Sand Gets in Your Eyes: Spring in Beijing

Spring is windy and stormy in much of the world. But in Beijing it brings with it the added curse of sand. A common news topic this time of year is tree planting – trying to stop the evil Gobi desert from sending its sand our way. Recently, we looked out our window and saw our English-Polish neighbor kids digging a hole to plant trees, while hotel staff looked on.

I assumed this was hotel sand-fighting propaganda, but after we ventured outside we discovered the neighbor boys had themselves requested and chosen these trees – one cherry blossom and one peach. The kids all had fun digging and pouring water. And we big people all had fun toasting it with neighbor Kasha’s cherry brandy.

But the belief the trees were a sort of symbolic sand-fighting effort at all was all my assumption on first glance out the window. Flipping through hotel channels soon after, my attention was arrested by a photo on the hotel channel. It was us and the neighbors in full digging mode.  Turns out the hotel is promoting the act as planting “memorial trees” for “departed foreign experts”, presumably referring to the man who dug up his own trees on moving.

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Surviving - and thriving - in Chinese schools

I knew my 5-year-old twins would start speaking Chinese if we threw them into a Chinese school. But still somehow I’ve been surprised to see it happen. Being a worrying, coddling mother I wondered what traumas they might suffer along the way.  Their father, more of a “stop crying and just do it” sort, wanted them to be happy but knew they’d survive.

And they did complain at the kindergarten (more equivalent to a US preschool) in Beijing where we first enrolled them. They complained that the teachers yelled, and they couldn’t tell me what they were doing all 8 or 9 hours they were at the school everyday.  Still, their Chinese progressed and instead of complaining that they couldn't understand the teachers or talk to their friends, they started coming home telling me about conversations they had in Chinese.

Example of a Chinese textbook for 5 year olds

Still we were concerned they were just playing all day and knew that at nearly 6 years old, they were up to more challenge than that, in any language. Finally through chance, we learned of another school with smaller classes, a more educational focus, and better yet – more than half the price! On the last day at the old school, Isaac told his teacher in Chinese he was “going to university” (which translates literally to “big school” in Chinese).

And then, my boys who previously had to be coaxed and coerced and bribed (Isaac more than his twin Ethan) to do homework at night, suddenly last weekend, just two days after starting the new school, couldn’t stop doing it. They just wanted to write characters all night, while their dinner went cold. And then, at school the next day, Isaac raised his hand to answer a question and boldly went to the front of the class to answer. Shyer Ethan soon followed suit.

Suddenly, for now, I feel better about the prospect of throwing them in competitive primary school.