LoPair Au Pair China: Learn. Care. Explore.

This program is a great way of experiencing China! You will see parts of China that you would never see as a tourist. Hangzhou’s local coordinator is AWESOME!! She helps with everything and is always there for you!! Come to Hangzhou!! Here is beautiful landscape, lake, temples, tea fields and also super convinient to travel from!! I strongly recommend to come first for only 3 months and then extend if you would like. I have seen too many cases where au pairs were going to stay for longer (6-9 months) but had to/wanted to go home earlier and therefor had to cancel the program and pay a lot of money... also, don’t go through an agency in your own country because they will charge you a lot of money! If you go through lopair directly you pay so little it’s rediciolous. So don’t make the same mistake like I did! Good luck!!

I think the enjoyment of your programme will definitely come down to the family you are matched with as this is where you will spend the majority of your time. From my own personal experience whilst my original family was somewhat welcoming the language barrier was extremely difficult at times and from hearing stories of other au pairs family I felt like this family lacked the cultural exchange aspect and the sense of being part of their family. Luckily though for the last month of my stay I was able to swap families which I was so thankful for. My second host family was so amazing and the host father was fluent in English so this much communication between the family so much easier. I will genuinely miss my second host family.

By far my favourite part of the programme was making friends from all over the world. Honestly it made the time in China so much more enjoyable. The chinese lessons twice a week were also excellent. My chinese teacher Mango at the language school was an excellent teacher!

As for the staff at Lopair everyone is so friendly! I cannot thank my local coordinator Yvonne enough. No matter what time of the day it was I was able to message Yvonne for help and she would reply straight away and was always happy to help!

Although this experience was challenging at times I am so thankful I decided to partake in this programme. You will definetly gain invaluable skills of independence and personal growth from your time in China.

I am about to finish my six month program in Hangzhou in a few days.

I was lucky to get a wonderful and welcoming family with two lovely children. Compared to a lot of the other aupairs I had a big advantage, because my family was able to speak both English and German, which made the communication very easy.

Hangzhou is a beautiful city if you are looking for something completely different. It isn’t as crowded as Shanghai or Beijing and there is still plenty of nature surrounding the city center.

The best part of the whole experience was meeting all the other aupairs and getting to know so many people from all around the world. I made a lot of new friends and I am even going to visit some after my stay in China is over. I would definitely recommend the program.

During my 6 months in China I’ve been able to experience so much, some things bad but overall good.

I’ve been living in Beijing but also gotten the chance to visit Sanya, Harbin and Shanghai.
I’ve got to try all kinds of food, some I didn’t even know you could eat.
I’ve made friends from all over the world.
I’ve seen amazing things, such as the Great Wall (but don’t walk up, that’ll hurt the next morning...)

There are two things that will make your experience in China great, your family and yourself. Choose your family wisely and make sure you can communicate well. Families in China are different so being able to adapt will make it easier for both of you. Talk about how they like to educate and take care of children and how you like to do it and come to an agreement on how to do it.

There’s a lot of things I can say but most importantly: if you come with and open mind and give and take you’ll probably have a great experience like me.

The past 6 month that I got to spend in Beijing were some of the best in my life. I experienced a strange culture with their ancient traditions and odd manners. Although I can’t speak Chinese it was easy to make new friend, get around and discover new places.

If you like working with kids and enjoy discovering a new culture then this Programm is probably one of the best options to choose from. The agency and of course your future host family will take good care of you and help you in every situation. Therefore you should be communicative and outgoing.

The agency also offers culture classes and family activities to make it easier for you to find new friends. And the mandarin classes you will attend are fun too. Besides learning the language it is another opportunity for you to hang out with your mates.

I was comming to China to challenge myself and as a gap-year before university (also learning the language isn't to bad).
But what I found was not a challenge at all.

I was always very welcome in my host family and got treated as a member of the family.
I got a connection to the kids quite fast and could communicate to my host parents very easily, due to their good English, which made my stay alot easier.

I think the biggest problems for aupairs is, that they have to little time going out (Curfew/working time) and that sometimes they are being viewed more as a worker than as a family member.

I count myself as very lucky and my time here was definitely worth it.
I had a great experience in china and would recommend it for people that look for something different.

Coming from the rather quiet Germany I prepared myself for an adventure including, incredible crowds, skyscrapers, weird food, different mentalities and a ridiculous language. I definitely was not disappointed, China is different in nearly every aspect of life which makes a (little) culture shock inevitable. Besides travelling and all the nice parts of being in a foreign country there are also some challenging parts, on which I want to focus in my review.

