Moving to Beijing with young children

Welcome on Expat.com Beth,

I hope that other members will soon bring their contributions to your several concerns soon!

Regards

Beth

in what part of town will hubby be working?

are you more of townie family or more of a burb loving family?

Mums easy to meet via the school and/or via some of the groups that meet during the daytime (for example Stich&Bitch, INN et cetera)

Cleaner / Nanny (in local speak Ayi lit = Aunty)depends a bit on where you live, and whether she can speak a little English but can range from 8RMB/hour to about 15 RMB/hour, Calculation is different if she comes eery day.

When you choose your house or apartment, make sure it is not too far away from your husband's office, because the traffic in Beijing is a bit of a problem.....

Hi

My husbands office is located at  Tower E2, Oriental Plaza
1 East Chang An Avenue
Beijing 100738, ??

Thanks for all the info everyone.

Enjoy the freezing weather up there! JW

Hi Beth

I am an American exec living here and if you are looking for aprtments and convenience/access then Chaoyang Park area has new foreigner friendly apartments. I live in Shunyi near Europlaza and here are single family homes, some HUGE but it can take anywhere from 25 minutes to an hour to get to Oriental Plaza from here on the airport expressway.

Most international schools in Beijing, at least the good ones are in East Chaoyang and West Shunyi.  I have a 3 year old and a 7 year old attending bilingual school.  We will potentially be here for many years so learning the language was a priority for me.  However this has proven to be a double edged sword in the subject matter or curriculum offered.  You need to understand how long you will live here and what kind of education you want from area schools.  Your children are very young so there is plenty of time.  The top international school, and I look at all of them, is ISB and then WAB, my kids go to Kinstar.

So first what amenities do you require for living?
What type of education are you seeking?

Living in Shunyi has it's up side and difficulties like finding a good Ayi (cleaning lady) and/or Nanny that will come out here and English speaking ones are difficult to find.  There is expatslife.com where you can get some additional assistance.

It appears you are from Australia, I am guessing because I am from Melbourne, Florida in the USA so are there any needs based on your culture etc. to make your transition easier?

Moving here is easy, living here is a challenge but also enriching in many ways as any foreign assignment.  Sorry I don't sugar coat anything. 

Be prepared for winter here. As I said I am from Florida in the US where it is normally warm all year and I hate cold weather.  This will influence where to live for example Chinese housing versus foreign housing areas.  Heating is controlled by the government in most Chinese based housing areas and follows a set schedule for starting and stopping within the year.

This is my second time living in Beijing but the first time with kids so I can share all of what I have learned so far.

If you like my email is [email protected] or just reply here and I will try to follow up.

Oriental Plaza...I know it well I used to have an office there.

I agree not much fun to commute for Shunyi / Chaoyang Villa Area to there. It can be done but is a lifestyle question.

Quite few places downtown that are kid friendly. Central Park might be one good option . Two right age schools there (EtonKids and HuiJia).

Another good option might be Park Avenue (sending kids to the Etonkids next door in Palm Springs).

There are quite a few other equally valid options both for housing and schooling. The decision is very subjective.

Will you be coming for a preview (look-see) visit?

What it's like living in Beijing is a big question and sort of impossible to answer completely.
I don't want to be too much of a self promoter, but my wife and I keep a blog and try to cover real life in Beijing (themiddlekingdom.org). My wife especially writes about a lot of practical things.

I would agree with others on this forum and say look for an apartment that isn't too far from your husband's office because the commute can really be killer. I'd focus your search on anything south of ChaoYang park between 2nd and 4th Ring roads (on the east side of the city). There are plenty on nice apartments and western amenities.

Thanks for all the helpful information so far.
We are requiring western style amenities.
As for education for our children, we will be looking for a kindergarten for our 3 year old and some sort of day care for our 18 month old, but only a few days a week for our 18 mth old but they all seem to be 5 days a week.  I really appreciate that you have not sugar coated everything :-)
My husbands work will send us over for a look first   

Thanks again.
Beth

Oriental Plaza is located conveniently on Subway Line 1 and also near Line 5 - Because of the incredibly stressful traffics in Beijing, I strongly suggest learning how to utilize the Subways.

Anyways, Central Park or Fuli City (D district) can be good choices for (Western) family stays yet not too far from Oriental Plaza.

I also work for an international relocation company (I'm based in Beijing), feel free to ask me any questions about moving to China.
Ryan

[Moderated: Off topic! Please post in classifieds]

Hi Beth,  My family and I relocated to Beijing on New Year's Eve from London and I have just found this site, so great job on finding it before you even move here! 

We also have young children, 3 of them, ages 9, 6 and 2.5.  They have all settled in amazingly well and I really credit their schools with their smooth transition.  The 2 older children are attending Beijing City International School (BCIS)and the 2.5 year old is attending Eton Kids Bi-lingual nursery.  We are really impressed with both of the schools. 

