The results for the latest jingkids Ayi Survey are in!

If you haven’t heard of hiring an ayi, you probably haven’t lived in Beijing long enough. Just about every Beijinger who has the means to hire an ayi would consider one because they can relieve you of grueling everyday responsibilities like pesky housework or even entertaining young children.

Yet for many foreigners (and locals, for that matter) the ayi industry is shrouded in mystery. What exactly does an ayi do? How much should you pay her? What are reasonable working hours?

In an effort to gain some clarity for Beijing families, every year jingkids runs the ayi survey where we ask respondents about their ayi‘s work hours, pay rates, experience, responsibilities, and benefits. The first Ayi Survey was conducted in 2014, and in the years since, the industry has undergone subtle but evident changes such as higher pay rates and the growing popularity of part-time ayis.

Below are the results from the latest survey.

Images: jingkids

Over the past month or so, I’ve been babyproofing the home. I’ve always really been into interior home design. From Art Deco cut glass to baroque candleholders and mirrors, my apartment used to be littered with sparkling adornments that paid homage to forgotten eras. Sadly, I had to say goodbye to some of my most prized possessions; this was not before losing some to the inquisitive little hands belonging to my one-year-old.

For some, packing away or giving away items that serve no purpose in a home where the baby now rules the roost can be a breeze. I on the other hand really miss sitting amongst my beautiful things! That said, the safety and happiness of my little one is of course paramount, as is the same for all the mamas out there already on or just about to enter the babyproofing-the-home journey.

There are some basic essentials that moms and dads can pick up or order to make the home safer for babies and toddlers. Babyproofing the home needn’t be a chore and doesn’t need to cost a bomb. The first phase of babyproofing your apartment will generally involve finding new homes for items that could be dangerous in the hands of curious little ones, or the removal of items from surfaces and counter tops now reachable that you don’t want damaged, or smothered in baby drool. Pack away or find new homes for ornaments, books, remote controls, (my son is obsessed with every kind), and anything made from materials that are likely to smash if dropped!

Once the removal of dangerous (and precious) objects is out of the way, use some of these essentials below to finish off babyproofing the family home. All of these items can be found on Taobao and take seconds to assemble, stick on, or plug in!

• Outlet Plug Covers

Put safety plugs or outlet covers over used and unused outlets, or block them with furniture.

• Foam Corner Protectors and Edge Guards

Attach foam (or another soft material) corner and edge guards to sharp cabinet corners, rocking chair corners, bed corners, and sofa corners. You get the gist – wherever there’s a corner, slap an edge guard on there!

• Foam Floor Tiles

We recently moved to a newly refurbished apartment. We loved the look of the new tiled flooring, but realized this was one of the biggest danger hazards for our then crawling and now walking toddler. Cover wooden and tiled flooring with child-friendly floor tiles. They’re great for playing, and are smash- and toddler-tumble-proof!

• Safety Gate

I’ve yet to install these, but safety gates are the perfect solution to stop little ones from entering rooms and keeping them within a designated area where you can keep a watchful eye on them. Place them at entrances to bathrooms, kitchen, bedrooms, or within the living area to create a play pen that’s inescapable!

• Cabinet Latches

Control access to unsafe areas with safety gates, door locks and knob covers. Stop your toddler from opening and peering into low cupboards and grabbing at items that are likely to break when not handled with care. My little one loved peering into my kitchen cupboard, and has already successfully emptied my pots and pans shelf. Do yourself a favor and get those latches on!

Photo: Pixabay

Moving house is always a stressful time. Moving house in a foreign country however can lead you to the brink of insanity, heightening your levels of anxiety, and leaving you with a sense of utter helplessness. Add a baby, a disgruntled landlord, and incompetent agents, and you’ve got yourself a whirlwind of taxing unease.

A constant worry for expats living in Beijing is renting a home, particularly for families trying to negotiate their way through the concrete jungle of real estate. What is the best location? Where can you get value for money? Are there adequate amenities in the vicinity of your apartment or house? What about your landlord’s disposition with foreigners? Who will communicate with you? Will it be possible to communicate directly at all? These and more carry you into an abyss of uncertainty about whether or not you are making the right choices.

When approaching the beautifully laid-out compound of Upper East Side, Lido, I was seven months pregnant and ready to nest. I instantly fell in love with the neighborhood and was even more set on occupying a spacious two-bedroom, with access to a roof terrace, when I waddled into the real estate agency’s office and spoke to English-speaking staff who offered a parched pregnant lady an ice cold paper cup of water.

