LoPair Au Pair China: Learn. Care. Explore.

Hello everyone,
My name is Clara, I'm french and I'm an au pair since november 2016 (about 5 months now). My host family is composed with a journalist mother, an artist father and Chloe, my host child.
This program will make you discover China and chinese mentality. You will also take part in a lot of activities with you family (restaurants, hostels, trips, museums...).

But you have to know that your host family pays a lot to have you and they will expect a lot from you. For example, I am the first au pair of my host family and I have to plan a schedule every week for Chloe so she can make progress, the host mom also wants the proof of her progress !

But I have met a lot of people that I can now call my friends and a very good team at Lopair that will help you for everything (thanks Nancy for booking my tickets to Shanghai for an exam !).

I have lived a lot of things now and it worth it, but you have to work hard !

Getting off the bus in Hangzhou, from the Shanghai airport, was a little terrifying. My fears were quickly put to rest with a smile from my coordinator, who had a car waiting to take me to a hostel. Over the next two days I met other au pairs from all over the world. LoPair welcomed everyone like they were family during the short, but very useful orientation. After the two day orientation, each au pair went their separate way.

I stayed in Hangzhou. My host family lives in a beautiful northern section of Hangzhou, surrounded by mountains. My host family welcomed me and has done everything in their power to make me feel happy and accepted. In the evenings, I help my host child with her English homework, work on art projects, and teach her English by using an interactive method I created on my computer. While my host child is in school, I am free to do as I please.

China has such a vast culture that spans over hundreds of years, meaning there is always something to see or learn. On the down side however, during the day it is often difficult to meet up with other au pairs, so touring alone is common. Coming to a foreign country which does not speak your native language can be very challenging and lonely, but can be time for growth and learning. I don't think anyone can honestly say that living abroad is always fantastic, but with an open mind, any struggle can be looked at as a learning opportunity or an adventure.

My host family has taken me out on the weekends, to show me fascinating places in Hangzhou. They have been patient and tried their best to meet in the middle, when it comes to the difficult language barrier. I feel so blessed to be in a host family that loves each other, wants the best for me, and respects me.

Lopair has a great and reliable support system, as well as providing lots of resources to their au pairs and host families. I recently met a girl who came to China through a different agency I had considered using this agency but when their credentials didn’t check out, I decided against it. The girl I met was treated like a servant and was forced to give English lessons to large groups of people. Her host family would then make people pay for the lessons, keeping the money and not giving any to the girl. The host family was making money off her back. The girl left the family and dropped the host organization. She was taken in by Lopair, treated like family, and now has a new host family---set up by LoPair. I think Lopair has done a great job at giving their families and au pairs a good experience and providing what they need.
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Family Outing

Saturday morning dawned. After breakfast and a tearful homework session (handwriting sheets are not Josie's favorite thing). My family took me to a historic temple in Hangzhou. Entering the courtyard of the temple, we were handed 3 sticks of incense each. A large flame was placed in the center of the yard and next to it was a sand pit in which to place the sticks. Not sure on Buddhist protocol, I watched my mom, a is practicing Buddhist. She lit the three sticks, placed them above her head and bowed three times, in the direction of the first temple door. Then placed the sticks in the sand pit.

A temple is not just one building. A temple is made up of closed off grounds, with a number of buildings dedicated to specific Buddhist icons.

The temple was awesome. I was shocked and slightly mesmerized by how massive all the icons were. We went from building to building and my mom and little sister did a lot or bowing, while I awkwardly embraced the beauty of the icons.

Lunch time rolled around. Within the temple enclosure was a small restaurant. Since coming to China, I've eaten a lot of noodles because they're vegetarian and I'm vegan. At the restaurant, we were served a steaming bowl of noodles. These were no ordinary noodles, they were accompanied by fresh cut vegetables, mushrooms, beans from the ginkgo tree (only eat 5 ginkgo beans or bad things will happen) and served in a searing savory broth. I had reached noodle nirvana.

