6 week LoPair Program

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.