Both looks and words can be deceiving. The can-do attitude and candid approach of the agent, the sturdy and somewhat staunch proprietor, led me to believe that all was above board. How could anything go wrong? They specialize in “rental and sales of high-end apartments and villas in Lido,” and on their website provide you with glossy assurances, “We aim to win your trust with sincerity and get your recognition with great efforts. We will always be here, ready to serve you.” Surely they would only have the very best properties and even better landlords on their books. I was wrong.

After meeting the landlord, there were signs that not all was well. He seemed disappointed upon arrival when we all turned up for the handover of the apartment, and both my husband and I felt that for one reason or another we weren’t quite what he was expecting. Broken agreements, faulty items in the home, repaired and replaced large purchases, and a tiring back-and-forth WeChat conversation over the course of the first month all ensued, and was the start of disastrous things to come.

The apartment hadn’t been serviced in a while and my husband and I found items dating back to as early as 2008. We agreed to replace the sofa and the fridge, re-grout all the tiles in the home, and replace the pipes under the sink on the condition that those items from the moment of purchase belonged to our family. Inventory amended, agreement made, and we all thought we could now breathe.

Fast-forward one year later. My husband is at work and I’m packing up my home with my 9-month-old baby in tow. The large purchases we’ve made have been successfully sold, and although we decided to leave a year earlier than planned, we gave the required notice, forfeited our deposit, and informed the agency. This was somewhat a challenge as just eight weeks into our signed contract the real estate agent had blocked us on WeChat and refused to deal with the most basic of requirements; which doesn’t really mirror the promises made on their website to “serve” clients with their “expertise” and “sincerity.” Further down the rabbit hole we went.

The landlord refused to grant us a permit to clear our things from the compound, stating that the sofa that had now been sold was his. Our personal intermediary agent and my husband and I explained that this was not legal and we had every right to remove our belongings.

A moving company came, and while bringing down our things, freighting Gestapo-style antics began. With my baby in my arms and my ayi by my side, up to six security men surrounded us, one tried to physically stop me from accessing the gate to leave the compound and the belligerent proprietor from the agency turned up to film the struggle. The offense team of intimidators spoke no English, and what followed was one of the most stressful moments I’ve ever encountered while living in China.

We spent seven hours trying to negotiate our way off the sidewalk. I called the police, who left without helping to resolve the matter, and no one took a statement from me. All our things were packed in the back of a van, my baby’s diaper and clothing had to be changed, and the bottle we had prepared for his trip to our new home was already demolished.The landlord on top of our deposit wanted to extort another RMB 5,000 from us. He got his goons to surround the truck and refused to let us leave. Although having a further two weeks to move out and arrange an official handover, the boss stood by, creating a scene and refusing to acknowledge that what was developing was utterly atrocious.

Our landlord was able to rally a team of bullies made up of members of compound staff I had developed friendships with to literally spy on us and circumvent our attempts to do what we had every right to do. In the end, the needs of our child took precedence, and after much debate, we handed over RMB 1,000 and went on our way. In the end it wasn’t about money but about face. The landlord and his partner-in-crime, were not going to leave without some kind of signifier that they had come out of this situation on top.

This kind of experience raises grave concerns about the reality of the world of tenancy agreements, contracts, and policing of expats in Beijing. The rights of expat tenants is a real area of concern, marginally regulated, with little or no security attached to the signing of any arrangement or settlement. After sharing this experience with friends, I’ve been made aware that this same agency has been the common denominator in other instances of breaches of contract and poorly handled grievances.

If there are telltale signs at the beginning that you’re dealing with charlatans when renting a property, go with your instincts and move on. Understand that when contracts go wrong, little will swing in your favor, so limit the kind of arrangements you make to replace furniture and other items, and refrain from agreeing to the amendment of a contract that already will likely favor the landlord should things go wrong. Also, be wary of real estate agents who market themselves as foreign-friendly; they may not be able to back up their talk with a walk.

Photos: Pixabay

It’s clear, it’s pungent and it will knock your socks off. The powerhouse, limescale-fighting, magical potion of your dreams has been hiding out in plain sight all this time.

It’s vinegar. 醋. Cù. Yep, boring, cheap, regular, old vinegar.

Tah-dahhhh!

Distilled white vinegar is the cheapest, most effective, and most ecologically-friendly way to deal with the limescale that plagues bathrooms all over Beijing. So you can stop buying products from the supermarket that promise to descale and clean your bathroom, but actually, just clean out your WeChat wallet instead. Here’s the lowdown:

Science me!