After lunch we went into what I guess would be a buddhist gift shop. Mom had me trying on these bracelets made of seeds from the Buddha tree. They were not CHEAP…so once again, the only frugal person in the bunch, I was being pretty passive, not really committing to anything that was put up my wrists. Finally my mom picked out two and the lady from behind the counter put them on me. (Internal thoughts: wow, these are beautiful! I love them...oh mercy...look at the price).

"You love. I buy." My mom placed a wad of cash on the counter and we walked out of the gift shop. With the sound of the wind blowing through the trees and classical Chinese music playing, I was getting my zen on.

An overwhelming sense of eat.pray.love-ish attitude was filling my soul. We made our way out of the temple and to the car. Feeling so wonderful, I decided to see if I could remember the name for tree in Chinese. Pointing to a tree I bluntly asked if we could get take-out food. My mom burst out laughing and corrected me.

Once in the car, my family decided to take me to some historic streets in Hangzhou.
I have never seen so many asians jammed into one place. Everywhere the eye could see, something fascinating was going on. Children were peeing in the street, awful smelling dumplings (made with fermented beancurd) were sizzling and steaming on a grill, vendors were yelling, ancient medicine shops were brimming with hopeful customers, odd meat products were being carried around on sticks and consumed.

"What do you love? I buy," said my mom. My mom kept trying to buy me random things that I knew wouldn't fit in my suitcase when I decided to go home.
"I help you find thing to love," continued my mom. Feeling bad, I let her buy me a little hedgehog ornament. I plan on taking it home and giving it to my older sister, Sarah, who has an odd love for the prickly rodents. As we headed home, I felt so happy to be in China with a family that wanted me to be excited about a new culture and was willing to give me such wonderful experiences.

I am currently in Beijing. This is definitely a good program if you want to be an au pair in China. A few things to keep in mind:

1. The families pay LoPair a lot of money, so they expect a lot from you. Follow their house rules and do your best to meet their expectations, but don't be afraid to speak up if they ask too much of you. You want to get something out of the program just as much as they do.

2.If they can afford an au pair the families are usually very rich, so you might get to go on expensive trips and stay in fancy hotels. Enjoy it and don't feel bad about it, they really do have a lot of money.

3. Learn Chinese. Even if the family speaks English or your native language it will be a huge advantage in your everyday life. Being able to have conversations with the kid's grandparents is great, too.

4. The au pair program is still relatively new in China and many Chinese families host au pairs for the first time, so your might run into some issues with the family. Don't be afraid to switch families if nothing works out. I switched families after a month and I'm much happier now.

5. Chinese children can be incredibly spoiled. In my first family, a temper tantrum would result in the child getting a new toy. Go along with it, you're not there to change them. When you get tired of it just ignore the child until he or she calms down.

LoPair's support is great, the Chinese classes are helpful and you will make many new friends. Just be sure you are ready to spend lots of time with young children and aren't afraid to try new things.

Living in a family or community without any direct communication between the people was the biggest challenge in my gap year in China. I had to get used to the fact that my hostfamily didn't tell me anything. 'We are going on vacation.' 'When?' 'NOW! Pack your bag, we are leaving in 5 minutes.' Yes, Chinese people are not talking and they are very, very spontaneous. One time my host brother woke me up at 6 o'clock in the morning to tell me that we are going on vacation. There even wasn't enough time for me to take a shower. Of course they planned the trip a few days before, but it wasn't necessary for them to tell me, not even the evening before, so I could have got up earlier. But however, after a while you get used to it. They don't want to be mean, that's just their way of life, their way of behavior. It was one of my biggest challenges in China, because they always seemed so inflexible even when they were spontaneous, but it made me a lot more open-minded to an other way of life. Yes, I do a lot of things different at home, but that doesn't mean my way is the right one. Trying to live different for a certain amount of time is the challenge of a gap year and now, after living for six months in China, I can say that this challenge and new thinking made me a better person.

