Students from the British School of Beijing, Shunyi (BSB Shunyi) Create Humorous Impressions of Their Dads Based on Distorted Photos

Adrianna T. (Hong Kong) Age 8

I like my Dad because he is always kind to me and looks after me. He is funny and makes me laugh.

Arnaud B. (Belgium) Age 7

I like my Dad because he plays with me and helps me with my homework. He tells funny jokes and always makes me laugh. He is always there to help me.

Sihyun J. (Korea) Age 7

I like my Dad because he plays with me and cooks me some lovely, yummy food. He also goes with me to the playground and gives me cakes.

Sophie L. (France) Age 7

I like my Dad because he is funny. He is nice to me all the time. He also plays the saxophone to me when I am sleeping.

Michelle W. (Hong Kong) Age 7

I like my Dad because he is funny and he is kind. I like playing jokes and making cupcakes with him. I also like my little sister because she is nice.

Siena M. (USA) Age 7

I like my Dad because he is very funny and really kind. He always calls me his Little Princess. He likes riding his bike with me and giving me tickles. My Dad is always telling me jokes.

JuBeen P. (Korea) Age 8

My Dad is my best friend. He is always funny and happy.  He likes animals too because they are cute. Do you know him?

Camilla C. (Canada) Age 7

I like my Dad because he is very kind and funny. He is always teaching me new things. I always watch TV with him. When I ask if I can watch TV, he says,” Yes you can watch as long as you do your homework.”

This article appeared in the beijingkids November 2019 Beijing Baba issue

Beijing has changed my child. I thought I was prepared for many scenarios moving to China. I anticipated that we would not understand a thing, that it would be very difficult adjusting to this new culture. However what I did not anticipate is that my daughter is seen as a rare species.

When we arrived after a 14 hour flight we had to make our way to the hotel and we were so tired and overwhelmed, that we did not notice that people where acting differently towards our family. Then we decided that we should visit the Forbidden City, stupidly on a Saturday. We realized very soon the scope of what awaited us. People swarmed around my daughter, touching her, talking to her, talking pictures, and soon we turned into the attraction. Now, don’t get me wrong, everybody was friendly and very curious. But my daughter got scared, and I am very protective of her private space; my husband a bit less so as he is Latin so he is used to people being closer to him. I however am a true Dutch girl and I do not appreciate people coming too close to me.

I try to teach my daughter that you can’t just touch other kids if they don’t want to be touched, and that she can always say no if she does not want a hug. That day in the Forbidden City I was perplexed. I had never encountered being touched by strangers, and especially my then 3-year-old blonde toddler had almost never been touched against her will. We have been in Beijing over a year now, and I can see that my daughter knows the pattern of many people. They call her beautiful over and over and over again. Many people take pictures of Laila. People have followed us; people have tried to pick Laila up. Parents have put their children next to my child for a photo opportunity. Strange men have followed us around the compound to take pictures of my daughter. And on several occasions I have had to push people away from her, after repeatedly telling them not to touch her. An old lady has tried to walk away with my daughter in the stroller while we where shopping in the supermarket.

How does this all affect my daughter, you might wonder? She has increasingly gotten hostile towards people that approach her. She does not take it with pride, and I can’t blame her. It gets annoying at times, when I just want to pay for groceries but people are also touching her and talking with her even though it’s very evident that she does not want this. Going shopping with a toddler is already annoying; going grocery shopping in China where you don’t understand a thing and people horde around you like you’re a in a zoo is not cool. A few weeks ago a woman approached her in the mall. Clearly she wanted to touch my daughter but my daughter was a tad faster and hit the woman. She felt threatened and again, I can’t blame her.

She is used to being called pretty every day multiple times. But as a mother I know she is also smart, sweet and has an overall great personality. I don’t want her to think she is just beautiful. I feel bad when other parents point at Laila and tell their kids: “Look how pretty she is!” It feels like they are actually saying: “Look, she looks the opposite of you, how pretty!” How will my daughter respond when we move to a country that is respectful of her private space? Does she think she is only special because she is beautiful? Food for thought.

