I grew up in a bilingual household so I know firsthand how beneficial it is to be able to communicate in more than one language. So when the kids came, it was only expected that we’ll do anything and everything to give this gift to them, too. Fast forward a few years, and the initial plan doesn’t seems so easily achievable anymore. It was way easier said than done.

So it got me thinking: The one thing we worry about as expat parents is how we can help our children get fluent in Chinese, a language that’s so difficult for adults to learn. We send them to fully-Chinese speaking kindergartens aiming for total immersion, hire ayis and other domestic helpers asking them to talk to our kids so they “absorb” the language faster. Because children are like little sponges, right? Right. And this usually works. So here we are, expat parents with our little Chinese speaking 3, 4, 7, 10 or 15-year-old third-culture kid who’s got lots of little local friends and they’re able to communicate with neighbors and follow classes and do almost all the things a local kid can do.

And then it’s time for the scheduled call with the family back home and suddenly, this at other times confident child becomes not so confident anymore. After the initial “Hello”, everything goes downhill. They start to stutter, looking at you asking for help, desperately browsing through their minds searching for the correct word.

So how do we avoid this from happening? How do we make sure our children become fluent in our native languages while spending most of their day time at school or with ayis? What strategies do we apply to provide them with enough exposure in our respective languages? With limited resources, especially when it comes to languages other than English, difficulties in having regular phone or video calls with family due to a time zone difference, being at work 8 to 5, how do we manage to keep our mother tongue and ties to the family and culture strong? We asked our fellow expat parents and here’s what they said:

“We send our son to an English language kindergarten. Even though the other kids are all Chinese, the lessons being in English means they learn it fast, while Chinese comes from grandparents and social activities (as the common language between kids is usually Chinese”, says Mark Pinner whose mother tongue is English.

But what happens if parents’ first language is not English? Or if parents speak different languages and have a third home language? There’s so many scenarios and even more paths that can be taken.

For Jackie, whose husband’s native tongue is Korean, it’s very important that her children speak the language as well, “I don’t speak Korean so most of my children’s Korean comes from my mother-in-law, who has around 3 online meet-ups with each kid per week, each time at least 1 hour each. My kids also attend Saturday Korean classes at the Korean school and they each have 1 hour with a Korean tutor during the weekend. For movie time, we sometimes watch movies in Korean. It might seem excessive, but when we eventually return to Korea our plan is to send them to a local school, so that’s why as early as now we need them at level where they can speak, understand and write the language well enough to attend a local school there”.

For Jean-Mare Kuipers, a South African mom of a 1-year-old girl, the plan is still in making: “This is still very new for us, so we’re still figuring out the right way to do this. I am hoping she will pick up Afrikaans through songs and music, we like to play the radio during the day. I’ve been also thinking about starting with the OPOL method, where one parent speaks one language. It just makes sense to me. We do speak with the grandparents a lot, but I don’t think it will be enough. But then again, even if she only masters English and we go back home, it will be fine since the whole education system there is also in English.”

When it comes to teaching her children her native language, Denisse focuses on reading: “Reading in my mother tongue, going to the library to choose books and preparing lectures for what we call our mini book club. It is a small group of children that meets once a month to play and read under the rule that we can only speak in our language. Sometimes dictation and spelling.”

Things get even more complicated when there is more than 1 language involved. Which and how many languages should be prioritized? We’ve been told that kids pick up languages quickest in the first three years of their lives, but how many is too many or is there such thing as “too many languages”?

Polina Gumbu feels pretty confident about her ways: “Our family speaks 4 languages, both of us have our own mother tongue, plus English and since we are in China – we speak Chinese. We mainly speak English and it became native to our daughter. Her second language is Chinese because of school and we teach her Russian and Shona, our native languages. She can speak with her grandparents, sometimes needing translation. But she finds ways to communicate without words. We make sure she knows and feels loved by her relatives”.

For Ausma Karkle, a mom of 2, things are pretty clear: “We don’t teach our native languages (Latvian and Portugese) because we’re in China, and we didn’t want our kids to have communication barriers once they start kindergarten. They hear us talk to their grandparents in our respective languages, but we don’t translate for them. We don’t mix languages and speak exclusively English to them. The communication with our family members is obviously limited, but I don’t think it will be a problem later on, because once we go back to Latvia or Brazil, it will be total language immersion for them and I’m sure they will pick up both languages quickly.”

There are clearly many ways to deal with this, depending on your priorities and plan for the future. So what’s the right way for your family?

KEEP READING: 一，二，三! Methods and Apps To Help Your Child Learn Chinese

Images: Unsplash, Pexels

The term third culture kid (TCK) refers to a person who spends a significant part of their formative years being raised in a culture that is different from their parents. Among TCKs there is often a sense of not really belonging to the culture of the country that their parents originated from or the culture in which the family currently resides; hence, the development of a third culture.

Tanya Crossman is an Australian who spent two years living as a TCK in America. Since then, she has spent most of her adult life living in Asia.  She is a cross-cultural consultant with over 13 years of experience working with TCKs across the globe. Tanya frequently facilitates workshops at international schools with the aim of developing cross-cultural competency and equipping parents and teachers to better support children living cross-culturally. Tanya is the author of Misunderstood, a book that gives a voice to hundreds of TCKs.

Why did you decide to write this book?
Crossman: I was struck by how many parents feel guilty and are afraid that they are doing the wrong thing to their kids. My advice to parents is: Make the best choices you can with the information you have. If home is a safe space and you love your kids, that in itself will be a tremendous help. I wrote this book as a way to care for the parents, to be able to say, “I’ve spent the last ten years understanding these kids, let me tell you what I’ve learned.” I wanted to provide a little bit of insight and supply some helpful tools to parents who are doing their best. In this book, I’m being a bridge between parents and children who love each other but just aren’t seeing eye to eye.

What should parents know about TCKs?
Crossman: First, it’s important to understand that experiencing a different culture as a kid is completely different from experiencing a different culture as an adult. For a child, this is a formative experience that affects how their world view is formed. Their world view is being influenced by multiple world views.

Second, only 2 percent of the 750 people I interviewed for my book said that they would take back their experience if they could. The rest of the TCKs said that overall, being a TCK was a good experience. They said that being a TCK is an important part of who they are because they have integrated the good and the bad; they have learned to hold that together so that the bad things don’t make the whole thing bad.

