adjustment – Hongs Abroad

Last week, we submitted notice that we won’t be returning to our school in the fall.

It’s a simple form, but I felt so conflicted filling it out. Even with our first year of kindergarten being completely virtual due to Covid, we found a wonderful, welcoming community at our school. I will miss seeing familiar friendly faces, soccer games and get-togethers, and the 5-minute walk to school.

Besides missing the obvious things like our school, family, and friends, I thought about all the “little” things I will miss about living in SF:

The oven: I LOVE to cook and bake with my oven. However, most Taiwan apartments don’t have ovens but maybe we can get a small convection oven as a compromise?
Food diversity: Taiwan has amazing food but I appreciate the variety of cuisines and ingredients in SF. Now that we’re only 1.5 months away from moving, I’ve been trying to cook and eat foods that will be hard to find in Taiwan (which includes Mexican, Indian and Southern fare).
Weather: I probably complained a little too much about the rain and cold this year but oh, I will yearn for the cool weather in SF when we have to face the typhoons and hot, humid weather in Taipei!
Neighborhood: While our 2-bedroom apartment is nothing to write home about, we love our neighborhood. Close to family, school, parks and grocery stores, the location is so convenient. I’ve heard that everything is incredibly convenient in Taipei so I’m not worried about that while we’re abroad. I just hope that we can find a place just as convenient when we return to the city.

As I get wistful about moving, it’s nice to find encouraging messages in unexpected places. One of those places is in a children’s book called Goodbye Brings Hello. I borrowed a ton of books about moving and dealing with change for C and O, but it turns out I may be the one who needs them most.

“There are many ways of letting go. With each goodbye, a new hello.”

This short but sweet book is about changes in life. It can be so difficult to say goodbye to the familiar. But the beauty is that when we say goodbye to something, we are often saying hello to something else. So as we say goodbye to our friends, school, oven, and neighborhood, we will say hello to many new things and experiences in Taiwan. And those hellos can be fabulous.

Kids. They bring so much joy but also so many complications. C and O will be 8 and 6 when we land in Taiwan so we have to consider how the move will affect them, both socially and academically.

SOCIAL

Thankfully, I think they’re still young enough to adapt easily yet old enough to remember the experience. Of course, their adaptability will depend a lot on their personalities too. Between the two, I predict C might adapt better socially. He is a happy-go-lucky kid, makes friends easily and is fairly logical when you reason with him. He was initially reluctant about the move, but is starting to understand how unique this experience will be. C is also super excited about all the yummy food in Taiwan too. 🙂

O, on the other hand, is slow to warm up but he’s at an age where he’s content following his older brother and parents around. He can be anxious and stubborn – and as a result, unamenable to new changes, so we’ll have to keep a closer eye on him.

Above all, I think the boys will struggle with not having family around in Taiwan. (And honestly, for us too.) They are incredibly close to their extended family. They are used to having aunts and uncles visit each week, take them on trips and teach them everything from math to reading and writing. We’ve been spoiled, I know. Help from family has been so invaluable the past few years, and it was one of the major reasons why we postponed our move until now. Yet if we wait any longer, then it will be harder for C and O to adapt to a new school. (I’ll explain why below.) There is really no ideal time to move abroad, sigh.

ACADEMICS

It will be interesting to see how the boys adjust academically in Taiwan. Right now they are breezing through elementary school in the US. In Taiwan, we will be putting them in local public school. This was not our original intent. We had considered putting them in private bilingual schools but decided against it for several reasons:

We believe public schools will give the boys a better perspective of Taiwanese people and culture. Private schools are typically full of expats or wealthy families so you are living in a bubble.
We’ve heard from a few expat parents that public schools are the best and fastest way to learn the language. While private schools teach Chinese too, many of them dedicate about half the time to English.
Private schools can be expensive.

Taiwan public schools are notorious for being harsh. There is a lot of homework, tests and rule-following. O will be starting 1st grade which is comparable to kindergarten in the US, so we’re hoping the transition for him will be smoother. (Taiwan elementary schools start with 1st grade. Kindergarten is a separate entity, similar to how preschools are operated here.)

C will be starting 3rd grade, and that worries me much more. This is another reason why we didn’t want to postpone our move further. By the third grade, Taiwanese students are fluent in writing, reading and speaking. There are a few public schools with a CSL (Chinese as a Second Language) program, but we need to be working at a Taiwanese company in order to qualify. If we continue to wait to move, the chances of C catching up in a Taiwanese school are next to none.

Baba and I have no way to help the boys with school, so we will be hiring a tutor to help with homework. I fully expect that there will be a lot of tears and frustration…from me and the boys. I will probably drive myself crazy wondering whether we made the right choice sending them to public school. Guess we’ll just have to see how it goes.