A Question we are asked often, is: Why Beijing?

I was explaining to one of my new co-workers about this today. I realized that it felt like the right thing to write about. Some of the topics below may come off as complaining. I want to assure you that is in no way the case. Most of the decisions we made, especially the family related ones, we would make again in a heartbeat. This is just to explain how we got where we are, and are in the position we are in.

When Irish and I got married, I was working in Korea. I have this dumb tendency to think things will just work out if you are patient enough. In this case it did not. Korea would not give my new wife a visa without a notarized marriage contract. The Philippine government takes around 6 months to do this.

So almost immediately after we got married, I had to leave my wife. I returned to work, and she stayed with her family.

Shortly after that I quit that job and moved to the Philippines. Together, we looked for work in a country that would take both of us. China agreed. We moved up to Harbin, a northern city in China. They had some beautiful old Russian architecture. We stayed there for a year. During that year 2 things happened: We lost Irish’s father to medical conditions, and Irish got pregnant.

The school at Harbin was not paying very much. This is especially true compared to what I get now. But, they had brought us over, and for that we appreciate them. Of our little savings, we sent money back to the Philippines for her father’s funeral and medical bills. Then we paid out of pocket for Irish to give birth in a Chinese hospital. The school did not offer insurance for us.

We then realized we would need to move to improve our lifestyle for our son. We also needed to earn more to increase our savings. I got a job offer from Beijing. We were supposed to stay for 2 years while working on paperwork for returning to Korea or Japan.

Again, nope. In Beijing, my first company had me teaching all around the city. My Harbin company had delayed paperwork. I was late arriving and would not get the position I was promised with them. As a result, I got all the odd-jobs. I worked in 2 different universities, 2 different language school campuses (Same school, different locations), and an elementary school. Each of these were on different corners of the city.

So I had little time to do paperwork for Japan, and Korea. And then we got pregnant with our first daughter.

So 2 years after We had my son, we were expecting our daughter. We went to an English speaking hospital downtown for our prenatal check ups. They rushed us through as fast as was possible. but when it came time, a few things happened. 1) The city center shut down for parade practice. That was China’s 60th anniversary, and we could not get to our hospital. 2) So we found an International hospital. We also discovered that the Chinese hospital had screwed up somehow. Irish’s C-section cut was reopening with this new pregnancy. We had to rush her into emergency to deliver our daughter, or we were told she would die. This cut still bothers her to this day periodically.

I had to borrow money from my boss to pay for this. Once again, I did not have insurance for my wife. It took me 5 years to pay that bill off. During that time, My mother-in-law passed away, and we had to deal with that. We paid for the funeral with the help of my family in Canada. But this left Irish and I as the financial sponsors for her two sisters, who became like our daughters. High-school, and university for one, High-school for the other, and living expenses.

We moved from the 2nd company to a 3rd, a school I was at for about 13 years in total. I had done work for them while working for the 2nd company, and moved over. They were very good to me for many years. I became management for a short while. Then politics happened, and I was replaced by a manipulative man, with many issues. I believe he used my autism against me, but I am not sure.

We were helping my brother out with a place to stay in Canada. We paid half his rent. We also paid the university fees for my sister-in-law and her survival fees.

Then we reached our point, My son was in middle school. School 3 had no High-school. We had to move.

We moved up to the school I’m at now. and not 2 months into my 1st year there, my mother was in a car accident that nearly killed her. When she recovered from that she was diagnosed with Cancer, and given 6 months to live. All our plans of paying for my further education to get me licensed over the last decade kept falling apart. I was stressed about family, We started sending mom money when we were able.

For years we kept saying we would move out of Beijing. It has been 15 years now, although it was supposed to be a 2-year trip. Now my son is graduating from Highschool, and I am determined to finally move out of this city.

Many good things happened here, but many harsh things happened while we were here as well. And many, many times we felt trapped like we would never get to leave. From the Harbin year to school 3, we only left Beijing three times. Each departure was due to a family crisis. Luckily, since moving to School 4, we have been able to spend some time visiting family, for actual visits.

So yeah, I have raised 3 kids, all 3 of them the hospital costs came out of pocket. same time financially cared for 4 family members and 2 funerals.

A fresh start somewhere might be nice.