Photos: Pauline van Hasselt

Being a photographer for over 20 years, Dan Sandoval says he has completed a lot of exciting yet unpredictable assignments. Originally from the United States, he left life in California as a studio photographer to pursue a career in travel. He has been to every continent except Australia and visited more than 40 countries. He has been based in China since 2008 and has travelled the country extensively, exploring its culture and sharing his experience and expertise through workshops and talks. He also conducts photography lectures for the Canon Caravan Program in China. With that, Sandoval is no stranger to large audiences, making this edition of When I Grow Up suited to The British School of Beijing, Shunyi, which sent more than 150 students to listen to his latest journey between the tips of South America and Antarctica! We feature 10 students who wanted to know more about Sandoval and his career in general. If you have your own questions, Sandoval can be reached by email, dan@dansandoval.com.

Lena, 11, Germany
How many tries does it take to get a perfect shot?

When you get better and better, it takes less and less tries. In the beginning, I used to take a lot of photos, but now it’s fewer and fewer. Practice makes perfect. But getting the perfect photo, it’s impossible to say. When you’re at the right light and the right time,the photos can be wonderful.

Talia, 11, US
What inspired you to be a photographer?

Honestly, when I was young I always thought I would go into astrophysics. I really love astronomy; I love the science of light. And that’s what actually inspired me to be a photographer and that’s the ability you have as a photographer to manipulate light. It’s really a very interesting thing to be able to capture. Most people take photos as they see them. But one of the things that I tell most people about difference between people who like photos and the photographer is that the photographer makes a photo while people who like photos take pictures. So when you make a photo, you have to consider all of these things and make it.

Andreas, 11, Australia
Have you ever encountered with any of the animals that were in Antarctica? Did any of them go near you?

Yes absolutely. The elephant seals were literally crawling up on your leg. I was lying on my belly to take a photo, waiting for some penguins to walk by, and suddenly there’s something pecking the back of my leg! It scared me quite a bit! It was a big, big albatross that was probably checking if I was dead or not. I was chased by some birds as well!

Daniel, 12, England
Do you like taking selfies?

You know actually, one of the things about being the photographer is that I’m the camera. So I have very few photos of myself. The ones [with me]are usually taken by people whom I’ve been travelling with. I very rarely take selfies. The only times I take selfies are when I’m with a friend.

Laura, 12, South Korea
Isn’t it dangerous to take photos of wildlife, like an aggressive animal, or taking photos from a cliff?

Absolutely. There’s a lot of aspects of the job that are sometimes dangerous. When taking photos of wildlife, animals can really be unpredictable. There was a time that I was hanging from a rope with other rock climbers and that was a scary thing for me. But best thing to do is try to remain as safe as possible.

OT, 11, South Africa
Have you been to the Arctic?

I haven’t been. That’s probably my goal for myself in the next two years, to travel to the Northwest Passage in the Arctic.

Tom, 11, Germany
How long have you been a photographer?

I’m 32 years old, now. I started doing photography, and it has been my personal job, since I was 18 years old.

Maria, 12, Russia
How long does it take to get the right angle for a photo?

That’s a very difficult question! The problem is – it can take anywhere from a few moments to days. There were times when I had been looking for just the right angle and I had completely to get there [to the subject]. There were other times when I get to a place and the lighting’s perfect and everything just lines up. It takes you just as long as it takes to pull out the camera and take a photo. And that’s the fun part of it – the unpredictability. Sometimes it’s easy, sometimes it’s hard.

Carla, 12, Germany
When do you prefer to take a picture? During daytime or nighttime or sunset??

Here’s a very easy answer to that; it’s whenever the light is best. Photography is all about light. It’s about planning the best light and the best subject. The best time is whenever the lighting looks best, sometimes that’s sunset, sometimes that’s morning, generally evening, except middle of the day, are good times.

Jay, 12, South Korea
Sometimes when you try to take a photo and you’re not always on [the right]time, is it tiring to wait for the [right]time?

Good question. It’s one of those things that is tiring but it makes it worth it when you take that photo. So sometimes I’m sitting in the cold. There was one time when I was in Xinjiang to take photos of horse riders at sunset. Everyone [other photographers]had gone back to the buses. But I was sitting there, just all these mosquitoes were coming out, and I was just being eaten alive by mosquitoes! But finally the horse riders started coming down and everyone’s just sitting on the bus, comfortable and warm. But it’s pretty miserable given the long wait but I have to work. So when I looked at the final photo, I was super happy with it. I’m very glad that I waited. The payoff was really worth it.