How can parents support their TCKs?
Crossman: Something that is extremely helpful for TCKs is creating a safe space where kids can express different aspects of culture and not have to self-censor. Having a space where they can just be whatever mix they are. When parents are able to do this at home they get to know their real kids, not an act their kids put on based on their parent’s cultural expectations.

Choosing when to correct your kids and when to let it be OK is an important part of this. For example, certain table manners might be important in public but in our home, it doesn’t matter whether you use chopsticks or a fork or whether you pick up your rice bowl. It’s important to communicate that, in our home, there is room for different expressions of cultural preference. It can be difficult for parents to create this kind of space because it may mean that their children are not speaking their favorite language or conforming to their cultural way of doing things. And there may be a point of grief when you realize your child doesn’t prefer your comfort food or language and they don’t have the same cultural connections that you do. It’s important that you don’t try to make your kids fit into a cultural mold that they aren’t connected to. It’s refreshing for children to know that home is a place where they can go and relax; where they don’t have to worry about fitting in or making a mistake or pronouncing words correctly.

What are some other things parents can do to help?
Crossman: First, accept that you can’t fix everything- Parents need to come to terms with the fact that they cannot protect their kids from everything and they can’t fix everything.  A lot of parents feel the pressure to make their kids fit in. And so they spend all their time correcting their child’s pronunciation. And so the child is learning that they have to act this way for mom. The reality is that your child isn’t going to always fit in and their accent is going to be different. You can’t fix that, but what you can do is create a safe space so that when they hit those hard times they can come home and talk to you about them.

Also, provide access to pop culture and other cultural touch points. One of the TCKs I interviewed, related how when she was growing up her grandparents would send her videos of popular TV shows. They would record them off of the TV specifically for her and then ship them to her. When she grew up she discovered that a lot of her peers had memories of watching these same shows with their grandparents and so that became something that she could relate to. Parents can also expose their children to certain music and songs that are well known in their passport culture. Talking about things that are going on is also important; especially if the passport country is a nation that the global community is not aware of. Families can make what is going on in their passport country part of the family’s everyday life.

Before commencing university, young people will benefit from having extra time to just get used to how to live in that culture— It’s extremely helpful if the young person has an adult who can walk them through the process of getting set up in that new environment. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a parent; it can be a relative or family friend. Moving to a new location and getting settled at university usually necessitates navigating tons of paperwork. Having access to an adult who is well versed in living in that country can be a tremendous help. Things such as applying for a drivers license and signing up for government bursaries or grants can be overwhelming.

Be prepared for a delay. Sometimes there is a delay; a child might jump into everything and then a few months later it hits them. And then there can be outbursts of anger or resentment due to having to leave the previous country. These outbursts mean that you have created a safe space because your child is showing you how they feel. Nevertheless, it can be helpful for parents to have people that they can offload to as they support their kids through their own transition.

Tanya Crossman

What TCK work are you currently doing in Beijing?
Crossman: Most of my work is with international schools who bring me in to support their communities. I also do public talks from time to time, and plan to offer some evening and weekend seminars later this year. In addition to this, I am looking into producing video seminars. Since moving to Beijing, I’ve started to do a lot of work with Chinese families whose children are being educated at international schools. Although these children are being raised in their passport country they are being immersed in a culture that is different from their parents, and so there is still a level of support that such children require. I also have a blog that I regularly update with resources related to understanding and supporting TCKs.

Connect with Tanya

Website: www.misunderstood-book.com
WeChat: TCK_Tanya
Twitter: TanyaTCK
Facebook: MisunderstoodTCK
Instagram: MisunderstoodTCK

This article appeared in the beijingkids May 2019 Identity issue.
Photos: Courtesy of Tanya Crossman

There’s something beautiful about the thought that you and your significant other, whether they be from China or some other country, are a collection of genetic memories that span back thousands of years.

In my case, I can’t help but think about how for most of history, each of our families existed on opposite sides of the planet surviving conflicts, famine, and other challenges, then eventually on a whim our paths crossed, subsequently altering the history of our familial lines forever. Without sounding too royal in regards to the combining of our gene pools, and creating new alliances between east and west, we both come from very different backgrounds. We are also looking forward to how our child or future children interact with these differences when developing a unique identity of their own.

While the China experience is evolving and unique for every expat, there are some things that ring true for many, especially if you live in a multicultural home environment complete with in-laws, ayis, and other visitors. I’ve decided to compile some of the things that make my China experience special, and hopefully, provide some sensible chuckles in the process.

From the bottom of my heart, I thank my lucky stars to call these people family and Beijing home.

Generations

Many families have three or sometimes even four generations of family members under one roof. I’ll be the first to admit that when I learned my mother-in-law was buying a one-way ticket to Beijing, I was a bit nervous about sharing a slightly cramped apartment with another family member for an indefinite amount of time. She’s a wonderful woman with a beautiful heart, and she has always been very supportive of my wife and I. But I’m a bit of a control freak, and I’ve heard way too many stories about similar living situations that weren’t always positive. I can now say with certainty that having her around and giving her and my son more opportunities to get to know each other has been amazing. I now embrace having three generations under one roof, and I’m not sure I will ever let her leave. This also means more date nights!

Cold Feet

The health concerns regarding body temperature and its effects on health are still something I and many other foreigners living in China struggle to understand. I wouldn’t say it’s anything that’s a constant source of conflict at home, but it’s funny to watch your son fully clothed with jeans, shoes, and a jacket, just chilling on the couch watching “Peppa Pig”, while you’re sweating and chugging an iced tea and standing on tiles barefoot. I haven’t attempted to enforce a strict code of conduct in terms of an appropriate skin to fabric ratio for my son, and who am I to argue with my ayi, mother-in-law, and wife over 2,000 plus years of recorded traditional Chinese medicine? I’ll stick to the things I know … and maybe wear slippers.