First of all I want to clarify that this program is neither about you nor does LoPair have presents to give away. They are not a welfare organization but a business organization with their focus on the host families (who pay insane amounts of money to have us as their private teacher/family member). If you decide to come to China as an Au Pair you decide to work in China for more than 35hours a week and absolute minimum wage. It is not travelling in China and having loads of free time as a lot of Au Pairs like to hope when they first come here. I've seen a lot of Au Pairs leaving China after just a few days/weeks because they misinterpreted the program description. Second I want to stress that dealing with high expectations not only for your host child to learn the foreign language but also regarding you as a person can be extremely intimidating. Most Chinese families still think of foreigners as being hardworking academics who manage their time in the most efficient way, whereas in reality, and I think I can speak for all of us, we also like to watch Netflix, laugh at memes, spend nights out and procrastinate in terms of studying and work. Be prepared to feel the foreign implied urge to outgrow yourself.
Furthermore you as an Au Pair are not living an independent life, which can be quite annoying if you in your personal development are already an independent person. You as an Au Pair are living for another family, meaning your sleep schedule, freetime and vacation plans, studying schedule etc. but also wether they see you as a family member or employee depends on your family's plans and moods which change from day to day. Flexibility and adaptability are key. If your hostchild only sleeps 15 hours on a whole weekend because it's going through a phase then don't expect to sleep more than that (of course the next nights he/she will sleep more again, but still). In a lot of families you are indeed not only a language teacher but more of an educator who spends more time with the children and has therefore more influence on the children's behavioural education than the parents themselves. In the time that you are their Au Pair you are responsible for their children's development which on it's own is a very big challenge. In addition, you not only have to be a good teacher you also have to ensure that the children are interested in you as a person and want to be around you (want to be influenced by you).
Besides all that you also want to make sure to take care of yourself by studying Chinese (which you should see as freetime not as a duty), meeting friends and exploring your area. This is where your host family comes into play, if they grant you regular off days, understand the program guidelines and respect your needs and interests your freetime will make up for what you have to go through every week (was luckily the case for me). If not seek help at LoPair. Since you work for the family, let LoPair work for you and your needs, don't work for both parties and try to make out everything on your own or you want to leave China quicker than your host child can say ”不要“ (a stubborn way to express their resentment).

As a conclusion I want to tell you about how all Au Pairs (including me) always complain about how exhausting, suppressing and toxic being an Au Pair in China is and that I don't think that that's a lie or an over exaggeration.
But I also think that exactly these challenges and unsolvable seeming problems that you will face are the fact why you WILL outgrow yourself, why you will develop a stronger personality and why you will gain key qualifications that you wouldn't have gained in your average 9-5 job or uni.
We don't grow when we are comfortable, but when we have to leave our comfort zone.
Don't come as an Au Pair if you want to travel, but come as an Au Pair if you want to face new challenges, because that's what being an Au Pair in China is, a challenge.

Special thanks to my Mandarin teacher Scarlette and my local coordinator Yvonne without who I wouldn't have been able to complete the 6 months.

*mic drop*

I have mixed feelings about my Au Pair time in China.

On one side I got to know lots of amazing people, that I’ll definetly miss. We had lots of fun together, even though our tight schedules didn’t give us that much time to meet up. The other Au Pairs were people, who understood me when I was talking about problems with my host family or cultural differences, when others didn’t.
My host family was also one of the better ones, compared to horror stories I heard from others. Of course there were some misunderstandings from time to time but what I really appreciate is that my host mum supported me at studying Chinese and getting to know Chinese culture better. After the kids were in bed, we sometimes had short practice sessions where she would test my vocabulary, practices things I learnt in class or tried to teach me new things.

On the other side I need to say that there are lots of things I did not expected in this parogram. I knew, that there are lots of cultural differences between western countries and Asia, but sometimes it was tough because my host family did not understood how important certain things are for me (e.g. Christmas). What I also realized is, that I never felt like a part of the family. The focus of our program lays on teaching, so we are live-in teachers - not the big sister. I felt very pressured because I was afraid the kids don’t make enough progress.
Furthermore, the reason I came to China was to travel and become more independent, but in the end I couldn’t really leave Shanghai because there was no time (most Au pairs have their off day on a day where they have chinese class). So if your intention is to travel I would not suggest to this program.