West Meets East: Parents Share Their Thoughts on Summer Fun

In our regular magazine piece ‘West Meets East’, we interview two Beijing families from two different cultural backgrounds about the same topic. This month, we talked to the Jiang-Yan family from China and Sumita-Geevarghese family from India about family summer activities.

China: the Jiang-Yan family

Justin Jiang works in the engineering department of a state-owned enterprise, while Hao Yan is a freelance cultural planner who organizes shows and events, writes books, and runs her own WeChat account. Their daughter Ella is currently in Grade 9 and dreams of becoming an art student. Yan talked us through their family approach to the summer holidays.

Did you attend summer camps as a child? Was it common?

When I was a kid, students were specifically selected to attend summer camps and they were not very common, so the opportunity to go was precious. The first time I went to summer camp was in the third grade, and I was impressed by the fact that the city kids all left home to live together.

Life was rustic back then, and we slept in the local school with desks put together and straw mats laid out on the floor. Waking up early in the morning, the female teachers and girls helped to braid each other’s hair. For me, the smell of summer is the smell of cold drinking water in big thermos bottles.

How did you usually spend your summer holidays?

In addition to summer camps, we also spent time at my parents’ factory, where children of all different ages stayed together. Sometimes I’d stay with my grandparents.

Do you think it’s important for children to take a break from academics during the summer or is summer the best time for them to prepare for the coming school year?

Of course it’s important to take a break from academics during the summer. Cultivating knowledge is essential, but it cannot be all-encompassing, and life would be too narrow if it totally revolved around the school year.

Does your child partake in any year-round after school programs or extracurricular activities?

Our daughter attends art classes once a week.

Did you study abroad or do any exchange programs when you were a student? Will you encourage your child to do them?

No, I didn’t. My daughter lived in London from age four to seven and has since been involved in various European and American courses, summer camps, and summer schools. But for now, it doesn’t look like longer exchange programs will become a regular thing in our family. Our daughter tried to live with a host family for three weeks during the winter break in the sixth grade but she did not like the experience very much. Even though exchange students get the opportunity to immerse themselves into the local culture, in this case, we felt there was a loss in terms of personalized education, and specialty development.

Do you believe it’s important for children to be exposed to different cultures? Why or why not?

Yes. There is no doubt that they will need it to understand the world better. Independent thinking, and critical thinking, is based on observation, seeing first, then thinking.

When we go to a new place, we always go to the local markets, museums, and take public transportation, in order to better experience the local culture. Last summer, I was at the annual group exhibitions at the Whitney Museum of Art in New York City with our daughter, and I was surprised at how sensitive she was to the politics of the artworks we saw. She has been to different schools in Texas, Seattle, and Boston in the United States and is sensitive to the very different social and teaching styles in these areas, each with different pros and cons.

Do you think it’s important for children to attend college immediately after graduating from high school or is it better for them to take a gap year?

I would personally prefer her to go straight to college and try to find a direction that is worth investing her energy in as soon as possible. Aiming a little higher, and working a little harder is what will unlock one’s potential.

Besides, what are gap years really for? Personally, I believe that vacation doesn’t give one a purpose, and that it’s only possible to find one through study or a job. Having said that, this year is so unusual that if our daughter can graduate high school this year, I might actually encourage her to take a gap year or even find a part-time job for a year.

India: the Sumita-Geevarghese family

Meet the Sumita-Geevarghese family. Originally from India, they have been in Beijing since 2011. Dad Danny Geevarghese is a former journalist at CGTN and now a stay-at-home parent. Mom Benita Sumita, is a high school social studies teacher at Tsinghua International School (THIS) affiliated to the Tsinghua High School. Their son Yohan Geevarghese was born in Beijing in 2012 and also attends THIS. We talked to Sumita about how their family enjoy the summer vacation.

Did you attend summer camps as a child? Was it common?

My husband and I spent our early school years in Kuwait, which was sheer coincidence. We did not know each other during our years there. Danny left Kuwait during middle school, but I went on to finish high school in Kuwait. Summer camps weren’t common during our formative years. Most expats left Kuwait to go home for the summer, and others traveled. Our schools packed us with so much homework and so many projects for the holidays that we probably did not have time to think of summer camps.

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How did you usually spend your summer holidays?

Growing up, we usually traveled back to our home country India, to spend time with our grandparents, get pampered rotten, eat bowls and bowls of mango, and get bitten by monsoon mosquitoes. In retrospect, I now understand, as a working parent, why my parents got only 20-25 days off of work, whereas I had close to three months. It was a lot of downtime for the piles of holiday homework.

Do you think it’s important for children to take a break from academics during the summer or is summer the best time for them to prepare for the coming school year?

The summer vacation is definitely a short sabbatical for students. However, learning is not only about academics, and we believe that kids, especially in lower and upper primary schools, should be engaged in learning in more ways than one, be it developing skills or nurturing a hobby. Short courses and/or summer camps are also great opportunities for young minds to continue honing their social skills. In fact, Yohan started school with a two-week summer program when he was two and a half years old. Those two weeks were a great initiation into his school life. There were a lot of tears to start with, but we incentivized Yohan with small, medium, and large-sized toys! So he not only got a taste of kindergarten, learning, and being social, but also figured out how to manipulate his parents [laughs.]

Does your child partake in any year-round after school programs or extracurricular activities?

Before the current global health crisis, Yohan played soccer with the China Football Club and learned the ukulele with a private teacher on the weekends. This year, Yohan has already asked to learn martial arts, and we are looking into online courses.

Aside from your time in Kuwait, did you study abroad or do any exchange programs when you were a student? Will you encourage your child to do them?

Both my husband and I have studied abroad for full and short-term courses. We both read for our Masters in the UK. My husband completed a short course on radio journalism in The Netherlands. I have completed short courses in various forms of conflict in Denmark. We have been fortunate that we have had such great opportunities to learn, and experience the world. There is such a constantly growing variety of courses, programs, and interests across that world, and we hope Yohan finds what he is interested in, wherever that might be.

Do you believe it’s important for children to be exposed to different cultures? Why or why not?

There is nothing more powerful for young minds (any mind really) than cultural exposure. It makes a person adaptive, accepting, and open-minded. Yohan was born in Beijing, and he is fortunate to have friends from around the world. Geographical acculturation is just one of the many things he experiences. Other forms of cultural exposure are also important, such as food, music, fashion, art, and more. There is a flip side to this though – except in Kuwait, where I grew up, I have not stayed in a country for more than seven-eight years. That sort of cultural exposure may also mean loosening of home ties, not with people that matter, but perhaps with the place, space, and different cultural norms.

Do you think it’s important for children to attend college immediately after graduating from high school or is it better for them to take a gap year?

This is a tough question because each child is different, and life plans keep changing. When we look back to when we graduated from high school, we feel we could have used a gap year but circumstances were so different back then.

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Photos: Courtesy of Hao Yan, Benita Sumita, giphy

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