Pending Identity Crisis

Our child is likely to be a little confused because though he has been in China since birth, and is half Chinese, he might never be considered Chinese by locals. His big beautiful eyes, pale complexion, and light colored hair make him unique. One of the uncomfortable truths about “being Chinese” is that it’s more about looking the part than it is about culture, language, or passport. I would personally support however my child chooses to define himself (currently he’s a dinosaur), but this will definitely be confusing in the future as there are three important cultural traditions (Chinese, Mongolian, and American) that will no doubt be competing for dominance.

Language Barriers

Your toddler spits out a mix of different languages, and while this would be incomprehensible to most people, you understand it as a sign of intelligence and the gift they will have of eventually being bilingual or trilingual. It’s amazing, and can also be adorable! However, patience in letting your child discover how languages are used and with whom to use them with, and at their own pace, is crucial.

Comfort Foods

I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve become a bit of a food snob over the past couple of years. Maybe because I’ve had the luxury of regularly sampling some of the best restaurants Beijing has to offer; it’s my job! On the other hand, it can be very nice coming home from work every day to your mother-in-law making various northern provincial staples (I’ve coined the term “winter survival food”) consisting of one meat, one veg, and two carbs. That said, I need to come clean about something. It was once a dream of mine to be able to eat Chinese food every day of the week. While my reality isn’t too far off from this aspiration, I think I’ll need to start shouldering more responsibility in the kitchen to make sure our diets are as diverse as our household.

Forced Feeding

I thought for a while that my son was a normal eater. But whenever family comes to visit they kind of go out of their way to tell us how skinny he is. So, we’re trying to get him to thicken up a bit. While force-feeding our son has proven to be a futile endeavor, that doesn’t stop my mother-in-law from trying whenever she gets a whiff of possible hunger. I admire and praise her persistence, and she has inspired me to try and do the same.

Reverse Culture Shock

When you return home to your passport country, you and your children are easily offended by family members for their cliché ideas about the other side of your family’s culture. This leads to a lot of awkward smiles and head nods, and small squabbles. I’ve been asked the whole gambit of questions, ranging from whether Beijing air is really like smoking two packs of cigarettes, to how the sushi is here, and even been accused of becoming a communist (it’s socialism with Chinese characteristics!). There are two sides to this, and even our family’s Chinese side has its own set of entertaining, yet sometimes forward questions such as “do foreigners use chopsticks?”, “how much money do you earn?”, or “can my child live with your parents in America when he goes to study?”   

Happy Holidays

Through marrying into a Chinese family, you’ve effectively doubled the number of holidays or other important events to celebrate. Good luck keeping track! You now need to know both Chinese and western holidays, days that keep changing because they are based on the Lunar Calendar, and sometimes even those controversial commercial holidays like 11/11. It can get very confusing, but these combined traditions from the west and east are the perfect way to create an even richer environment for a young person to grow up in.

Family Reunions

If you have a Chinese spouse, family members will often come to visit you in Beijing with little or no warning, and the duration of their stay is also usually not stated (it’s rude to ask). It might be hours, or it might be days or even weeks. Regardless, there’s a big chance they will be hanging out on your couch in their pajamas for a duration of the visit. It’s actually quite pleasant, and the hospitality is usually returned when you visit these family members in the future.

Trips to Visit Family

When you visit family members in other provinces, it is an event. Expect banquet-style meals, intense drinking sessions for the husbands, and hospitality that’s always beyond expectation. It’s beautiful, albeit a bit overwhelming. But we love these visits, as it’s always about doing the things that you just can’t do in Beijing. Whether it’s getting to know the family elders, eating a particular food, or just gazing at the stars outside a yurt in a sea of grass, these are the times when you get to really know your adoptive family’s culture and experience its history.

Friendships

Much like the myth that your body completely rejuvenates itself every seven years, you lose and gain new friends every couple of years as well. Many expats like me are firmly and indefinitely rooted in Beijing, or China. It’s sad but a real part of expat life that both you and your children will be experiencing friends you love eventually leaving. But look on the bright side, now you have a couch to stay on or a free meal in countries around the world.

Civil Disobedience

There was one time shortly after the birth of our son when my mother-in-law wanted to feed our son rendered milk fat, or ghee, which can potentially be risky for newborns to consume, especially when they are only a couple of hours old. Though it has obvious health benefits when it comes to digestion, it is usually recommended after six months. My mother was a little worried and advised against it. The answer to this was to feed the baby the diluted ghee in secret, without my mother’s knowledge. It’s something that Grandma has done for all of her children and grandchildren, and she wasn’t going to risk not doing it with our little one. These acts of turning a blind eye to simple acts of noncompliance, like turning off the air purifier, not fully cleaning off dishes after use, or redecorating our apartment with floral fabrics, have become a source of humor in our home, but no doubt cause friction at times.

Space Management

While there are numerous benefits to living in a household with multiple generations, you quickly learn that a minimalist aesthetic is unattainable. I wouldn’t dream of “Marie Kondo-ing” my mother-in-law to fix this. She brings way too much joy! However, every area of our apartment is now storage for every spare thing you can imagine. If you have the luxury of a balcony, it is almost certain that it will be used to store cardboard boxes or become repurposed to refrigerate food during the winter if the icebox is full. I’m not going down without a fight though. This summer, it will become the cozy reading nook that I’ve always dreamed it could be.

Relinquishing the Remote Control

If you’re anything like me, you are outnumbered when it comes time to watch your programs. Your TV might have an infinite selection of “harmonized” Hollywood films, but the youngsters watch their cartoons, then Grandma likes to watch her news after dinner, and when that’s all over it’s bedtime. Not a bad thing, but Game of Thrones is now in full swing, and most grandmas probably wouldn’t appreciate this particular kind of programming that’s brimming with fantasy violence and unsaintly behavior.

What Is Home?

Home isn’t your passport country. It’s where you make life and experience new things daily. When you do return to your passport country, you find yourself feeling a bit like a fish out of water; unaware of pop culture references and slang, and unaccustomed to large single serving meals instead of sharing a variety of plates with the family. Ultimately home is just a place where there is an intense concentration of love, feelings of warmth, and an unlimited amount of selflessness, and that’s what I feel between experiencing these shared moments with my wife, child, and mother-in-law.

This article appeared in the beijingkids May 2019 Identity issue.
Photo: Kipp Whittaker

As parents of children growing up in an international environment, it’s natural for us to wonder how their experiences might shape their future. Very often, our children had no part in the decision to move to Beijing, and we hope that the advantages of learning new languages and gaining a global perspective will outweigh the challenges they face.