Tap water in Beijing (and all over China) is very high in minerals. Actually, it’s far from a China-exclusive problem. Minerally water like this is known as ‘hard water’ and occurs all over the world. As water from the tap evaporates from surfaces, it leaves behind mineral deposits. Over time, they build up on your faucets, shower glass, drains, and shower heads, creating a layer of crust that seems impossible to remove, and blocks water flow in the process.

Vinegar contains diluted acetic acid, which reacts with the calcium carbonate in this mineral buildup (limescale) to produce calcium acetate, which is soluble in water an easily washes away. This makes it your best friend when it comes to battling scale in the bathroom.

But what kind of vinegar, specifically?

Distilled white vinegar (白醋, bái cù) is best, but honestly, just about any kind of vinegar will do, even rice wine vinegar. As long as it contains acetic acid, it’ll work.

How to use it

Ain’t nobody getting clean from that

Soak your shower head – Unscrew the shower head, and soak it enough vinegar to cover it fully, for a couple of hours. If you can’t unscrew the head, lift it off the hook so it’s hanging down, pour vinegar into a strong plastic bag (or Ziploc), and tie it over the shower head. Take it out, give it a gentle scrub or just rub over the nozzles with your thumb, and you’re good to go. Repeat this every couple of weeks or whenever you notice the shower nozzles becoming blocked.

Clean your shower partition – Mix up a solution of equal parts filtered water and vinegar (plus a couple of drops of essential oil for fragrance, if you like) in a spray bottle. Shake to mix, then spray a fine layer over the glass. Have the fan running and perhaps cover your mouth while you do this. Vinegar isn’t toxic, but breathing in a lungful does sting a bit. Leave the vinegar to soak for a moment (but don’t leave it to dry), then wipe down with a sponge. Repeat if necessary, until all limescale is gone.

Rinse the vinegar off, then dry down the glass and enjoy how pristine it is… until your next shower. For really stubborn/long-term scale (like, nobody’s ever even tried to do this before), you may need to apply quite a lot of vinegar and scrub with a gentle abrasive to get it done. Repeat this spray-and-wipe every week to keep on top of the situation.

No one likes a green knob

Clean your chrome – Use the same spray solution on your chrome taps and handles. Simply spray on, wait a moment, then wipe off with a sponge. Shiny!

But wait, that’s not all!

Soften your fabrics – Vinegar makes a fantastic natural fabric softener. Dump about a cup in the fabric softener tray of your front loader, or pour in directly with your top-loader washing (even at the same time as the detergent, it seems to work fine). Once dry, your clothes will not smell vinegary (it dries odorless), and your duds will come out much softer than usual.

Disinfect your humidifier – Unplug and disassemble your humidifier. Rinse the filter with water (nothing else, as this can damage the filter) and set to dry. Wash out the tank and soak in vinegar. Reassemble the unit, but add a cup of vinegar to the water tank. Run the humidifier for an hour, rinse out the tank and fill with water as usual. You should do this once a week during times of heavy use.

These are just a couple of the best Beijing-hard-water specific uses for vinegar, but there are literally hundreds of applications such as:

– Descaling your kettle.
– Cleaning your coffee machine.
– Steaming the inside of your microwave.
– Removing streaks and smudges from your mirrors and windows.
– Improving your GPA (lol jk).

Just search ‘vinegar cleaning’ online for more but, and this is a big but, beware of recipes that call for a mixture of vinegar and baking soda. Individually, these are both very effective cleaning agents, but when mixed together they do bugger all, except fizz. But fizzing does not = cleaning. This fizzing is just the chemical reaction when baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) and vinegar (acetic acid) break down into sodium acetate, water, and carbon dioxide. Click here for more details on that.

Oh, and never mix vinegar with chlorine bleach or you’ll create deadly chlorine gas and kill us all.

Happy cleaning!

READ: Why the Bathroom in Your Chinese Apartment Smells Awful (And How to Fix It)

This post first appeared on our sister site, the Beijinger.
Images: The Spruce, singaporeplumbingworks.com

My youngest daughter is one year old; she’ll be two soon. In her short life, she has lived in three different apartments. We have spent most of this summer moving and settling into our latest abode.

At this point I find myself reflecting on what it means to call a place home. My own perception of home differs from the traditional definition of home as a physical address. For me, home is less about a particular building and more about being in the presence of loved ones that know and accept me.

I suppose that’s easy for me to say. I’m a grown woman, and my sense of who I am and what’s important in life is already solidified. The same cannot yet be said about my children. Many times I have pondered about what impact our frequent moving will have on these little ones.

