’s been ages” to a friend, even if it’s totally true, might make them feel pressured or even guilty about your lack of contact. We all have busy lives, but a slight change in approach could make it easier to keep the conversation flowing. “I’ve been thinking of you a lot” is a great alternative, as is “so much has been going on, I can’t wait to share my updates with you and hear all of yours.”

Ask Advice

Ask for help, even if you don’t need it. One friend regularly asks her Dad for advice about everything from home repairs, to health insurance, and the best time to buy vegetables. As a grown woman she doesn’t need this advice per se, but she knows that it makes her Dad feel included, and part of her life. For cultures (like Chinese) in which people don’t usually express love and affection with words, this can be a powerful way to show appreciation and keep bonds alive.

Schedule Emails

Another friend has found a way to make emailing feel more like old-fashioned letter writing. Every two weeks, he writes an email to a friend who lives in another time zone, then uses email software to schedule it to send at a time that he knows his friend will be on a boring commute. A week later, his friend does the same thing. These regular emails give them both something to look forward to reading, and also takes the pressure off feeling that they need to reply immediately.

Avoid the Dreaded “So How’s Life?”

Remember when you talked to your friends one month after moving to Beijing, and they asked you “so how’s China?”. Um… big? Huge, open-ended questions like this are easy to ask but hard to answer. If it’s been a while since you were last in contact with someone, pause before you reach out and try to think of a few specific, pointed questions you can ask to get the ball rolling. “What are you reading right now?”, “Is the baby eating solids?”, “Have you found a good lunch spot in your new neighborhood?”. As they answer these questions, you’ll both build the momentum to cover the rest of the ‘life’ stuff.

Get Meme-ing

My oldest friend and I can go months without a proper conversation, but we stay connected and in each other’s hearts by sending ridiculous memes back and forth over Instagram. Whether it’s sending memes, sharing articles you think they’ll like, or tagging them in funny tweets, there are a myriad of ways to easily ‘nudge’ your friends and remind them of your shared interests and history, no matter how busy you both are.

Bait the Lurkers

If you are struggling to get news from that quiet friend in a group chat who reads messages but never responds, set low-commitment mini-challenges that everybody can do, regardless of their mood. For example, post a funny, unflattering selfie and tell everybody to reply with their own, immediately! Or take a picture of their lunch, or their view, or their shoes, or whatever. Little challenges like this are easy to do no matter how busy you are and help everybody feel connected.

Send Voice Messages

Depending on the context, unsolicited voice messages can be a pain in the butt. But there is something really lovely about hearing the voice of a good friend instead of the usual block of text. Many different apps support sending VM’s, and you can fit so much more feeling, warmth, and, well, information into a ten-second voice message. Your children can record special messages for friends and relatives too, and it literally only takes a few seconds.

Finally… Accept That Friendships Change

Friendships come in all shapes and sizes, and they change over time too. If despite all your efforts, you find yourself drifting away from a friend, don’t sweat it too much. It’s natural for long-term friendships to go through seasons and you may come very close together again in the future.

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Photos: Unsplash

This article appeared in the beijingkids 2020 September issue

Perhaps the one thing I’m most thankful for is my parents. They inspire me in so many ways, whether it’s school, my future career, or just how to be a person in general. It’s a universal problem that when children become teenagers, they drift apart from their parents. Teens head straight to their rooms, lock the door, and they share so little about their life that connecting with them is like cracking codes. Luckily, I didn’t go through such a phase. Instead, I feel like my adolescent years have drawn me closer to my parents, and maybe this has to do with the fact that they’re “cool”. Not the same “cool” as the cheerleading girls or the boys on the football team. It’s much more complex than that and varies from parent to parent.

Being Open and Accepting of Friends

It’s inevitable that every teenager will enjoy spending time with friends, sometimes more than spending time with family. Often, the distancing and drifting begin because parents aren’t supportive of their kid’s social life. It’s important to trust your child and let them hang out freely with friends. Try not to question where they’re going, who they’re going with, and what they’re doing. The more suspicious you are, the more your child feels the need to lie. It’s also important not to be overly strict with when your child is allowed to go out. As long as it’s not at an absurd hour or right before a major exam, give permission for them to attend that concert they’ve been counting down for, or go on that date they’ve been stressing over. For me, I usually wouldn’t hesitate about asking to go out… of course except for recent months because of COVID-19.