It might be reassuring then to learn that some of those former third culture kids return to Beijing as adults. We talked to three of them, about their experiences of growing up in the city, and what brought them back here to work.

Greta Bradford was not only a Beijing kid, but actually featured in the very first issue of beijingkids! Back then she was a teen attending the International School of Beijing (ISB).

“I moved to Beijing from Portland, Oregon, when I was 16,” she told us. “I went to ISB, and met many friends on the first day! Making friends from so many countries definitely changed my worldview. The war in Iraq and Afghanistan were underway and classmates would frequently discuss or debate the US role in global politics from many perspectives. Having friends from different backgrounds has enriched my empathy and world perspective.”

Lincoln Lin was much younger (in featured photo) when he first came to Beijing. He was born in the US to a Chinese father and American mother, but as he told us, things could have been different.

Lincoln Lin

“It was always planned that I would be born in the States, but mom has harrowing tales of getting over while six months pregnant.”

He began visiting his father in China when his parents separated, and his earliest memories of Beijing are dominated by concrete.

“In the US, we lived in a regular old brick house. Then there I was at 5 or 6 in this massive concrete building, playing with Lego on a mat… the walls, the ceiling, everything was concrete.”

For Christian Shepherd, originally from Milton Keynes in the UK, it’s the memories of England which stand out as exceptional.

“We came to Beijing to live when I was 4,” he said. “We stayed for two years and then returned to a village in south England for a year, when my sister was born, before returning in 1998 and staying until 2005. My only clear memories of early childhood living outside Beijing are from that year. They are mostly straightforward scenes of country living: football on the village green, Sunday lunches at the local pub, building a treehouse with my stepfather and brothers, that kind of thing.”

Shepherd studied at the Western Academy of Beijing, and like Bradford, found international school an enriching experience.

“My friends came from all over. Aside from fellow Brits, my closest mates over the years included Russians, Finns, Australians, Germans, South Africans, Japanese, Canadians, and Americans, among many others. This meant that I had unusual exposure to different cultures. In my experience, multiculturalism is baked into the system for international schools. I attended Bar-mitzvahs and celebrated Eid. On UN Day, one of the biggest events of the year, everyone would bring in home-made dishes that showed off their country’s cuisine. (I tended to settle for the trifle.)”

In another way though, he says that his worldview was “oddly narrow.”

“Very few, if any, of my friends, were actually from China – at the time, it was almost impossible for Chinese parents to send their children to Beijing’s international schools – and they were also almost exclusively from a similar socioeconomic background to my family. We all went on beach holidays to Southeast Asia and skiing holidays in Europe. Everyone had ayis and drivers. It wasn’t until I went back to the UK and attended a local state school that I made friends who lived outside that bubble.”

Living with his artist father in Beijing and Yunnan, Lin had a very different style of education.

“Most of my formal schooling was at Bethesda, Maryland, but I did a lot of time in China, over a summer or half a year. I was in China for all of 7th grade and part of 8th, but I was either at a Waldorf school, being homeschooled, or learning from martial artists. I wasn’t enrolled in public school.”

Being divided between two worlds caused him some problems, but not as many as you might expect.

“I went from Kindergarten to 12th grade in the same Waldorf school,” he said, “so my US friends were largely the same all the way through. Because I wasn’t always there, I spent a big chunk of time off the grid. I always had a few good friends that I could just pick back up with, but there were times I would come back and feel totally isolated, especially if I spent a year or longer away. But I never felt discriminated against because of race. Because I look more western-looking, race was never an issue. It’s always an issue in China though.”

For Shepherd, on the other hand, returning home in his teens was a shock, at least at first.

“We moved to a small rural town [Richmond in Yorkshire] and many of my peers had seen little of the world outside. A number of my friends had not been abroad before. Fortunately, I made some very good mates in high school and got over my reverse culture shock quite quickly, so by the time I went to university, I felt more like a Richmonder than I did a Beijinger.

Christian Shepherd

“At university, the environment was already more mixed. There were a few things that created a sense of difference. I lacked some of the shared understanding, like TV shows or common early childhood experiences, that drew people together. But then I suspect everyone tends to feel like that to a degree when they enter a new environment. I remember hearing similar complaints from my high school mates about university friends from southern England, who seemed to them to have totally alien cultural touchstones.”

Shepherd graduated from Oxford University, then returned to China to study for an MA at Nottingham University’s Ningbo campus.

“My choice to go to Nottingham was partly an attempt to put off not knowing what I wanted to do, and also a bridge back to China. I hadn’t used Mandarin for almost seven years and I was annoyed – and mildly shocked – to find how far I had regressed. After my MA, I attended the Inter-University Language Program (IUP) at Tsinghua for a year, which got me to a level where I felt mostly comfortable getting around in Mandarin at work and in daily life.”

It was his language skills which led to Shepherd’s current career.

“I decided that I wanted to try journalism,” he said. “It proved a bit harder than I had imagined – my Mandarin was not nearly as good as I thought and my understanding of China was superficial and often just plain wrong – but I eventually managed, after two years studying and multiple internships, to find a job as a journalist. I have covered China now for nearly four years, at Reuters and the Financial Times.”

For Bradford too the IUP proved to be a route to working in Beijing.

“I went to Oberlin College and studied Chinese and environmental studies. I never would have studied Chinese if I hadn’t been living in Beijing! After I graduated I moved back to Beijing to study advanced Chinese at IUP. Then in 2015, a few friends and I got the crazy idea to start our own video agency. Relay Video has now been around for three years, and has offices in Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen.”

Greta Bradford (left)

When we asked Lin why he returned to Beijing, he laughed.

“I never really left!” he said. “I come back every year. My plans are to continue doing what I’ve been doing, bouncing back and forth between China and the US. I’ve worked for big companies, small companies… I’ve worked in policy and economic analysis, translating political analysis, then I got a great opportunity to work for a Chinese startup tech company. I’d like to become a credible, interesting voice talking about Chinese-American issues.”

We asked him where he considers “home”.

“It depends who’s asking, where, and why. I have a racial ambiguity card in my pocket which makes it easy to walk away from difficult situations! I identify as someone from Kunming and Beijing. But I usually say Virginia.”

