Program Reviews

During my 6 months in China I’ve been able to experience so much, some things bad but overall good.

I’ve been living in Beijing but also gotten the chance to visit Sanya, Harbin and Shanghai.
I’ve got to try all kinds of food, some I didn’t even know you could eat.
I’ve made friends from all over the world.
I’ve seen amazing things, such as the Great Wall (but don’t walk up, that’ll hurt the next morning...)

There are two things that will make your experience in China great, your family and yourself. Choose your family wisely and make sure you can communicate well. Families in China are different so being able to adapt will make it easier for both of you. Talk about how they like to educate and take care of children and how you like to do it and come to an agreement on how to do it.

There’s a lot of things I can say but most importantly: if you come with and open mind and give and take you’ll probably have a great experience like me.

The past 6 month that I got to spend in Beijing were some of the best in my life. I experienced a strange culture with their ancient traditions and odd manners. Although I can’t speak Chinese it was easy to make new friend, get around and discover new places.

If you like working with kids and enjoy discovering a new culture then this Programm is probably one of the best options to choose from. The agency and of course your future host family will take good care of you and help you in every situation. Therefore you should be communicative and outgoing.

The agency also offers culture classes and family activities to make it easier for you to find new friends. And the mandarin classes you will attend are fun too. Besides learning the language it is another opportunity for you to hang out with your mates.

I was comming to China to challenge myself and as a gap-year before university (also learning the language isn't to bad).
But what I found was not a challenge at all.

I was always very welcome in my host family and got treated as a member of the family.
I got a connection to the kids quite fast and could communicate to my host parents very easily, due to their good English, which made my stay alot easier.

I think the biggest problems for aupairs is, that they have to little time going out (Curfew/working time) and that sometimes they are being viewed more as a worker than as a family member.

I count myself as very lucky and my time here was definitely worth it.
I had a great experience in china and would recommend it for people that look for something different.

Coming from the rather quiet Germany I prepared myself for an adventure including, incredible crowds, skyscrapers, weird food, different mentalities and a ridiculous language. I definitely was not disappointed, China is different in nearly every aspect of life which makes a (little) culture shock inevitable. Besides travelling and all the nice parts of being in a foreign country there are also some challenging parts, on which I want to focus in my review.

First of all I want to clarify that this program is neither about you nor does LoPair have presents to give away. They are not a welfare organization but a business organization with their focus on the host families (who pay insane amounts of money to have us as their private teacher/family member). If you decide to come to China as an Au Pair you decide to work in China for more than 35hours a week and absolute minimum wage. It is not travelling in China and having loads of free time as a lot of Au Pairs like to hope when they first come here. I've seen a lot of Au Pairs leaving China after just a few days/weeks because they misinterpreted the program description. Second I want to stress that dealing with high expectations not only for your host child to learn the foreign language but also regarding you as a person can be extremely intimidating. Most Chinese families still think of foreigners as being hardworking academics who manage their time in the most efficient way, whereas in reality, and I think I can speak for all of us, we also like to watch Netflix, laugh at memes, spend nights out and procrastinate in terms of studying and work. Be prepared to feel the foreign implied urge to outgrow yourself.
Furthermore you as an Au Pair are not living an independent life, which can be quite annoying if you in your personal development are already an independent person. You as an Au Pair are living for another family, meaning your sleep schedule, freetime and vacation plans, studying schedule etc. but also wether they see you as a family member or employee depends on your family's plans and moods which change from day to day. Flexibility and adaptability are key. If your hostchild only sleeps 15 hours on a whole weekend because it's going through a phase then don't expect to sleep more than that (of course the next nights he/she will sleep more again, but still). In a lot of families you are indeed not only a language teacher but more of an educator who spends more time with the children and has therefore more influence on the children's behavioural education than the parents themselves. In the time that you are their Au Pair you are responsible for their children's development which on it's own is a very big challenge. In addition, you not only have to be a good teacher you also have to ensure that the children are interested in you as a person and want to be around you (want to be influenced by you).
Besides all that you also want to make sure to take care of yourself by studying Chinese (which you should see as freetime not as a duty), meeting friends and exploring your area. This is where your host family comes into play, if they grant you regular off days, understand the program guidelines and respect your needs and interests your freetime will make up for what you have to go through every week (was luckily the case for me). If not seek help at LoPair. Since you work for the family, let LoPair work for you and your needs, don't work for both parties and try to make out everything on your own or you want to leave China quicker than your host child can say ”不要“ (a stubborn way to express their resentment).

As a conclusion I want to tell you about how all Au Pairs (including me) always complain about how exhausting, suppressing and toxic being an Au Pair in China is and that I don't think that that's a lie or an over exaggeration.
But I also think that exactly these challenges and unsolvable seeming problems that you will face are the fact why you WILL outgrow yourself, why you will develop a stronger personality and why you will gain key qualifications that you wouldn't have gained in your average 9-5 job or uni.
We don't grow when we are comfortable, but when we have to leave our comfort zone.
Don't come as an Au Pair if you want to travel, but come as an Au Pair if you want to face new challenges, because that's what being an Au Pair in China is, a challenge.

Special thanks to my Mandarin teacher Scarlette and my local coordinator Yvonne without who I wouldn't have been able to complete the 6 months.

