“WHAT? NO WAY! OH MY GOSH.I am so jealous. SOOOOO jealous. And so glad you will be blogging! WOW, how did this all come about? You have to blog THAT story. How does a couple say, “Ok, let’s go to Beijing to study Chinese!” Please do a post about that because I’m dying to know. And I’m dying to copy every move. Oh I’m so so so jealous!!“
The quote above is from MUTHA and echoes what others have asked, so I will attempt to answer the who, what, where, when, why and how.
Who – Our little family.
What – headed to Beijing, China for a month this spring. Mike will be going to the school each day for classes. The school is in an office building. I will be having a tutor from the school come to our apartment for 2 hours a day. The apartment will be arranged by the school. It is a furnished one bedroom, with broadband Internet access. The information states that the kitchen has a fridge, microwave and basic kitchen utensils. The apartment has a washer, but doesn’t mention a dryer. I know that on our trip most people in China hung their clothes up to dry. I am going to try and get a confirmation from the school this week, as we thought they might have those small stack-able washer/dryer combos that are one unit. They offer extra-curricular activities throughout the week that include learning about Chinese tea, wine, cooking and other subjects. I think that will be fun to take part in. They have excursions each weekend to see the sights which will be fun to do again because it was so hot last time and we were just thinking, “Get us to the babies!!”
Where – Beijing, China. Apartment in the University District.
Why – We want to learn the language for future humanitarian reasons, and for Nadia to learn the language of her birth country. She will be raised as an American, but her knowing Mandarin will be valuable later in her life. At some point I am sure she will want to go back to visit and we want her to be able to speak to the people in their language. We have tried to learn from home during the wait. We had a native speaker that came to our house to try and tutor us, we have the Pimsleur and Rosetta Stone. Both are very good and we are still working on that before we go. And will continue to use it once we return. This trip is really a trial to see how much we can learn in the actual environment.
When – Less than 2 months from now, and we will be there the entire month of March. HOLY COW!!! Why at this time? Because it is SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO much cheaper to travel to China in the spring than in the summer or over Christmas break. Good deals on flights and so on.
How – The nature of Mike’s job is one that he can work remotely. The company he works for has agreed to let him work remotely since we will have broadband access. He will be taking 2 weeks of vacation for the trip and working from there 2 weeks. They have many other employees in the states and Canada that work remotely permanently, so it’s nothing new for their company. That is a great blessing to us that they are allowing this. The church is allowing me to also work remotely since most of what I do is by email/phone anyway. One week is spring break and the other 3 weeks my good friend Karen will be picking up the paperwork and meeting with the school counselor if they need anything for the KHUSA program. Blessings everywhere for this to work out.
Now Mutha asks how a couple ends up doing this. We just decided to do it and once Mike did a ton of research we felt that this program with this school would be the best choice. It’s going to be an adventure and those of you who would like to do it can just consider us your guinea pigs. We can report back on the truth of the apartments, shopping, education and so on. We have now decided not to adopt a second child and that has offered us the flexibility to make this trip.