Bradford describes both Beijing and Oregon as home.

“With a business in Beijing I plan to stay here for a while,” she said. “Beijing is a city that continues to inspire me.”

For Shepherd, the answer is simpler.

“Unlike other people who have grown up abroad, I’m lucky in feeling quite comfortable simply identifying as British, which I think came from spending my high school years in Richmond. My parents are British and it would frankly be a tad ridiculous if I started claiming to be Chinese. So I’ve always just said I’m from the UK, and from Richmond specifically, given that’s where I have the most memories. So far the only people that tend to quibble are real Yorkshire folk, who point out that I was born in the south. Turns out that some in Yorkshire are about as prescriptive over identity as China is…”

This article appeared in the beijingkids May 2019 Identity issue.
Photos: Courtesy of Greta Bradford, Lincoln Lin, and Christian Shepherd

Brooke and Aeijaha are best friends at a Chinese private school in Beijing.

Brooke is 8 years old, in the second grade, and has lived in China since she was in kindergarten. When she smiles her whole face lights up, with that light and joy moving from the corner of her mouth and spreading to her eyes and the rest of her face.

Aeijha (pronounced similar to Asia) is 9 years old, in third grade, and drips confidence behind her cool glasses and hair, which looks amazing no matter how she styles it. Aeijha just moved to Beijing last year, after being born and raised in Thailand.

Both are the children of expatriate teachers and both have faced bullying for their appearance here in China, a problem encountered by many expat children in a seemingly homogeneous society. Their appearance is unfamiliar to the average Chinese family, and often local children, teachers, and parents struggle to relate to those from a diverse background.

Brooke’s mother, Mel Williams, first thought her daughter was having difficulty due to being new in China. “I happened to look out the window of my classroom and saw that she was on the playground and no one else would play with her. She wasn’t crying, she was sliding and playing by herself, but no one would play with her.”

That day when Williams picked her up from school, Brooke confirmed that no one would play with her. “I told her that it was OK and that we were new to China.” But as the year progressed, Brooke still wasn’t making any friends. “It took a while, but once she learned a little bit of Chinese, then she started to make a few more friends.”

“She went through that in both kindergarten and first grade. I had to speak to the teacher when kids started to bully her. They would walk by her desk and snatch things, then rip them up. Their solution was to separate these children from her.”

That didn’t really solve the problem, as Brooke would continue to come home and tell Williams she was being bullied. Then Brooke began to fight back.

“Other teachers would come to me and say that she kicked somebody or that she pushed somebody down the stairs,” Williams explained.

Williams feels it doesn’t matter if the school is international or not, and in some ways, she found that it was worse in the international school, where children seemed to be “cliquish.” She suspects the root issue here is that when children grow up inside the same circles, they aren’t comfortable with making friends outside of their normal social circle.

Williams’ main tactic as a parent has been to help Brooke use her voice and to treat others with kindness. “I’ve told her that she has to use her voice, because she has one. She needs to tell people the things that she doesn’t like, and if it doesn’t stop, she can find something else to do. And if someone is bullying her, she can tell someone and ask for help. I would tell Brooke to always be polite and to introduce herself to people.”

Brooke had a better year in first grade when there were other expatriate children in the classroom. Issues remain with a handful of students who are not accustomed to non-Chinese peers, and these students will at times seek to be negative toward her.

Aeijha told me her parents have a similar response. They told her “treat people as you want to be treated,” and to rise above the bullying.

Besides simply looking different to peers, another issue of bullying is hiding behind language, when a peer is unaware that the girls can understand them. Williams told us: “I just reported to the teacher for the second time that a boy had been picking on her in class, not realizing her Chinese is actually really good. He tried to deny that he was picking on her, but another child confirmed it.”

During Aeijha’s interview, she confirmed that hiding behind language is an issue, and that in her own bullying experience when a group of older boys had made fun of her, calling her “fat,” they didn’t know she could understand them until the boys were confronted by the Student Affairs office. The principal required these students to apologize, but Aeijha felt the apology was inauthentic and “it really didn’t help.” When asked why, she explained they clearly were being forced. The only incident of bullying she experienced in Thailand at the International School of Bangkok was followed by a sincere apology from the student.

For Brooke, talking about bullying was much harder, and she wanted to present to me a picture of a strong girl who ignored bullying and dealt with problems herself. As we went through questions, Brooke would give Williams a look of, “I’ve got this. No, I’m not sharing that story.” Brooke began to tear up when she shared what her teacher said after a bullying incident, “My teacher said, I am perfect the way I am. It makes me confident that I can deal with these problems.”

Williams’ suggestions for schools and teachers is to offer sensitivity training so students have expectations laid out for them of how to treat others from diverse backgrounds. Teachers need to be on the lookout for signs of bullying. “For parents, they need to build their child’s self-esteem if you’re choosing to live abroad in an unfamiliar place, especially if local children are not open to expats.” She encourages parents to talk to their children about people who are different and how to have friends who are different. She has noticed that any child who is “different” can cause other children to make fun, as she has witnessed this with overweight Chinese children and an Autistic Chinese child.

Preston Thomas, currently employed at RDFZ Chaoyang Branch School as a Senior English Teacher, has lived in China for eight years and witnessed bullying due to differences while at his last international school, where the makeup of students was more heterogeneous.

“One incident was because the student was… half Chinese and half Australian; he was ridiculed because he was not fully Chinese and his Mandarin was not good enough. He was also insulted because his parents were divorced. Other incidents I saw were Chinese students insulting each other for darker skin tones.”

Thomas confronted this issue and others like it by talking to the students being bullied for both comfort and encouragement, but by also using the opportunity to explicitly teach about diversity.

“When students were judging other students based on skin color, I actually made it a point to make a lesson devoted to diversity. I told them that if they practice this behavior abroad, people won’t take it lightly. I reminded them, they are all citizens of the world. They will meet many different people from many walks of life and by judging solely by skin color is racist. Also, it is highly offensive and someday they might be the victims if they continue this behavior.”

Parents were not contacted in any of the cases, and the school overall did not offer support to teachers, students, or parents in dealing with either bullying nor diversity. Instead, teachers would talk among one another to make sure if a particular student was being targeted, they could all be on alert and address any incidents that might arise.

