Where is the best place to raise our kids?

I wouldn’t live in Shunyi if you paid me my weight in French vanilla slice. And that’s alotta slice. It’s no slight on the place – in fact, I actually like to visit and know many sane, worldly and wonderful people who live there very happily.

It’s just not for me or my family. We don’t believe we would be happy there. I wouldn’t, my husband wouldn’t and my kids wouldn’t. There are many reasons (proximity to work, school, etc) but in a nutshell it’s because we are mini urbanites.

We love the buzz and the vibe of the city – the every day hubbub and challenge of intermingling on its thickly coated streets. We love being close to Gustomenta and Fun Dazzle and back-to-back local restaurants and little alleyways hiding local treasures like babies in those bamboo perambulators and grannies cooking on outdoor woks.

We like to actually live in Beijing whilst living in Beijing, rather than the TrumanShow-esque reality of Shunyi compounds. Although these compounds are most certainly beautiful and convenient – at what price? Who wants to be an Australian living in China inside a mini Australia? Or an American living in China inside a mini America? (Or South African, Hungarian, Mexican, Swiss… you fill in the gaps.) No way, not me. I can live in Australia when I go home.

I truly think that part of the rich, varied and highly enlightening experience of living in a foreign country (this is my kids’ first, but the third for my husband and I), is the host-country experience. The language, the culture, the vast differences and the quirky parallels, the idiosyncrasies that sweep us up and pull our brains and our souls from pillar to post. This is good for us, great for our kids and something that simply cannot be paralleled in any other environment.

Living in Beijing is such a unique experience. Why live inside an expat pocket?

Sure, some people have no choice but to live in Shunyi.

Others actually prefer it to Downtown, for varying reasons.

Some people live in this Shunyi expat pocket then immerse themselves in the “real” Beijing on weekends.

Some even live in a pocket whilst living Downtown (pockets aren’t necessarily Shunyi-exclusive).

Everyone is different and no blight on anyone who chooses to live in pockets. I just don’t want to do it.

Which leads me to ask the question – why? Why would someone choose to live in Shunyi and raise kids there? What is the “best” environment to raise kids in? Shunyi or Downtown? And what comprises “best” anyway? What’s best for one family may not be best for another.

Is there really a difference between these two main living environments for expat families?

What has Shunyi got that Downtown doesn’t and what makes it better living for kids?

Same question, in reverse.

Tania McCartney