CHINA 🇨🇳

 2011 

 China is the best place to grow up. 

At just four years old I moved to Shanghai, China. It was 2011 and my mother had left her job to take care of me while my father worked full time in Asia. Our first house was in Gubei Lu I remember going to IKEA which was the first thing we did. We bought black flower looking stickers for our wall and I bought my life long friend Jake. Jake is my grey elephant stuffed toy that I take EVERYWHERE (yes I still sleep with him). Where we lived, we had access to a big park made of concrete where I spent my afternoons rollerskating with my first ever friends: Nerea and Alex. Like us, they were expats from Spain. We would go out to have dinner often because of our parents being close friends. I feel like partly my mother felt more at home around them. She constantly joined and contributed in Spanish clubs and friend groups. In China, Chinese people can ONLY go to Chinese schools while Internationals MUST go to international schools. Although I spoke Spanish at home with my parents as my mother tongue, english was the first language I ever studied. I remember always struggling with leaving spaces when I write so I would have to place my index finger after every word to be able to write the next. I also studied Mandarin. I didn't like paying attention in class because of the difficulty but we had different events that contributed to learning more about different traditions and cultures.

For instance, in my international school we celebrated Hanika by lighting up the candles each morning. We did not have ANY history or geography classes whatsoever, it was called "Individuals and Society" in which we learned about some historical events and their impact on society, but unlike "normal" school curriculums, the Early Years Programme and Middle Years Programme focused on SHOWING your learning more than just REMEMBERING it.