Thomas suggested for teachers, “One great resource, although dated, is A Class Divided. It is a great resource to promote diversity and understanding especially in younger kids, as it touches on race and passing judgment based on skin color.”

For parents, Thomas stressed the importance of being in the lives of children, asking questions and making sure the child feels comfortable talking. It is also important to know who friends are and to sometimes ask difficult questions, especially if a parent might suspect their child is bullying someone else. “Finally, don’t pass judgment. Give them the reasons why it is wrong to target someone, don’t just yell at them.”

While interviewing both girls, I couldn’t help reflect how my own children have fared in a Chinese private school. My son has been accepted easily, has had many friends, and has been even called “zhongguoren” by his peers. My daughter, being blonde haired and blue eyed, has not fared as well, including some teachers assuming, despite her bilingualism, that they can’t explain to her well if they don’t use English. But I learned to make extra effort so she would thrive socially.

My biggest tip for younger ages is to send a bag of candy or rubber erasers to class with your child, so even for that day they’re the classroom favorite. I also make sure to stay on the “good side” of teachers, as they are my child’s biggest advocates in the classroom.

One of my favorite stories is when her homeroom teacher stood up and explained that, “Yes she is different, she has different color hair and eyes, but we are all a family here in this classroom. We help each other.”

Lastly, though it wasn’t always easy to overcome culture, language,and my own introverted personality, I made sure to hang out with the parents of her classmates so she would have additional opportunities for one-on-one time with her peers. Children who had bullied her would stop when they saw how much their parents liked my daughter. It paid off, with many of her kindergarten friends remaining her friends even when they transferred to grade school and different classrooms.

This article appeared in the beijingkids May 2019 Identity issue.
Photos: Williams family

Beijing now has nearly 150 English-medium, K-12 international schools, and the number is growing every year. Priorities for these schools are usually focused around providing high-quality academic education, and offering a range of extracurricular activities to encourage students’ interests and talents. But what are schools doing to help students cherish their own unique cultural characteristics, while also discovering, experiencing, and possibly adopting the cultures of the country that they currently call home?

Whether you are from a multicultural family or a third culture kid (TCK), the process of finding your identity or sense of home is never crystal clear. That’s why culturally-focused study and increased sensitivity to the needs of a diverse student body are taken very seriously in Beijing’s international schools.

Ralf Mayenberger, in addition to being an English and German teacher at Beijing World Youth Academy (BWYA), is a parent of two Third Culture Kids. Last year he was asked as part of a BWYA student’s independent study project to take part in a TEDx talk on campus exploring this topic of TCKs. He began his research by creating a 78-question online survey for students to get involved. What he began to realize through his findings is that many children don’t have the luxury of the universal idea of home being a single place filled with familiar people, and a sense of familial history, like he had grown up within Germany.

Ralf Mayenberger

New definitions of home are created by the connections made through being in and exploring a particular place, specifically the schools which these students attend. It was through this that he realized the importance of friendship and the school environment for TCKs. It’s friendship which not only allows kids from multiple cultures to find comfort in very foreign settings, but it also gives them the necessary skills to adapt and create a sense of home anywhere around the world.

Being an international student means receiving an education that was created to establish globally-minded individuals. While many consider this to be one of the essential skills of the future, becoming globally-minded doesn’t come without its own set of challenges and confusion.

About this Mayenberger commented: “One thing about identity is that it’s not so easy to say what you are. So if I ask my children, ‘What are you? Are you German, or are you Filipino?’ it’s not so easy to answer. They might say ‘I’m Chinese’ because they were born in China. At one point my daughter said she was English because that was her first language. I’m from Germany, and my wife is from the Philippines, so both of those choices have nothing to do with our household.”

For many expat children born in China, being considered Chinese by the general populace is not an option. There are obvious hurdles in regards to receiving physical proof in the form of a Chinese passport, but then there are other differences that are glaringly apparent. For many, when it comes to being viewed as Chinese, you either are or you are not.

So there is a big responsibility for international schools to compensate for this deficit and create a classroom environment that’s equally accommodating to foreigners and locals alike, building the perfect foundation to influence students to think more globally, and adapting traditional and local methods to make sure the needs of all students are met.

One example of adapting a curriculum to fit the needs of a diverse student body can be found at The International Montessori School of Beijing (MSB), where currently 21 nationalities are represented. One thing that’s notable about MSB is that its approach towards Montessori learning has been altered to better suit the needs of Beijing’s foreign children, along with the children with foreign passports who might nonetheless identify as being Chinese. They call this the Dual Language Program (DLP). Kids are made to split their day between both English- and Mandarin-focused instruction to make sure they get equal exposure to each language, along with its respective cultural and social offshoots.

MSB’s Principal Rufus Samkin, says; “There’s a big part of the Montessori curriculum called Cosmic Education, and so, kind of ironically, Cosmic Education focuses on how civilizations of people are the same, what their similar needs are. From early elementary school, the children are challenged with this concept that there are all of these people coming from different places. They look different, they speak different, they eat different things, they have different religions or beliefs or ceremonies, but they are tied together by similarities.”

Rufus Samkin

As a child, Samkin was in a similar position to many of his students. He too was a TCK, following his father as he was assigned to work on engineering projects across Africa. He went to local schools, learning the local language, and did his best to assimilate into these cultures. These formative experiences also influence his understanding and governance of MSB, as he’s well aware of the importance of providing students with a learning environment which is mindful of the local culture, but which also needs to remain in line with the international standards of the Montessori pedagogy. It’s about finding balance.

Though MSB’s dual language program has an established track record, providing young students with the best of both worlds, currently they are also looking into the One Person, One Language model (OPOL), which has also proven to be highly effective in this sort of multilingual learning environment.

Samkin said “One of the beautiful things about the Montessori model is that it’s so adaptable. By design, and something that Maria Montessori wanted from the inception, it is something that could transcend cultural barriers and could be taught anywhere by anybody because it’s taught in the language of humans and not in the language of any one culture.”

Thinking about what we share as human beings is essential in keeping students engaged in what they are learning, and able to apply it to their own lives. Instead of school just being a lengthy and tiring exercise of rote memorization, kids need to be able to take materials learned in class and apply them to situations common to their own experience.