*mic drop*

Hi, I’m doing the six week au pair program with LoPair and I’m based in Shanghai. I have been an au pair several times previously within Europe and this experience has been very different but amazing due to my wonderful host family and friends I met both with LoPair and various agencies through out my stay.
I found LoPair very approachable and responsive to messages (especially Becky, Ursula and Joey although I’ve never met either or them 😂).

My original local coordinator was good to me as I didn’t have to reach out due to having a good relationship with my host family.
Later the local coordinator changed to being Yvonne and she was lovely💕 She arranged KTV (Chinese karaoke) which was great and nice to meet other people within the agency.

My host family were amazing and treated me like a member of their family. They introduced me to lots of new foods and experiences and I got to join them travelling within China for nine days which was incredible. I choose the family as both parents had great English and seemed really nice when I interviewed and I kept that same impression through out. I can not thanks and recommend my host family enough- the boys were so nice and amazed me daily with how much English they knew although they were only 2 and 4 years old! 💕

Based on my experience I would recommend au pairing in China to anyone who is outgoing and up for an adventure. Sometimes I had to put myself out of my comfort zone but not as often as I had expected as my host family was very westernised. I tried lots of new things, visited lots of new places, fell in love with milk tea and Chinese food in general 🥘

Of course there were some cultural differences but that is why I choose China as I wanted to learn about their language and culture. I didn’t improved my mandarin as much as I had initially thought I would as I missed a lot of classes due to extra plans with my host family, but I didn’t mind- just something to note that if you’re integrating as a family member it can be difficult to attend class sometimes.
I would love to repeat my experience if my future plans allow me.
I’m very grateful and thankful for my host family showing me the modern and fast paced life in shanghai (very different to what I expected) and the boys continuously surprised me with their English language ability. I will miss my host boys and parents a lot and hope that they come to visit me in Ireland at some stage 🇮🇪

**I have lots of photos of me with host family but am unable to upload them as they exceed the maximum file size.

I have mixed feelings about my Au Pair time in China.

On one side I got to know lots of amazing people, that I’ll definetly miss. We had lots of fun together, even though our tight schedules didn’t give us that much time to meet up. The other Au Pairs were people, who understood me when I was talking about problems with my host family or cultural differences, when others didn’t.
My host family was also one of the better ones, compared to horror stories I heard from others. Of course there were some misunderstandings from time to time but what I really appreciate is that my host mum supported me at studying Chinese and getting to know Chinese culture better. After the kids were in bed, we sometimes had short practice sessions where she would test my vocabulary, practices things I learnt in class or tried to teach me new things.

On the other side I need to say that there are lots of things I did not expected in this parogram. I knew, that there are lots of cultural differences between western countries and Asia, but sometimes it was tough because my host family did not understood how important certain things are for me (e.g. Christmas). What I also realized is, that I never felt like a part of the family. The focus of our program lays on teaching, so we are live-in teachers - not the big sister. I felt very pressured because I was afraid the kids don’t make enough progress.
Furthermore, the reason I came to China was to travel and become more independent, but in the end I couldn’t really leave Shanghai because there was no time (most Au pairs have their off day on a day where they have chinese class). So if your intention is to travel I would not suggest to this program.

I spent three months as an aupair in Beijing and got the chance to become part of a lovely family. I loved spending time with my host kid and my host family always tried to show me as much of their culture as possible. They took me on trips within Beijing at least once per week and we also got to spent a few days at the ocean together etc. Even though being an aupair and teaching children English can be quite challenging from time to time and requires a lot of effort and energy as well as commitment for children, my host family always made sure that I got enough free time to discover the city and spend time with friends. So I got the chance to camp and hike with friends on the Great Wall...
Also the cultural classes offered by Lopair, like a Kung Fu class or a traditional tea ceremony, were very interesting and the Chinese classes by Mandarin House were an excellent opportunity to study Chinese.

All in all, this program is an amazing opportunity to get to know China and its culture, to become part of a lovely family and to learn Chinese. I am incredibly grateful for my host family and hope to visit them in Beijing again soon!

It was an amazing experience. But try to take things not personal because the culture is different and mostly the people don't mean it how they say it. Through the chinese class, I could learn some basic skills in Mandarin and I also got a lot of new friends there. Friends make China much better. You can visit a lot of new places. I have been to a lot of different parks as well as in a lot of temple. That are so pretty places. It is nice to see the Buddha figures. They are all unique. Moreover I enjoyed to go to watertown because you can escape from the busy life in the city. To go around I would recommend to download Shanghai metro app and to use google maps. Glogle maps was my best friend in China. The metro system is very easy so you could also manage it without an app. But why should you make your life harder than it has to be.

I really liked this cultural experience here in China! The first month was quite hard as a lot of things are different than where I come from. I would not recommend this program to somebody who has problems with communication issues or homesickness!
Especially the Language barrier was quite a big deal here for me.. of course I am not able to speak Chinese and I can‘t expect everyone in China to speak English but most of the people here do not Even understand a single word.. I was shocked at the beginning. I really liked my family, but as an au pair in China you should be prepared for difficult kids! Collect as much experience with children as possible! Having a good relationship with the child was the hardest challenge for me in China, and until the end ist stayed dificult.. I feel like Chinese kids are completely different from European ones!!

I enjoyed being an au pair to a lovely family in Beijing for three months. I am sure I will miss them and cannot believe how fast the three months went. The Mandarin classes were also really good! It is focused on communication but I am very satisfied with it. We also had cultural classes such as making fans and traditional calligraphy which were very interesting. I would probably do it again if I could and whole heartedly recommend it