household chores – Beijing Kids

Test of Independence: Can a 16-Year-Old Cook an Egg and Fold Laundry?

Vivienne Tseng-Rush — Thu, 05 Aug 2021 07:00:12 +0000

Call me old-fashioned but I like to think of cooking and cleaning as essential life skills, amongst other things. It’s been said by members of the – *ahem* – older generation that kids nowadays lack all the basic survival skills their forebears held in high regard.

These same naysayers claim that children are endlessly pampered by the attendant comforts afforded the new wealth of developing countries such as China. Not to mention technology’s sheer obliteration of many skills, what with food delivery within 30 minutes. Plus, parental protection and attention, supplemented by an ayi – especially when you’re an expat kid – tends to run on the higher side. It may be that we’re living in a foreign country and whatnot, but all these reasons compound to create an environment that doesn’t exactly breed great self-sufficiency.

Or so you say. We decided to put this theory to the test by getting four interns, aged 13 to 17, to prove to us that they are indeed independent and self-sufficient young adults. The tests? We decided on some of the bare necessities needed for surviving on your own – cooking instant noodles, hard boiling an egg, and folding laundry!

Watch the video below to find out how they did!

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Images: Unsplash

Beijing Men Do Almost as Much Housework as Women, Study Says

Andy Penafuerte III — Wed, 20 Mar 2019 05:56:02 +0000

Hidden in a recent China Daily story about Beijingers’ work habits was this statistical nugget: Beijing men spend almost as much time (1 hour 50 minutes) on daily household tasks as women (1 hour and 58 minutes).

The study, released last week by the Beijing survey office of the National Bureau of Statistics, polled 4,238 people older than 15 in 1,700 households in Beijing.

If true, this would make Beijing one of the leaders in the “chore wars” as the vast number of reports on this issue we’ve found from other countries show that women do far more housework than men.

A 2015 survey in Japan showed a striking 3-hour gap per day on weekdays between both genders, with adult men spending only 54 minutes on chores, compared to women who did roughly five times as much.

Meanwhile, adult American men accomplish 41 percent of what women can do in daily household activities (1 hr 25 min vs. 2 hr 15 min per day), the US Bureau of Labor Statistics said in a 2015 study.

Adult British gents shouldered 2 hr 18 min of housework per day, compared to the work done by ladies (at 3 hr 43 min per day), according to a 2016 report by the UK Office for National Statistics.

While the methodology and the definition of housework may differ in each of these polls, what is clear that the Beijing statistics indicate a much smaller gap between men and women in regards to time spent on household chores.

The Beijing survey did not specify what constitutes “housework” — but it is likely the broad definition that could include tidying the home as well as things like childcare, which, in Beijing terms, could be shuttling children to and from school and after-school activities.

Also lost in this study is how many people have ayis or other hired help who assist with maintaining a household. At least in the middle and upper-income brackets of wealthy Beijing, ayis seem exceedingly common.

How much time do you spend on chores? We’re conducting a quick poll to see if the beijingkids community shares Beijing’s unique male-female divide of housework. Vote below and we’ll share the results next week here on the blog.

Photo: rawpixel.com (1, 2) via Pexels
Graphics: Mike Wester

A Tree, Woolly Worms and a Tale of Two Ayis: Finally Getting to Meet the Neighbors

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One of the things that attracted us to the house that we now live in is the three-storey-high tree in the garden. Although we did our home search on a wintry March morning, the tree was then leafless hence we were only left with our imagination as to how the tree would flourish in the summer and shed in the fall. Moving to Beijing from a picturesque lakeside town in Europe, we knew we wanted as much foliage as we could possibly get.

We eventually moved to Shunyi in the summer of that year and the tree leaves did full bloom but were accompanied by crickets and horrendously hairy, creepy caterpillars. That first summer, we did what we needed to do to exterminate the caterpillars, or what my sons took to calling “woolly worms”. As we marked our second summer here, the tree grew taller, leafier, and yes, more infested with woolly worms.

This year we passed our third summer in Shunyi and the tree continues to grow. Our ayi, who has been with us for the pervious two, quietly reminded me in June that the tree was in need of de-worming but did not get around to it. The woolly worms had made their way over to the neighbors’ house,rendering their garden useless as their children and dog could no longer go there. Understandably, they didn’t want to get a bad case of the itchies. I was also properly mortified that my neglect of our own living space had caused inconvenience to the neighbors.

I proceeded to write a note to the neighbours, primarily to apologize for the presence of the worms. And then to give my phone number to say would make arrangements to get rid of the worms and if they had any trouble with the worms, to feel free to call me. It seemed like a good plan. Except that I realized I did not even know my neighbors’ names. We have seen each other often, and we always greet each other and exchange a few comments about the pollution or the weather. I know where their children go to school. Our dogs are friends. But we never got around to asking their names!

So the note addressed to “The Neighbors” got sent anyway, and soon enough I had a very friendly text message from the lady of the house. She assured me that they were not bothered by the worms in the way that I may have thought, given the call from the management office. She then said that her ayi was very on top of things, and it was her ayi who had made the call to the management office. I then assured her that my ayi had also tried to get my attention on the matter but that she, sadly, failed. The best part of our text exchange was not so much being told that the issue of the worms wasn’t an issue at all. It was that I managed to finally know my neighbor’s name!

And it was also in realizing yet again that we both have our ayis to thank for helping us run our households. In a city where both my neighbor V and I are foreigners, and where I can never emphasize enough the difficulty that not being fluent in the language poses, the help we get from our proactive ayis is quite invaluable because they help us get things done.

They remind us when things need to get done. They pick up the phone when we can’t manage to make ourselves understood about what needs to get done. And they have a way of taking the initiative — appropriately — when they need something to get done.

And, once in a while, when we forget to properly introduce ourselves to the neighbors, in their own way, our ayis inadvertently enable us to get that done, too.

Photo by Dana Cosio-Mercado

Dana is the beijingkids‘ Shunyi Correspondent. Originally from the Philippines, she moved to Beijing in 2011 (via Europe) with her husband, two sons and Rusty the dog. She enjoys writing, photography, theater, visual arts, and trying new food. In her free time, she can be found exploring the city and driving along the mountain roads of Huairou, Miyun and Pinggu.