The initial house and school hunting trip over here back in October was overwhelming to say the least. We had an amazing relocation specialist by the name of Minna at Ark Relocation who I cannot recommend enough.  Deciding on which school out of all of the amazing choices, deciding between Shunyi or downtown - my mind was a whirlwind at the time.  School choice came first and then house choice.  There are amazing bus services to and from all of the schools to the various apartment/villa complexes however you do want to consider the amount of travel time depending on where you live.

We chose to live in the Park Avenue complex, near Chaoyang Park versus out in Shunyi.  This really suits us because we just love being able to walk out our door and experience Chinese culture, however we are also close to great amenities like Sanlitun village and Solana for fantastic shopping and dining.

The children are all picking up Chinese at school with daily classes and I am just loving the International Baccalaureate curriculum that they are exposed to at BCIS. 

Do you have any other information on your relocation date?  Will you bring the kids on your house and school search trip?  We did and it actually helped us to make the right decisions in terms of apartment complex (Park Avenue has a great playground for example) and also school (the kids looked for different things than we did and that was vey enlightening). 

Very happy to answer any questions you have or to meet up for a coffee when you come over.  I remember how many questions I had and would love to help anyone else out who is going through the same thing.

We are really enjoying ourselves and I am sure you will as well.

Heidi

Hi Heidi,

My name is Brooke and I am also considering the move to Beijing with my husband and 2 children (6 and 10 years).  I was just wondering how you find the air pollution.
My 10 year old son suffers from Asthma and has a fairly bad dust mite allergy.  I am curious to hear from anyone who suffers from allergies just to see how the pollution effects their quality of life, living in Beijing.

I understand that air purifiers are quite essential, do you find that they help?

Brooke.

Hi and welcome on Expat.com Heidi and Brooke

Heidi thank you very much for your contribution.
Brooke don't hesitate to start a new topic on the Beijing forum if you have specific questions. It could help increasing your chances of obtaining responses from other members

Regards
Armand

Hi Brooke,

Regarding your question about pollution and asthma.  Interestingly we were also concerned about this because our 2.5 year old experienced 2 asthma incidents last year when we were in London, the first required him to be hospitalised overnight before his breathing stabilised.  We were very concerned about how the air quality here would impact him.  We came out on a exoploration visit last October and he was absolutely fine so that gave us hope, although we had his inhaler with us the whole time just in case.  We have been here since Dec 31 and he has not exhibited any signs of asthma at all since we arrived which we are very pleased about.  We are registered at Beijing United Hospital and know that if we did have any concerns, or if he did experience another asthma episode, that we would be well taken care of there.  I have been told to expect the air quality to worsen during the summer months, so we have not yet experienced summer months here in Beijing.  Coming from London however I have been amazed at the fact that we have had bright sunny skies, morning to evening, for the majority of the days we have been here.  That is a huge improvement from winter in London.

I have heard different things about air purifiers/humidifiers and from what I understand you need to select carefully because some can actually make the situation worse because the water particles collect airborne particles.  There are a lot of talks offered on the topic so quite a lot of information available.  If a visit here first is possible as a family it may help to experience the environment and see if your son has any adverse reaction. 

I hope that helps.

Heidi

Hello,

I also have asthma; never really studied on it, but my knowledge is that people that are asthmatic may be allergic to different allergens.  For me, even in clean air-environments like Taiwan/tropical places my episodes may easily arise; however, for the past 2 years in Beijing, living under pollution, I have had no signs of any breathing problems, just as the places I have lived in the US; then I realized it's the dryness that keeps me safe.  I am probably allergic to something in the air in humid-places.

Hope all your family members with asthma will be just fine like me

Thank you for your replies.  I really appreciate your feedback.  My husband and I have decided to visit Beijing in June with our kids to have a look around at schools, housing etc.  Hopefully by doing so we will have an idea as to how our son will cope with the conditions.  I am really keen to find out more about the Beijing City International School, any feedback would be appreciated. 

Regards,
Brooke.

In my opinion, BCIS is one of the better downtown International Schools. It is though somewhat larger then some of the other schools and some therefore feel it is too large for their child. I personally do not think that this is a problem. The school is relatively new, has excellent facilities, and has acquired a good name and reputation.

I believe BCIS also accepts Chinese passport holding students, so it would be a better crowd in my opinion for the children to experience diversity.  It does have an excellent facility: indoor swimming pool, indoor basketball courts etc staying away from the polluted city.

The location however, is something to consider in my opinion - even though they have school buses (which families have to pay for), the traffic gets really bad around that area (Baiziwan Rd).  Do pay your visits during the school-traveling hours to see how it might effect your family time.  It is also on the Southern part of the city, which is far from the Western Communities in the North.

Wondering how youre doing I know this post is really old. I live in the apartments at oriental plaza with my husband and 8 month old baby. Where did you end up moving to?