All photos by Dave’s Studio

Hailing from Texas, freelance photographer Dave Hanssen is the founder of Dave’s Studio, a family-run and family-oriented photo studio. With an extensive background in fashion and commercial studio photography, as well as working with children both at home and in the studio, Dave brings his creative and personal style to Hegezhuang Village (between Shunyi and Chaoyang Districts). His current studio specializes in three main areas: kids and family photos, (whether fashion or home shoots); annual school portraits for international schools; and business or corporate headshots. Staying true to the family theme, he works with his wife in the studio and has two children in school, one at Harrow International School Beijing.
Hanssen was convinced by two friends working in Beijing to move to China in 2008 and hasn’t looked back since. He started work in a commercial fashion studio but, in 2010, with the beginning of a growing family, Hanssen felt like he was spending too much time at work and not at home. Now was the time to breakaway and start his own business, one that allowed him to spend as much time with his family and the international community whilst doing what he loved best. Nevertheless, freelance photography is never easy. “Every day is a hustle,” he explains. “I might be booked up for a month, but after that I’ve got to find more work. But it goes both ways. The more I work today, the more work I will get in the future.”
Inspiration comes from everywhere and everything he does. Hanssen is constantly on the lookout for new ways to approach shoots, new settings, and ways to bring out the best of each family. Whether he is driving his kids to school, commuting around Beijing, or just talking to people, he is constantly asking: could I shoot here? How would this work?
Hanssen takes well-deserved pride in the personal, relaxed service he offers to his clients. He not only does shoots in the studio, but as a freelancer he is flexible in going all around Beijing, thus able to personalize his photo shoots by creating the perfect environment for the client. Having worked with beijingkids before, we also know very well how easily he puts kids at ease. Hanssen knows all the tricks to making them smile for the shots and behave in front of the camera, which is certainly no easy feat. Parents can relax and not stress about making their children behave on the big photo day. Parents relaxing leads kids to relax, and the naturalness and joy of his models shine through in the final photos.
His most popular product is the kid’s package, priced at RMB 4,850. This includes: the session fee, hair and makeup artist, 22 photos fully edited in an 8” album, 100 digital photos hand-picked by the client, 4 by 60cm canvas, and 22 postcard prints.

Find Dave’s Studio on Wechat (ID: pixstudio2014), davesstudio.rocks, 139 1026 8205北京市朝阳区何各庄村红厂艺术设计产业园B5

This article originally appeared on page 11 of the October 2016 Issue of beijingkids magazine. Click here for your free online copy. To find out how you can obtain a hard copy, contact distribution@truerun.com.

PHOTOS: COURTESY OF DAVE’S STUDIO

On June 5 at Beijing City International School, fifty five children and teens performed classical ballet and national dances from around the world.

Fuette, the ballet concert group pictured, is led by Natalia Checheneva, a former Bolshoi Theater dancer.

Photos: Courtesy of Svetlana Kuzhagalieva and Igor Demchenkov

Acne, blankies, bowl-cuts, smiles pre-braces, lazy eyes, runny noses, the fortnight they were goths or ravers – there are some parts of growing up that most kids would rather forget. Sharenting is the combination of the words share and parenting, and the term used to describe the practice of tweeting, blogging, and posting details of your child’s life online.

Some parents abstain from posting about their kids online completely, and everyone knows a parent whose feed updates by the hour with minute, private or embarrassing moments in their child’s life. Let’s take a look at some of the factors which can influence the extent of sharenting.  

The Good
Online Community
Beijing is full of expat nuclear families. Living on the other side of the world means our dearest may not always be nearest. Disconnection from friends and family can cause deep feelings of isolation. Particularly for new arrivals, social media represents an easy way to stave off loneliness and keep in touch with those at home.
Even for those who have extended family or established social networks in Beijing there are times when parents can feel alienated. New mothers are often housebound in the first weeks for example. Some families may have specific health concerns, or social, religious, and cultural needs which they can’t fully address or receive support for in Beijing. Sharing with like-minds or distant loved ones can provide a vital sense of community in such situations.

Digital Bequest
Some parents see their online postings as the digital equivalent of the family album. And just like a scrapbook, online content can be a biographical resource. The permanence and depth of online information leaves a precious seam of childhood adventures and successes that kids (and their kids) can mine in years to come.