When talking about choosing the right teaching materials that align with the experiences of his students, Mayenberger explained: “Based on their interests they start using what’s presented in the unit and transform it, creating connections to their own lives, and with that, they work on something they want to work with. Though still working on the unit, they are doing it with people with the same ideas, and it helps to create a sense of community.”

In addition to the selection of appropriate materials used to teach throughout different units of a particular subject, students are given opportunities to dive deeper into ideas of culture and identity outside the classroom.

“Students learn a lot through the unspoken, and through interactions with each other. After-school activities are very rich experiences because you are putting the kids together, they’re socializing and interacting in a way that’s not a traditional classroom environment. It’s very much real world. Whatever the activity is, they stop thinking about who they are and where they come from. Actually, when you’re talking about cultural diversity or cultural education, that’s what you want. It’s not ‘my friend who’s Chinese; it’s just ‘my friend’. That’s exactly what happens through the subconscious and the unspoken, and it’s really important,” Samkin stated.

At Harrow Beijing, the founding of the Zhi Li Society, a club intent on injecting more elements of Chinese culture into the school through a collaborative effort between students, staff, and parents, was inspired not by the lack of Chinese culture on campus, but by the need to have more of a student voice in the process of planning these activities.

Harrow Beijing’s Zhi Li Society

This need led to the society’s founding last year, in January 2018. At that time the school was also considering this question, because of the increased popularity of Harrow among Chinese families, and more students expressing interest in Chinese culture.

Rosemary Zhao, Assistant Head Mistress of Harrow Beijing said: “Through the Zhi Li Society we want to help and facilitate our students to understand who they are, where they come from, and what they would like to be in the future. Because they are all, in a way, in a third culture environment at this school.”

While the arts and crafts, which are very much a part of the Zhi Li Society, provide entry points into a greater understanding of Chinese culture, their main focus is the organizing of events and other school-wide activities that correspond to the Chinese holiday calendar. So far they’ve run poetry contests, left Lantern Festival-themed riddles around campus, and are even hosting a “Dragon Boat Race” between Harrow Houses on the football pitch in June.

While the society’s weekly meetings are only open to students in Year 4 and above, Nathan Moore, Economics and Business Studies teacher, said; “I think it was the activities that we’re running within the wider school community which allow us to include everyone. So the lower school students very much take part in the Zhi Li Society just by participating in the activities that we’re running.”

Vicky, one student who is heavily involved in the Zhi Li Society, told beijingkids: “The Zhi Li Society has had a lasting impact on my future because as I’m applying to schools to study politics, I wrote about conflicts in cultures and civilizations and how these shape the world. I wrote in my application how my experience in the Zhi Li Society, in such a multicultural environment, helped me to see the world and to rethink what I want to do in the future.”

Emily, another advocate for the group, said: “It offered me a lot of opportunities because many of the events are discussed by everyone including teachers and parents, but it is mainly run by us, the students. It has given me a lot of leadership opportunities.”

An international school is a complex ecosystem of identities, which has to address the needs of students who come from many parts of the world. At the heart is the paradox that the globally-minded citizens of the future need to start by having a clear sense of who they are and where they come from. For children growing up in a culturally complex environment, this is a challenge; but with careful handling, helping them rise to this challenge can be empowering and enriching.

This article appeared in the beijingkids May 2019 Identity issue.
Photos: Kipp Whittaker; courtesy of Harrow Beijing

It’s nearly bedtime and my kids are brushing their teeth. I overhear this discussion from the bathroom:

“My friend Amelia went to another guojia (country) and she’s never coming back ever, ever.”

“Oh! Last year, my friend Fuluolong went to Faguo [France] and he said, ‘Uhm, il ne va pas revenir non plus (he’s not coming back either).”

“Maybe one day we will go away to Canada, Mommy said.”

“Yeah.”

“Hey, don’t tu (spit) on my side!…”

I’m listening to this from the kitchen, and since the conversation has deteriorated into an argument, I know I’ll have to intervene any second. But as I dry my hands, my thoughts are on the uniqueness of my children’s “third culture” lives.

They are speaking in their particular combination of three languages. English is their “mother tongue,” or the language I reinforce as the Anglo Canadian, but Chinese is their surroundings and the exclusive language of their grandparents and father. They’re attending the French international school, so they sometimes bounce into a partial French sentence, which I find amusing because of their France-French lilt against my (preferred) Quebecois accent. Nevertheless, with each other, they’re in a perpetual linguistic dance.

But their lives aren’t just unique because of language. They’re living here in Beijing and, like me, they deal with the regularity of friend disappearances. They’re so used to it, it’s just a casual conversation while brushing their teeth, and I wonder at how this will impact their abilities to bond with people throughout their lives. It’s shifted my own instincts around friendship after only a decade of expat living—and not in a very positive way—so I can only hope that my children are more resilient than I’ve been.

According to TCK (third culture kid) literature, children who experience a life surrounded by the transience of ex-patriotism learn to make friends more quickly but at a lesser depth so that the inevitable disappearance of these friends hurts less. This knowledge makes me sad for them. I hope I can always model close friendship even across distance.

But as I sort out their spitting argument and hustle them into PJs and eventually bed, I’m also still thinking about how lucky they are. They’re living a life geared up to be fully proficient in the world’s two most important languages: English and Mandarin. They’re also learning French, which makes them fully proficient in the country for which they hold a passport, not to mention fairly versatile globally, as well. What’s not to champion about knowing a romance language?

But, maybe more important is the consistent exposure to multiple cultures and societies. Our frequent returns to Canada (specifically Toronto: now deemed the world’s most diverse city by BBC radio) and their daily school life in Beijing at an international school that proudly states that in 2019 they “welcome 50 nationalities,” my kids are living a life incredibly rich in humanity.

The unique upbringing of any TCKs will bring challenges, such as a difficulty finding people to relate to, perhaps, or a tendency to think from a non-conventional angle thanks to these different lenses through which they have perceived the world at these young, impressionable ages; but, these skills and sensitivities—things that are second nature to them rather than accomplishments—will certainly provide more lift than burden to their respective futures.