Qinglan Du and her mom

Giving Relationship Advice

The most awkward conversation to have between any child and parent tends to be the “relationship talk.” Teenagers are often embarrassed about discussing their love life with family, but it’s ever so crucial to open up that door. In order to build an environment where adolescents feel comfortable sharing, parents must show their support and non-judgment. Recently, my mom has been giving me relationship advice motivating me to make a move and expressing her interests in meeting the boy. By giving solid advice rather than lectures on teen romance, all of a sudden your child will feel understood and have someone reliable to turn to.

Qinglan Du and her dad

Balancing Work and Parenting

An unfortunate circumstance in many households is that parents are often too busy working to spend quality time with their kids. This, of course, is perfectly understandable. Personally what I find coolest about my parents is how they balance the two. My parents are both journalists, and in the past half-year, I’ve stayed with my mom who’s especially busy reporting Israel’s COVID-19 situation. She manages to engage me in her work by taking me on interviews, live broadcasts, and asking me to contribute thoughts on news articles. With her, I can visit eyeopening places and people I wouldn’t be able to otherwise, such as the Gaza border, the President of the Hebrew University, the Israel Defense Force graduation ceremony, and more. No matter what your profession is, always try to show your child the interesting side of it, because a bonus might be that they find a passion within it.

Keep exploring!

Being Adventurous and Fun

When we think of a cool parent, we definitely think of a fun parent. Children and teens are at the age of endless curiosity, so it’s the parents’ duty to fulfill that. Go shopping with your child, take them on a road trip, do that TikTok trend with them. There’s no better way to connect than by actively participating in their life and going above and beyond to create worthwhile memories for them. With my mom, we frequently go on road trips across the country, exploring national parks, hiking mountains, swimming in lakes, etc. This showed me outings and adventures with parents are often more meaningful than the stereotypical “cool” option of going with friends.

Not Putting Pressure on Schoolwork

Academics are probably the last thing any child would associate with a cool parent. Among my peers, I’ve witnessed all sorts of pushy parents sending their kids to as many extracurricular study classes as they can cram into a week. This tends to be the number one cause of distance between parent and child. Barely any free time is left for spending time together and the child constantly feels pressured into achieving unrealistically high expectations.

To resolve this, lower those expectations, but keep them reasonably challenging. Don’t expect him/her to acquire full marks across all subjects every semester of secondary school. This will only shatter any interest they had and is essentially teaching them to learn for the sake of grades, which is the worst mindset to get into. For me, my parents are happy as long as I submit my best work. They sit with me to work through my mistakes rather than prioritize grades, which in my opinion, is the reason why I’ve stayed motivated to excel in school.

To sum it all up, when it comes to our parents, defining “cool” can be very individualized. These are five guidelines that really hit home for me. Try applying them to your life and see if they’re the icing on the cake your household is missing. Don’t forget, communication is key. Discuss them with your family and start refining your parent-child relationship, one step at a time.

Qinglan Du is a 16-year-old student from Beijing City International School. She’s originally from Beijing but is currently living in Jerusalem with her mother due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Aside from her passion for writing, she enjoys singing, spending time with friends and family, and experiencing new cultures.

KEEP READING: What Makes a Parent “Cool”?

Photos: Qinglan Du, Pexels

A big part of life is navigating all the different types of relationships we encounter. Whether it’s within your family, romantic relationships, life-long bonds of friendship, or our day-to-day encounters, knowing how to manage the relationships in our life will give us a high emotional quotient (EQ) and keeps us from being that one socially awkward friend.

In this issue of beijingkids we explore a wide range of different relationship dynamics, from the playground to walking down the aisle. Our Ask the Expert writer Julie Wolf discusses a question that we’ve all wondered at some point in our lives, “Is it ever ok to discipline someone else’s child?”, and teenage sweethearts Tom and Clare Starobynski share their secrets to a long happy marriage after four kids and 18 years of marriage.

Without a doubt, one of the key components to a healthy relationship is spending time together. In this issue, we’ve found some of Beijing’s best places to go for some less conventional family bonding along with the local etiquette on gift-giving when it comes time to celebrate. Believe it or not, in China sometimes a well-meaning gift may just offend your new friend.

One of the major milestones of life is that first romantic relationship followed by first heartbreak. We interviewed two families from different cultural backgrounds on their views of letting their child date and polled Beijing’s parents for the best relationship advice they’ve ever received and will most likely be passing down to their own kids.

But not all young relationships are innocent. Some can leave emotional scars for years to come. We’re so proud of one brave young writer Anna Ren for speaking up and sharing her story, about the traumatic experience of being harassed and cyberbullied by her peers, in hope that other victims of bullying will also feel emboldened to speak out.