Rather than cherishing a particular building, I hope my children see that things are just things, but healthy relationships are to be valued and invested in. For now, I think it’s too early to tell. My daughters are just glad that our new apartment complex has a playground with a slide. And as for my baby boy, as long as he has milk, he’s content.

One advantage of moving frequently is the constant opportunity to purge our possessions. We make a conscious effort to avoid the accumulation of unnecessary objects (even if they are being given away for free). Moving often makes hoarding inconvenient, and so I prefer to travel light. The process of shedding unnecessary baggage is actually quite liberating.

Perhaps one day, we’ll be able to put down physical roots and settle in a house for more than a few years at a time. When that happens, I hope we don’t forget the lessons that this season has taught us. Home is not so much a tangible structure built with bricks and mortar. Home is being in the presence of the ones that reciprocate the love we have for them.

Photo: Adobe Creative Cloud

I am a big IKEA lover; I go there for fun. But many people have had enough of their style, and want to find other furniture and home accessories stores in Beijing, apart from the good old Swedish favorite. I have been browsing around town to find some more options for us international folk to shop, if we don’t want a home that looks like a 70s disco.

ZAOZUO

I ran into this store thinking I would not be able the afford a thing, and I would just have a look. Well, to my pleasant surprise I found a great throw for my couch, and the prices were pretty reasonable. Very modern sleek design, and located in Indigo Mall together with some other stores that will make your home look fabulous again. Check out their website for inspiration.

MUJI

MUJI is a Japanese brand; all their things are very easy on the eye. Plain and simple is what they are known for. I love their essential oil blends, and organization baskets and boxes. MUJI can be found in almost every mall in Beijing. They stock most of the essentials for a new home.

F & M Home • High Quality

I stumbled across this furniture store in the basement of Indigo Mall, and the array of different colored towels made me wish I hadn’t got my white (now grey) towels at IKEA. F&M is a home textile brand. They sell bedding with great designs and towels in every color you can imagine.

ZARA Home

Zara Home has something for everybody, from bedlinen to soap dispensers and nicely smelling candles. I love looking around for accessories for my home. Zara Home is located in many shopping malls like Solana and in the CBD area.

QM Furniture

QM has sleek designs and furniture that looks the part; modern European designs that are a bit less IKEA and more personalized. I love wandering around this store to take pictures, and then finding the stuff cheaper on taobao.com. Don’t tell anybody!

Photos: Vendors and Pixabay

Moving to China I did not realize a few things: my clothing size is not available in any store, and skincare is very different than where I used to live. Magazines have always been a guilty pleasure for me so this is something that I miss here in China. Even though I work for a magazine now, this does not satisfy my need for English and Dutch magazines. Slowly the expat community of Beijing is leaving for the summer or moving on to better and wilder things, and the talk has turned to what people plan to bring back. The list can be endless, according to your personal preferences and the country you are from. Parmesan cheese, anyone?

Underwear

Almost all the mothers will understand that finding fitting bras in Beijing is really hard, M&S has left the scene so now we are stuck here without undies. Get measured and stocked up on your favorite underwear while back home.

Make Up and Skincare Products

Asia has different beauty ideals to Western countries, and the amount of bleach I have found in products is shocking. I even bought a deodorant with bleach by accident once. Get plenty of your favorite face creams and make up.

Baby Products

Milk powder is a real hassle in Beijing so families tend to stock up when home. Other baby products like creams and snacks are also so much cheaper and better quality. Or at least you can read the ingredient list, so you can make sure there is no sugar added.

Clothes

I asked around and it seems like all the expats get their wardrobes from Target or Primark, or anything in between. Funnily enough all these clothes were made in China but are nowhere to be found here, so we all import them back here.

Medication

Nothing is more confusing going into a pharmacy asking for medication in China if you don’t speak good Mandarin. There is something utterly comforting in taking medication where you can read the label and instructions. Don’t forget the bottles of Tylenol or Calpol for the kids.

Glue Sticks

It’s been the subject of some debate on WeChat, but clearly Chinese glue is not the best in the world. So if you have some space left over stuff it with Elmer glue, the best glue according to many mothers.

Shoes

I have tried many times over the last year to buy shoes in a normal store here, but nobody sells anything above size 39 for woman. And if they do it’s a lie and they don’t fit. The only places I found fitting shoes were in the Pearl Market and the Silk Market. But I’d rather travel to the other side of the world than return there again

Food

Many people take advantage of the customs exemption for personal use and bring food products back into China, from cheese to pate. These are products we’ve missed, and which just taste better coming out of a suitcase after a 15 hour flight.