As I tuck my two TCKs into bed, I feel a familiar comfort: they’ll always have each other. Beijing is home now, but ultimately, “home” is where your teeth get brushed, your spitting fights happen, where your loved ones are. No specific geography required.

About the Writer

Ember Swift is a Canadian musician and writer who has been living in Beijing since late 2008. She has a daughter called Echo (国如一) and a son called Topaz or “Paz” (国世龙).

This article appeared in the beijingkids May 2019 Identity issue.
Photo: Aleksandar Pasaric via Pexeks

As expats come and go to Beijing, they bring with them their culture, which brings more diversity to the already exciting and colorful Chinese capital. However, celebrating multiculturalism here in China is easier said than done.

You may have seen or heard of local online articles that talk about racism or prejudice in China, both on the sides of foreigners and locals. There are polarizing opinions on that issue, but it becomes contentious once it reaches the vulnerable minds of children whose identities and perceptions of the world are still being formed.

For this edition of Doctor’s Corner, we invited Dr. Mike Mehrvarz, a child and adult psychologist at the International Medical Center (IMC), to talk about multiculturalism and its links to the mental health of children.

How do you define a multicultural child?
Dr. Mehrvarz: A multicultural child could be either a child born with parents from different nationalities with cultural uniqueness, or a child spending the most part of his or her life growing up overseas and exposed to local culture.

What are the issues associated with multiculturalism and what effect do they have on the emotional and mental health of children?
Dr. Mehrvarz: Aside from the parenting style, which is important for children’s normal psychological development, multiculturalism can become quite challenging for children. Of course, this highly depends on the mode of parenting, especially when parents make their children feel comfortable in a new culture and themselves comfortable as well. It’s hard for a child to accept a diverse culture if his/her parents themselves don’t feel comfortable and often complain or bring up negative issues about the local culture they are living in.

Childhood is quite a challenging journey, and if you add multicultural factors such as the child not feeling they are accepted, this could lead him/her to develop anxiety and depression. Sometimes, such emotional manifestations can lead to a learning difficulty, anger, fear, behavior problems, and more.

What kinds of issues do mixed-race or multicultural children face?
Dr. Mehrvarz: Human beings sometimes have a tendency to become part of a group of similar people and may, deep inside, reject other groups based on race, habits, and cultural issues, among many other factors. This might be due to the universal sense of insecurity humans may feel. And in order to feel strong and safe, we need to join groups whose members have similar experiences to ours. Of course, in our current civilized world, some try to change that tendency, but one cannot deny that its results exist almost in every culture. The mode of rejection, in this case, is due to racial issues which can lead to what we call “prejudice”. Now, children who are exposed to such resistance or prejudice from other groups obviously may develop a wide range of emotional difficulties such as low self-confidence, depression, anxiety, and possibly even learning difficulties. However, if the parents of these children are emotionally secure, psychologically grounded, have a healthy sense of self, and teach their children such attributes, then these kids would be far less impacted emotionally.

What kind of issues do Chinese children experience when they start living abroad?
Dr. Mehrvarz: From my experience living in China for over two decades, some children are not psychologically prepared and or not old enough to deal with culture shock, isolation, and the struggle to fit in, which every child can face when suddenly living in a new culture. Children need to live with their parents till the age of 18 to develop a healthy sense of self, identity, and happiness. Otherwise, these children may develop a wide range of emotional problems, which includes low self-confidence.

What kind of opportunities can we derive from multiculturalism?
Dr. Mehrvarz: The positive issues which can derive from multiculturalism can include the child becoming part of the global human race, meaning they feel comfortable with various cultures and habits, and enjoy the positive factors which derive from all these colorful cultures. In adulthood, these children can adventure to any corner of the globe feeling comfortable, excited, and able to face the many challenges they encounter.

This article appeared in the beijingkids May 2019 Identity issue.
Photos: Markus Spiske Temporausch.com via Pexels; courtesy of Mike Mehrvarz

What is it that motivates us to pick up everything we can and firmly plant ourselves in countries and cultures that are very foreign to us? It might be due to our professions, or it might be the need for adventure, but regardless of these experiences, they can change us and our understanding of the world.

Often I think about why I wish to stay in China, when I could quickly return to America with my family to a small idyllic suburb, where it’s immaculately clean, warm most of the year, only an hour drive from the beach, and there’s an above average public school system. On paper, it all sounds great!

If we did make the move back, I feel there’s an essential piece of my child’s identity that would be missing. From me, he gets his usual mix of European ancestry that many Americans share, but from his mother, he gets his Mongolian and Chinese characteristics. Here he is complex, but if we moved back to the States, he would simply be American. It’s an easy and not very complicated distinction. But in China, his existence will be heaps more challenging for him.

I am not trying to go out of my way to make my child’s life more complicated, even if it may seem like that’s exactly what we are doing. There are other motives at work. It’s kind of like that Johnny Cash song, “A Boy Named Sue,” but without the whole part about the father abandoning his son for his drifter lifestyle.

I feel that giving my son an easy and convenient life, where his identity is clearly defined, isn’t necessarily the best for him. Beijing is by no means rife with discrimination for people like my son, but I want him to be challenged culturally so that he’ll not only be bilingual (or trilingual) but also decide who and what he wants to be. To do this, he must remain connected with his Mongolian Chinese heritage and hopefully feel as passionate about this part of himself as his mother does. It’s a beautiful thing to be proud of where you come from, and in all likelihood, he won’t quite understand why it’s so special until he’s older.

This issue is filled with people who have journeyed down similar paths of discovery to those my son will need to eventually start along, together with some of the resources they have gathered to guide them along the way.

We talked to some third culture kids who grew up in Beijing and eventually came back, to find out what it was about their experiences here that led to their return (p48). In Schooled (p38), we talked to Beijing international schools about how they strive to not only help children discover a balance between being globally minded and maintaining their identity, but also some of the tools they use to make these formative years more fruitful. And on page 54, we explain how cultural intelligence can help both us and our children to navigate these complex issues.

All in all, there was a lot of fun had in the making of this issue, and we learned a lot about how kids are not only susceptible to their environments but also very adaptable and strong when it comes to figuring out who they are and who they eventually want to become.

This article appeared in the beijingkids May 2019 Identity issue.
Photo: Dave’s Studio