The Bad
Personhood, Privacy, and TMI – Where to Draw the Line?
From religious upbringing to diet and exercise, parents make enormous and far reaching choices in their child’s lives. Parents exercise total control over their child’s right to privacy. It’s important to give this responsibility due consideration. Some parents see no difference between a first day of school snap and a comprehensive update on bowel movements. I recently experienced a spasm of unease for a young man whose parents shared a thorough account of his grooming routine – waxing, facials, etc. online. I don’t know the family – I am the proverbial friend-of-a-friend. But in that instant, I and hundreds of other strangers became privy to the intimate details of a teenage boy’s toilette. Even in an increasingly metrosexual world it’s easy to envisage ramifications which involve embarrassment, teasing, perhaps even bullying from peers.

I Wanna Be Famous
Fame has become a core societal value in the last decade. Scientists believe that social media and reality TV have profoundly changed what children value about themselves and others. In a 2011 study by UCLA, 40% of preteens surveyed cited fame as their top choice for what they wanted in the future. Modern pop culture is rife with extreme celebrity examples of parents using their kids to garner attention. From Balloon Boy to the Gosselins, some families are willing to do whatever it takes to gain notoriety and cash. Posting photos and tweets are at the thinnest end of the wedge, but parents may wish to consider the larger ramifications of promoting attention as a reward.

The Ugly
Prying Eyes
The information you post online is susceptible to all sorts of unintended uses and abuses. As soon as content is published to the web, it takes on a life of its own. Nowadays many employers and universities perform online research as a matter of course. Obviously, candidates should be selected on the basis of merit, but social media may lay bare a welter of potentially prejudicial clues; for example the job candidate rejected solely because of a search result which revealed his opinion on gun control.
Most disturbingly, even with savvy use of a site’s privacy settings, once a photograph is on the internet your intended audience is never guaranteed to be your only audience. Parents should be aware that pictures can easily be scraped and used for other purposes. Without wishing to be alarmist, there are places online where predators share pictures of children which they have taken from social media sites. A reddit forum (described here) has been shut down, but its denizens have no doubt just moved under the next rock. This phenomenon of strangers sharing family photos in disturbing contexts has made many parents extremely wary of posting images of their kids on the net.

Stay tuned for Sharenting: Part 2 Limits and Controls

Photo courtesy of spirit-fire, flickr.com

My childhood bedroom is preserved in its original state; the clay mask I made at art camp, the books I loved as a student, old journals, folders of drawings and paper dolls. Around the house on shelves, walls, mantelpieces, and furniture tops the cream of the photo crop is lovingly displayed.  I have to thank my mother for her role as family archivist. Those artefacts create a powerful sense of self, place and most importantly, family. It’s all there in our family home, waiting to be pored over and shared with the next generation.

Sometimes the old ways are the best ways, and with the advent of the Internet, it’s become so much simpler to preserve all those sweet childhood memories. Let’s take a look at some old-fashioned and new-fangled ways to put childhood on record.

Measuring Wall
Portability and durability are important concerns for any childhood documents, but for the measuring wall they’re a must! The wall which displayed all of our growth spurts and plateaus unfortunately ceased to exist when our reception rooms were knocked together and remodelled. And of course most Beijing families are nomadic; Beijing today, Oman tomorrow.  Modern global gypsies don’t always have the luxury of space and rootedness.
So rather than marking up your paintwork and losing it all when you move home, make a height measuring board or chart.
On birthdays, the first day of the school year, or just because you know they’ve notched up another inch, draw a new line for each child, noting the date and occasion.

Digital Refrigerator
Artwork, graded papers, and handmade valentines all compete for space on the family fridge. Galleries of your children’s creativity and achievements are ever changing, and the old must make way for the new. Boxing and keeping everything they create adds up to a storage nightmare. Keep the standouts in hard copy and scan, photograph and store the rest. Your kid’s digitized masterpieces can be uploaded to instagram, flickr or Facebook.

Photo Books and Scrapbooks
Many families have reams of beautiful family memories, all frozen in digital amber on their hard drives. Release your memories by making photo books and scrapbooks. You can make beautiful pieces to gift or cherish at Shutterfly, Snapfish, Scrapjazz, or Scrapbook.com.

Photo courtesy of archetypefotographie, flickr.com

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For this week, October 28-31, go to “Top Picks”, or simply click here.

Also: Are you in our Photo Gallery?

See what’s been happening in your community in our latest gallery. Find all the photos in our “Gallery”, or click here.

Do you want to see your own photos on our website? Simply send your favorite birthday party pictures, holiday snaps or "too good to not to share" photos to Kara Chin: kara.chin@beijing-kids.com.

And watch this space as we get ready to upload our next online gallery!