In some ways, although I’ve been in HK or Shanghai continuously since 1994, I may be the wrong person to ask. I’ve always spoken Chinese during my time in Greater China, and I just don’t experience 95% of the frustration that non Chinese speakers do. I do have my moments when the frustration goes to the moon, but the daily irritations generally don’t happen.
Weirdly enough, they also seem to have a pretty good radar for who is straight off the plane. Even during the few days I was in Shanghai a stroll down the Bund or Nanjing road went from being a full-on fight-them-off experience to just the odd half-hearted attempt.
One thing worth noting - even the tourist hotspots like Nanjing road are cheek-by-jowl with some fairly hardcore poverty. Go out the front of the SAS Radisson, turn right three times and you walk down a street of tatty old houses with grannies chopping vegetables in the gutter, front windows open to show whole families living in a front room, and a full-on third-world vibe. I’m a fairly thick-skinned individual and it gave me a few guilt pangs about strolling along with a watch and a camera that probably cost more than the average local would see in a year. Depending on how you react to e.g. ancient old men with one empty eyesocket silently begging you for a few pennies, you may find it a bit wearing on the soul.
Or… you might see it as an opportunity to give $2 that’s going to mean a lot more to him than it does to you. There’s lot of charities, and most aren’t nearly as effective. Also, just because you see people living in a way that’s different from yours doesn’t mean you should suddenly become judgemental and full of pitty. Think Louis XVI coming to your messy studio apartment and giving you shit.
Duck lips!!!
…flee…
Anything to get further away from the In Laws. 
teela , yes, I was in San Jose prior to NYC and am back. I really like San Jose but I miss NYC terribly. We were in Willow Glen before but are out in Silver Creek now (you’re in MH, right?) and it’s like living in Stepford.
Rasa it’s shocking how time flies, isn’t it? She was only seven moths old when I registered on the SDMB.
Thanks everyone else, for the warm welcome. Except you Dave. You die. 
It looks like we’re taking a quick trip to visit before Xmas and will be in Shanghai Dec 14-19th.
We’ve had someone (she calls herself the “Center of Mobility”) contact us who wants to arrange
But she also gave us the websites of a few schools and I’m wondering if any of you have inside info. Yes, I can and will read the websites and do some research on Google but we all know that personal experience counts for a lot. Here are the schools recommended:
(1)Shanghai American School
Website: www.saschina.org
(2)Concordia International School
Website: www.ciss.com.cn
(3)Shanghai Community International Schools
Website: www.scischina.org/
She also wants Kiddo’s birthdate so she can start checking school availability. This is moving awfully quickly considering my husband hasn’t even accepted the job.
I wonder if this is common for Chinese companies. A Scottish friend in Bangkok was being courted by the *China Daily * English-language newspaper in Beijing. He finally turned them down, but for the longest time they kept calling him up here offering to arrange this or that.
School availability can be tough. The American school is very popular and usually has a long waiting list. 2 campuses. Concordia is also supposed to be quite good. I don’t know of the third one.
Look, the key thing if you are going to be in Shanghai is the school. You’re housing will have to be around there (or kidlet is going to spend hours on the school bus), and will have to be in some sort of relation to hubby’s office.
Key things:
- where is hubby’s office located?
- will hubby get a car and driver as part of the package?
Keep in mind that core Shanghai (the old city center) is pretty small. However, most of the international schools are located in Pudong (new area, means east of the river, and close to the international airport). Or in HongQiao or Gubei area (older suburb near the domestic airport). These two areas are at least a hour’s drive apart by rush hour traffic. The schools have campuses usually in both areas.
Hubby will probably have to suffer a commute, but it’s just not practical to live on one side of Shanghai and commute to the other side. (Unless taking the subway).
And what about the next 500 equally deserving people who come up to you? Do you give them $2 as well? Pointing out that a good deal of the population of Shanghai live in desperate poverty does not make me judgemental - it’s simply an observation.
You seem to have had no problems living a fairly well-off lifestyle in the midst of all that poverty, despite your snarky attitude - however I know of others who would find the whole experience quite distressing.
By the way, one of the best books I’ve read on the subject of getting on in Chinese culture is a how-to guide called Getting Along With the Chinese - For Fun and Profit. Despite the appalling title and cheesy cartoons, and though it’s not in-depth, it’s a very well thought out book, explaining things you might not understand, and giving you simple, practical advice. I would highly recommend that you grab a copy and read and digest it before you go.
No, I’m trying to point out that for thousands of years humans lived in what you snobbishly call poverty, and they were just as happy as you are. True poverty means not getting enough to eat and not having a shelter. The people in the dirty alleys have their homes and they have their food, and they really don’t want your American ass coming in and being revulsed by their way of life.
“Ew, you really want to live there looking at those people” and “Screw giving beggars money, there’s just more of them somewhere anyway” doesn’t help your case either.
Anyway, enough of that discussion.