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Photos: Uni You

This article appeared in the beijingkids 2020 September issue

Maybe it’s the rom-com films we’ve binged, or maybe it’s the aura of coolness surrounding having a boyfriend or girlfriend but either way, a huge part of the ideal high school experience is teenage dating. Yet like many aspects of the teenage years, our relationships are often misunderstood, even for those of us in them. There’s no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ way to date as an adolescent, and some youths have long lists of exes while others haven’t gotten started. It’s all a matter of feeling comfortable and being patient.

Making the first move

There are a number of stereotypes around teenage relationships; particularly gender stereotypes. In China, it’s considered romantic and masculine for boys to make the first move, and sadly some people even think it’s shameful for girls to do the asking out. Like it or not, all the successful relationships I’ve witnessed among my peers were initiated by the guy. But come on, it’s 2020, and that old school notion of masculinity is so outdated, and puts unnecessary pressure both on guys to take the lead and on girls to offer a satisfactory response. 

When it comes to asking someone out, technology also comes in handy because more and more teens are choosing to ask their crushes out over text. Texting allows us to take our time and write grand-gesture paragraphs. If things don’t go to plan, deleting the message and facing rejection is significantly easier than if it was face-to-face. I was once asked out by a boy who was sitting right next to me on a bus, but still chose to type it on Whatsapp and I have to say, it does ease the atmosphere but at the same time makes the process less memorable.

Ready, set, date!

Once past the asking-out hurdle, a whole new series of obstacles await dates. Different teenagers have different preferences for date spots with some heading to fancy restaurants, while others grab street food and go. Some plan the night out weeks in advance, and others spontaneously make decisions the day of.

My first actual date was at an old train station transformed into a tourist attraction. We grabbed burgers and watched the city view from atop a small hill, and were still in the getting-to-know-each-other phase so awkward silences were abundant. Our conversations ranged from family to school to our interests. Yet despite the awkwardness, I went home and feeling overwhelmed with butterflies. For the next week, I replayed moments from that date in my head nonstop.

It’s well known that some teenagers do silly things when in a relationship, and in my friend group some girls have been pressured into drinking on dates. They would also occasionally stay out past curfew or show up at school hungover the next day.

First kiss

As relationships get serious, physical contact is expected, and the concept of a ‘perfect first kiss’ lurks in the mind of almost every teenager. I had my first kiss in Grade 7 at an amusement park and it was nothing like the movies. The boy actually missed the first try and we were both beyond nervous. Amongst my peers, a vast majority haven’t had their first kiss yet, and of the ones that have, many seek kisses with zero emotional attachment. A friend once mentioned she lost track of how many guys she’s made out with. Contrary to popular belief, physical contact doesn’t determine the depth of a teenage romance at all, which is why out of the relationships I’ve had, the one I treasure most was with a guy I never kissed.

When it all ends…

One way or another, we eventually come to the inevitable stage: the breakup. Ending a relationship can feel like the end of the world to many heartbroken teens while to others, it can feel like a relief. A friend of mine once skipped school to cry over the demise of a two-day relationship. Unfortunately, there’s bound to be messy breakups sometimes, and I should know: two of my exes currently have me blocked on social media. But on the bright side, plenty of teenage relationships end maturely and on good terms. One friend still has sticker wars with her ex and he even offered to tutor her math. Staying friends with teenage exes is easier said than done, but definitely not impossible.

For international students in Beijing, the number one cause of breakups is distance. Too many couples split over one or both of them moving away. And with the COVID-19 pandemic going on, countless teenagers split with their partners or entered long-distance without having a proper goodbye. At the beginning of the outbreak, I was involved with a boy in my class in Beijing even though I was stranded abroad with no flights home. Eventually, factors like time difference and overthinking separated us. On the other hand, long-distance relationships are becoming increasingly popular amongst the young generation and two of my closest friends are long-distance dating right now. One is with a guy she met at a MUN conference in Austria and another is with a mutual friend in America. Despite the fact that neither of them will see their boyfriends in the near future, they remain committed.

Teenage relationships can be confusing, but it’s important not to cave into peer pressure and remember that there is no ‘normal’ way to date. Don’t set unrealistic expectations, don’t be afraid to leave your boyfriend or girlfriend if doubts emerge, and above all, live in the moment and enjoy each other’s company to the fullest.

Qinglan Du is a 16-year-old student from Beijing City International School. She’s originally from Beijing but is currently living in Jerusalem with her mother due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Aside from her passion for writing, she enjoys singing, spending time with friends and family, and experiencing new cultures.

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Photos: Qinglan Du, Unsplash