An ideal thought---for our daughter

[Min]

We are an ordinary traditional Chinese family with 9 yrs old daughter, for whom we hope she could have friends from English native family which living in BJ now. We could make some activities for our kids so that they could know each other more and more, for example, you could send your kids to our home to spend weekend after our discussion.

My daughter is shy. She likes playing Zheng ( Chinese traditional musical instrument), reading, painting, jogging, swimming and watching cartoons.

We are happy family and ever had travelling experience abroad. We speak fluent English and have active, healthy, honest minds for life.

Our flat is quite near the CRI (China Radio International), 200 metres far from subway station of Ba Bao Shan.

By it, we wish our daughter could improve English and know more about Western culture. On the other hand, we can help you to get familiar with chinese family and life style.

What's your mind? Please feel free to contact me.

[Celso Pin]

Be careful with the term "Western Culture":shock:

What is western?Brazil? Germany? USA? Spain? Quite a lot completelly different cultures in west, as well as, different cultures in Eastern...

[Min]

I can understand your shock, Celso Pin. Depending on my course for cross-cultural communication, we call it cultural shock, which comes from different cultral background.

Because of our history, when our ancestors began to know something new from other countries which located in the west, they had a stable word for American and European area, which is 西方( 西xi1 means west, 方fang1 means place, direction or region). With the flowing time, our ancestors knew there were many countries around us and their cultures were so different from ours.

In my message, I ever mentioned English speaking countries. Therefore I used the word 'Western' naturally.

Thank you!

[owshawng]

Min, are there such things as play groups or parents clubs in Beijing? These are groups where parents who have children of about the same age group meet at either a playground park, school, or each others homes for a few hours once or twice a week. If something like this exists in Beijing, you might have a better chance for success then meeting thru the internet. Plus there could be 10 or more children in your daughters age group which would increase the chances of her becoming friends with one or more of them. If not, are there clubs or organizations in Beijing that have a high percentage of English speaking westerners in them? Even something like a bowling league has the potential for meeting lots of different people and increasing the chances of making friends.

[Elizasmom]

Most Americans would be too protective of their children to allow them to sleep over and spend an entire weekend with a family they don’t know extremely well. Many would love the kind of cultural exchange you are describing for the same reasons you would for your daughter. However, the parents will probably want to be there at first and it could be years before they would feel comfortable letting their child spend a weekend at your home. I just wanted to mention that so you know what to expect. Americans are exposed to a lot of media describing terrible things that can and do happen to children at the hands of adults (even adults who appear to be normal), so they are very careful.