Pictures: www.vconnection.nl, www.elmers.com, pixabay.com

Our family had lived behind the Laitai flower market for two very long months last summer. I had visited this market quite often and managed to find some treasures. My 3-year-old daughter enjoys exploring the animal aisle while bonsai trees are more my taste. When I heard there was another flower market nearby, I wanted to see what it had to offer as everything my family wanted could surely be found at the Laitai market.

Just as we entered the Liangma flower market I noticed it was much smaller, but very cute indeed. The huge area of the Laitai flower market can be very overwhelming while Liangma’s is easy to navigate and has some surprises in store. Its main hall exhibits cut flowers and a little boutique with ribbons galore, postcards and satin boxes. We even found an art stall with impressive paintings for reasonable prices.

The second hall has potted plants, some fish in tanks and a bird, all looking happy and healthy. There’s a stand with potted salads and vegetables. This was cool, so I showed it to my daughter and explained where our food comes from. We found a stall with a guy who makes lamps. Just as I found a nice lamp for my desk, I tried my hand at bargaining. The guy wanted to sell the lamp for RMB 180, but after a few minutes of haggling we settled at RMB 120.

On the hunt for more stuff we left the stroller downstairs and went to the second floor. This was like finding a cave of treasures filled to the brim with home wear. From tableware to slippers to candles, almost anything can be found here! My daughter and I had lots of fun roaming around and finding cute and funny things we did not need, but ended up buying anyway. My toddler kept me on my toes at all times with all the breakable nick knacks. I will definitely be back by myself to hunt for some serving platters.

Pauline van Hasselt has been working for beijingkids since October 2016. Born in Wassenaar, The Netherlands, she moved with her husband and her 3 year-old daughter to Beijing in June of this year. Prior she lived in the Netherlands, Belgium, Paraguay, Texas, and London, studying and working as a chef. Pauline enjoys biking around Beijing, finding markets and new restaurants, reading crime and fantasy books in bed, and most importantly, turning her house into a home for her family.

During the first year we lived in Beijing, my husband abruptly cut me off as I was talking about Christmas decorations, “Why do we need a Christmas tree?” If I were an anime character, a dramatic face plant on the floor would have been appropriate. Without the blessing of such a blatant visual cue he went on, “I mean really, what does a Christmas tree have to do with actually rejoicing over the birth of Jesus?”
Ever since we moved to China, we found ourselves in a joint cultural identity crisis.  We began identifying much more often with our Chinese neighbors and friends than with our foreign coworkers. Both of us never really felt genuinely “American,” and we began to question everything we did, getting rid of old habits if the only reason we did them is because we were “American.”
Our cultural celebration of Christmas didn’t comprise part of a holy ground, not to my husband at least. So we researched other traditions and celebrations of Christmas from around the world that were centered in authentically Christian roots. We learned about the Advent season of the Orthodox and the Jesse tree, a calendar of ornaments with symbolic meanings related to verses in the Bible. Though we didn’t make a compromise per se, we did agree that the Christmas tree of my childhood nostalgia was the best background for ornaments carrying deep meaning.
Henceforth, we now have a new family tradition of celebrating Christmas by daily reading a short passage of scripture and putting on one ornament that matches that scripture, following a fusion of the Advent season and the Jesse tree calendar. When we finally reach Christmas almost thirty days later, the tree is full and beautiful, and I always want to keep it up for a week or so longer. For me, the Advent season including Christmas and Epiphany has become my favorite time of year, and oddly I have China to thank for that. Thus, proving to me at least, I don’t need to be in a country full of my common language and culture to feel at home.
To help you feel at home in Beijing for the holidays, we’ve packed this issue with lots of goodies, from shopping the Christmas bazaars to your advantage (p12) to making a lighter and more colorful version of the Yule log (p22). Dawn Davison got a makeover in time for all of the many galas and parties this season brings (p14) while Bernadette and Diedrik told us what they thought of Ernest’s French Bistro (p20).  3e International School suggested making snow globes for spending time together with your child inside (p27), and we found plenty of skiing spots when the air is nice and crisp (p25). We also asked other families to share what traditions they keep alive (p46) and rounded up some family friendly resorts in Asia for sliding across slopes or getting out of the cold (p42). Regardless of what you choose to do this season, here at beijingkids, we wish you all the happiest of memories for the holidays!

This article originally appeared on page 2 of the of beijingkids magazine’s November/ December issue. Click here for your free online copy. To find out how you can obtain a hard copy, contact distribution@truerun.com.