photo: mitchell pe masilun
“You pull up to a stoplight and there is a Porsche on your left and a vegetable seller in a horse cart on your right”
While she finds adventure in the day-to-day details of life in Beijing, she also values the consistency of her routine. The latter stems largely from working at an international school – one of the many opportunities that Beijing has offered her. One of the biggest perks of working at WAB is the day nursery provided for staff. “I love it because [my daughter] has lots of friends to play with” says Crysell. “It was easy to come back to work when my maternity leave was over because I knew my baby [would be] nearby.” The Crysells are just one of many foreign families forming part of a distinctive group in Beijing. You could call them long-term laowai – former outsiders who have settled down and found their niche in a city that typically draws newbies in droves, only to see them leave after a few months or years. However, Crysell hasn’t always felt at home here. In fact, her relationship with Beijing wasn’t so much love at first sight as an acquired taste. Before teaching at WAB, she worked at a school in Malaysia. She had trouble switching from the latter’s balmy tropical weather to Beijing’s drafty, smoggy winters. But that wasn’t the only hurdle she faced before settling down in the capital. “Riding a bicycle in sandstorms in the spring and navigating everyday life in a language that I seemed destined to not understand – I wasn’t a fan,” Crysell says of her early days here. Kristen Billings, one of Crysell’s fellow teachers at WAB, couldn’t agree more. Her feelings about Beijing have remained conflicted since she arrived here 13 years ago. She is a mother of two: Henry (age 5) and Esme, who turned 1 in May. Both of Billings’ children were born at Beijing United Hospital. “I’ve always had a love-hate relationship with Beijing,” she says. Her disdain stems from the city’s pollution, traffic, and rude drivers. Like Crysell, however, Billings cites her job as a major factor for staying, and adds that Beijing’s museums, restaurants and activities are also major incentives. But most of her reasons for settling here are more universal, and larger than the city’s specific oddities. “I met my husband [here]. We got married, bought a car, got two dogs, and had our kids here,” she says. “We made a life here, and now this is where we live. I never came to Beijing thinking I would stay forever. However, I have never not thought about staying forever; we’ve just sort of landed here. That could change, [but] we don’t have any big plans to move anywhere else.” What’s more, Billings cites her family’s ayi, Zhang, as a perk of living here. “Not only is she a tremendous help to us, working and raising two children,” she says, “but she [has become] a family member.” In many ways, Zhang has become a third parent to Billings’ children: “They adore her and she adores them.” The thought of leaving and breaking July 2013
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