Actually this is a very good point. There won’t be any major obstacles for you living in Shanghai, but there are going to be hundreds of minor daily obstacles. If your the type of person where these would gradually build up in your system and have you considering murder, this might be something to consider.
This is what separated the wheat from the chaff in Beirut, was the constant daily irritations. Some of it was genuinely irritating and stupid, but some of it was just the fact that Lebanese norms are different from US norms and it takes some getting used to. At the beginning, we found ourselves hugely frustrated with the corruption, the complacent incompetence we saw where I worked, etc., etc. But we got used to it. But believe me, a lot of people couldn’t acclimate themselves, and left after a year or two. That is the hardest part of moving to a place like that, and I’m sure Shanghai would offer many of the same frustrations. It really comes down to how much you can adjust your expectations and keep from getting frustrated by things.
[QUOTE=influenza]
I learned relatively-ok Cantonese while I lived there, but a few years of living in Texas and never getting chance to speak dumbed that down a lot. Still, it’s fun to be able to vaguely understand what the Hong Kongers in Vancouver are talking about, and it freaks them right out when they suddenly realize that gwailo they’ve been talking about understood the whole thing…
[QUOTE=influenza]
When I lived in Hong Kong I met an Australian girl who had been there about 4 years. After getting a job offer and going through a nasty divorce, she packed up her two little boys (5 and 6 years old!) and arrived almost penniless. The job offer didn’t work out so she started working in a local Australian pub. Since she had little money, she had to enroll the boys in the nearby elementary school which had no special resources for non-Cantonese speaking students. The boys caught on rather quickly and soon were fluent in the language. So fluent in fact that they actually spoke Cantonese to each other!
On weekends we would go out to the beach at Silvermine Bay. It was one of the funniest things I ever saw when locals on the bus would stare at these two little blond haired, blue eyed boys speaking fluent Cantonese to each other.
Hm, I wonder which one I’d prefer. I think a lot people have a needless aversion to foreign public schools. It’s really not so bad for kids, especially those that are just 5. Yet international school does sound pretty fun. The point about it being very healthy that kids come and leave and you keep meeting new people I think is a great one.
P.S. Beirut is about 10x smaller than Shanghai or Hong Kong, so the comparison is not necessarily fair.
True, but my point was more about the difficulties of dealing with a foreign and often (to Americans) aggravating culture.
you would be insane to enroll a non chinese speaking child from a non chinese speaking household in a local chinese school. it wouldn’t work and probably wouldn’t be allowed.
parents are expected to tutor kids 3-4 hours per day starting in the first grade. it’s simply not possible without at least one parent that’s a native speaker. -father of a second grader in the neighborhood public school.
HK is probably easier - especially in a bilingual canto english school
So the child won’t get good grades at first. I’m sure Harvard will excuse their 2nd grade transcript. On the other hand, they may experience how easy it is to learn a lot given just a little patience.
And if you’re an assiduous, dedicated parent, no reason you can’t spend those 3-4 hours a day tutoring mandarin. At that rate, both the kid and you will be fluent in three months! Anyway, I came to NYC when I was 9. I was tutored some before I came, so I wasn’t totally at zero, but a lot of my classmates were. The chinese who enrolled their kids in my elementary school weren’t insane, so what the hell makes you say enrolling white kids in china would be? If anything, immigrants do really well at education. For all we know, overcoming the challenges of arrival is one reason.
If you (the parent) don’t speak Mandarin, such as the OP, then it won’t work. If you (the child) don’t speak Mandarin, then it won’t work. So far behind the 8 ball when you start, and there is zero accomodation for non native speakers. (And aren’t you the one that spent a year in Shanghai? How good is your Mandarin?)
Dude, with all due respect, I have a child in a local Chinese school in second grade. I’d be willing to bet I’m the only Doper that does. Mom is a native Shanghaiese/Mandarin speaker, I’m a pretty fluent Mandarin speaker. China bambina has a lot of challenges. But the work load is staggering for someone who is already a native Chinese speaker with a native Chinese speaking parent. We’re probably going to chalk this up to experience and put her into a truely bilingual school for returning Chinese kids next year.
Chinese first grade, at least in Shanghai, are not daycare places. Kids are expected to learn 10 characters per day, English and fairly complex math. I’m not saying it’s 100% impossible, but damn near. The teachers don’t speak english with any kind of fluency (except for the *possible * exception of the English teacher). You’re naive if you think the American melting pot experience and a US first grade translates over to China. Kids are linguists but not super heros.
Hong Kong is different because there are English only public local schools (IIRC), bi lingual public schools and Canto schools all have some English instruction beyond english class.
What scout said. Sorry to hijack, but you’ve been missed. Poke your nose around LJ why don’t you?
My first instinct is that this sounds like an adventure, and one hell of an opportunity for your daughter to experience something really unique. However, if she doesn’t believe that, I can see how difficult it would be to ignore her wishes and concerns over it.