Hector’s adventures in China

So it seemed time for an update on Hector’s adventures in China.

The start of the week was a childcare nightmare. We had a tentative date to go back but this was before kindergarten restarted. After much panicing and some pleading we found a solution. Phew! This means that for the first time Hector is being looked after by an Ayi. For our readers not in China the word Ayi has some different meanings. It can mean Aunt, cleaner or childminder. We have always avoided having an Ayi unlike many of our colleagues with children of a similar age. We never felt an Ayi was the right fit for us or Hector. We liked the socialisation that Hector got from attending nursery. Hector has never had attachment issues possibly because he has gone to nursery from the age of 1. So we also felt there were benefits with an easier transition to school. Yes it is true that we have to deal with a lot of illnesses acquired from attending nursery. But ultimately we felt that starting younger meant developing a better immune system younger. The nursery that Hector attends is also mainly Chinese speaking and we were very keen on him becoming bilingual. No signs of this yet although he may say ‘bu’ for no which roughly translates to ‘not’! Nursery also has the benefit of providing a great variety of activities without anyone having to deal with the mess or without having to have an endless range of creative supplies!

We have not always seen eye to eye with the Ayis. There are the constant requests for jackets while at nursery instead of turning off the AC. Also Hector frequently runs around without even a shirt on at home perfectly happily. This resulted in us trying to find more indoor jackets when it is becoming quite warm as Hector has actually outgrown most of them. We thought that this one fitted. We were wrong…

Hector also sometimes comes home with his fringe tied up. He refused a hair cut this week after coming home with his hair tied up and so this happened.

These things would be unthinkable in the West but here we just kind of accept it. It does kind of highlight why we were pretty set on nursery. We knew Ayis had a reputation for not letting kids be independent. This has some benefits. Kids here seem to be more passive and more obedient. They are toilet trained earlier. (So far we call it a good day if he sits on the potty or toilet.) But they are also very reliant on adults and sometimes don’t even feed themselves (I should have taken some pictures to illustrate what does happen when Hector feeds himself). Hector got some pretty strong comments when we were on a week’s training as he covered himself in sauce. But to us it was normal and expected when a child eats independently. Once Hector got used to using a spoon you couldn’t get it away from him!

Mostly at the moment Hector is happiest when playing with something that moves. His addiction to trains continues. It’s probably best we didn’t actually call him Thomas so he can avoid the teasing his Dad got.