I lived 6 Months in a Chinese Family. They have two Children and live in a cool place called Ningbo. I was hired as an Au Pair, which was quite a lot of fun and a cool experience. Most Host Family was awesome. Before i went to China we had several Skype talks to make sure that we are a good match, LoPair helped a lot to find a good Host Family and in the End they found the perfect one for me.
Under the week I mostly had to take care of the little daughter. She is 8 years old and a really lovely kid. In the morning we only did study related things, which means one Chapter in her English book, Math, Chinese writing (my host sister insisted that I always have to write the characters too, so it was a challenge for both of us) and often we also did some homework for her Pinyin class. Than we had lunch together, which was prepared by our amazing ayí who cooks very well. After lunch we always had time to do some fun stuff outside. On the weekend we always had some cool adventures, my host parents always planed some interesting things. They are very outgoing people, which I liked a lot. I have really seen a lot of China. My host family showed me many places. I have never imagined that I will see so much of China in this time. A big thanks to my host family for this! I think we saw almost all the interesting things around Ningbo and we had two big trips. In January we went to Sanya, which was absolutely amazing and over the Spring Festival we went to Beijing, which was really cold but still an amazing place to visit. We also went to Hangzhou and Taizhou. My Host grandparents live in Beilun, and I stayed with my host sisters their for a few days. It was a very interesting experience to see the „older“ Chinese way of living.
I think the sentence that helped me the most to life in a Chinese family is „ just flow with it“. Don´t overthink things. Be prepared to be spontaneous and to meet a lot of different people who will not understand you and you will not understand them either. But it doesn’t matter. Appreciate the difficult communication; it can be a lot of fun!
And most important! Be patient and Relax. It can’t be always sunny and smiley. Sometimes you have a bad day or your host parents or your host siblings. It´s normal. And it is normal if some days you don’t really have something to talk about. Don’t stress yourself about this. It happens. You can’t talk all the time. If you think about your own family, sometimes you have quiet dinners too. And the next day everything is all right again. If you worry too much you just see things that are not there, or if something really bothers you just ask if everything is all right. Only talking people can be helped.

This program gives you the chance to explore China, chinese culture, chinese language, the beautiful cities; but the most important aspect is that after this program you can say that you have two families. My chinese parents treated me like their own daughter, my chinese sisters as their sister. I created a lifelong bound with my host family and now that I'm back in my home country I totally miss them. If you choose this program, be ready to fall in love with the Middle Kingdom.

For nearly five months I've been an au pair in Beijing the wonderful and always busy capital of China. You soon realize, that in a country as big as this distance is quite relative! But back to the beginning: I came to China in the end of July and even though my home country, Germany, gets pretty hot in the summer is no comparison to China's tropical humidity. After a seemingly endless flight to Shanghai, another German and one Australian girl went on another pretty long bus ride. The driving style left us pretty much praying to reach our destination Hangzhou alive. Finally there we had three nice days with the wonderful people in the LoPair office. Over all time of my stay, whenever there was a problem, there would always be someone to take care of you! Even though in the first few weeks our biggest fear was getting run over, I personally am now even more reckless than some locals. Of course the first time in your host family is a bit awkward but for me everything turned out fine and I'm enjoying every minute with my host kids! Some time we spend learning and often we go out to the park, do sports or cook and bake. But whatever we do it's always fun and I can't believe that there will come a day I have to leave. China itself has become home for me, the people are warm, welcoming, helpful and sometimes a little too impressed by seeing a foreigner and make the best food in the world! I fell in love with the beautiful landscapes and vibrant cities and would advise everyone to have this experience themselves! I for my part have decided to extend my program in this wonderful country! Good luck to everyone who wants to start their own experience abroad!

This is definitely the best experience I've had so far. I didn't expect I would be so happy in China since I'd already been an au pair in USA .

Living in Beijing is amazing and I all can say is that you can't be bored in this city. There are so many things to do and so many different places to visit and even though I have been here for 6 months, I still discovering new places to go. Plus all the amazing people I have met here who I will never forget.

Visiting the great wall or the temple of heaven, the summer palace of the forbidden city are experiences that you will never forget. All the history this country has,its culture and how amazing the people is in this country is just unbelievable.