The Becker family recently returned to Clayton this past summer after spending two years in China. Dana and Brent Becker along with their kids Brooke, Avery and Ellie moved from Clayton to Shanghai in July of 2014 after Brent took a position with a new company. The Beckers stayed in an expat community named Jin Qiao, where many other international families live.

CHS students Brooke and Avery, along with their nine-year-old sister, Ellie, attended the Concordia International School of Shanghai.

“It’s an international school with American curriculum,” Dana said. “In many ways, it’s similar to Clayton. Everyone challenges themselves, and the teachers are very eager to help. Everyone’s very welcoming because everyone is coming and going.”

Many international students from around the world attend Concordia International School in Shanghai every year. There were vast similarities and differences between Clayton schooling and Chinese schooling.

“The school is Pre K through 12th grade, and it’s pretty small, about half the size of Clayton.” Avery said. “In the school, English was almost everyone’s first language, because everyone was international students like us. Academically speaking, it was an easy transition, because of the American schooling.”

“We made friends from all over the world,” Brooke said. “Korean friends, Japanese friends, Australian friends. There were people from everywhere.”

There were a wide variety of extracurricular activities offered at the school.

“When you play sports, you get to travel to other countries,” Avery said. “I played softball my first year, and we went to Hong Kong. We went to Japan for another conference. You do home stays, where you stay with another family in the different country, which is really cool. I stayed with a Japanese family.”

The Beckers took advantage of many opportunities offered in China that are not available in Clayton.

“We ate different food and experienced different things,” Avery said. “We also went to Yellow Mountain and hiked that. Last year we went to service trips in Himchan which is the like the Hawaii of China. We spent a little bit in the rehabilitation centers helping children with cerebral palsy and autism, it was an amazing experience.”

“We traveled to Vietnam Thailand and New Zealand, and we went to the Great Wall,” Dana said. “One time, there was a professional photographer. He asked for a picture of the girls, and before you know it there were like 20 people taking pictures of the girls, it was like paparazzi. People would ask us a lot of questions.”

Avery described Jin Qiao, the place they stayed, as a bubble just like in Clayton. “There were a bunch of international people living there. You could go to a shop and order something in english and they would probably understand you because of how many international people are living in the bubble. But you take a bus and leave the bubble and it’s completely different. I could go to the market in the city, and it was all chinese and they would give you odd looks.”

While there were some similarities between life in America and life in China, the Beckers found that the culture is completely different.

“In China they have internet censorship. Also, there are T.V. blackouts when there’s things that they don’t want you to see,” Dana said. “We don’t take things for granted anymore.”

The language barrier was not usually a challenge for the Beckers, as they made an effort to learn enough to get around.

“It’s a lot better to learn a language when you can actually use it,” Brooke said. “The curriculum was really good because it was helpful for learning things we would use in China, and we could learn how to ask for a taxi, and order food at a restaurant.”

While learning simple chinese, the Beckers were taught how to bargain and order food, a necessity to survive in the new environment. This was important because negotiating prices was often necessary in a market.

“The chinese people were grateful if you tried to use Chinese,” Dana said, “You could get along Shangi without knowing Chinese, but it’s so cool to learn how to speak it. Putting effort into to learning the culture is great.”

Language is not the only difference between American and Chinese culture.

“I think the girls will miss the freedom, it was so safe,” Dana said. “Avery could hop in a taxi with her friends and go to the other side of Shanghai and I wouldn’t have a problem with it. It was a very different environment.”

Transportation was another huge difference between Chinese and American culture.

“A lot of people take taxi’s, but where we lived we could walk anywhere,” Avery said. “Another big difference is electric scooters are really used a lot there. Instead of getting a car in China, high schoolers ride scooters. It was also so crowded, there are so many people there. In the beginning it was super overwhelming.”

The experience, overall, was an amazing one.

“I think the worst experience was having to say goodbye to everyone,” Dana said. “It’s a long month of saying goodbye to everyone, because all of the families where we stayed leave in cycles together, staying for only a few years. It was very emotionally draining to say goodbye.”

However, there were things in America that they did not mind coming back to.

“We missed the clean air, without all the pollution,” Avery said. “Also fast internet, being able to easily shop without it being super crowded.”

The Beckers look back on their once in a lifetime experience in China happily.

“We would go back if we could, right now. If someone asked if we wanted to repeat the adventure, we would definitely would.”