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The Beijing Apartment Blog

International Schools in Beijing: The School Guide

When you move to Beijing as an expatriate from overseas and you're bringing your family in-tow, one of the first questions you end up asking yourself is, "Where will my child go to school?"

The likely answer, of course, is an international school in Beijing. You're not, after all, going to put your son or daughter in a Chinese public school, right?

You want a familiar environment, and a Western education, and those are things you simply won't find in an ordinary Chinese learning institution - but you will find in an international school.

But what exactly is an international school? How does it work? Which one should you choose, and why?

Those are the questions I address in today's article - your guide to finding your international school of choice, right here in Beijing.

Beijing Housing: Where to Find It and How to Get It

Doubtless one of the more daunting tasks in planning a move to Beijing is that of finding Beijing housing. How do you even know where to begin?

beijing housing

You're relocating to an unfamiliar city and country, don't speak, read, or write the language, and hardly know anyone there... and if that wasn't enough, you're not even sure what kind of housing exactly you should be looking for, what area you want to put down roots in, and what kind of prices you're looking at for your new home.

There's a lot to decide and a lot more to figure out. Fortunately, you're neither flying blind nor solo - I'm here to help you through the process of finding and selecting your new housing in Beijing, every step of the way.

We'll review three things in this article:

  1. The 4 Kinds of Beijing Housing
  2. The Major Expatriate Housing Areas
  3. The Cost of Housing in Beijing

Let's begin by going through your options on the kind of housing available for your selection.

Want to Move to Beijing? 8 Things to Know First

So you've started thinking about it; you're going to move to Beijing. Pretty intimidating, right? Here's this massive city of 20 million people, the capital city of China, big and foreign and alien and unknown. Where on Earth do you begin?

move to beijing

Most expatriates relocating to China for the first time are in for the usual stages of adaptation to a new home:

  1. Enthusiasm: when you first arrive, everything is new, stimulating, and so exotic, so different. It's energizing! There's so much to explore, so much to do, and so much to be excited by... it's a process of discovering an entirely new world to live in.

  2. Disillusionment: this is the stage normally referred to as "culture shock," when the thrill of the "newness" has worn off (typically between 1 and 3 months into your move), and the annoying things about a new culture begin to grate on your nerves. Perhaps people aren't polite enough - or perhaps they're too polite. Some things that are easy in your home country are much harder than they need to be here. The language barrier complicates things, some of your favorite foods are impossible to get (or don't taste nearly as good), most of your friends and family are so far away, and there are so many things that people in your new city just don't seem to do right; it's maddening.

  3. Adaptation: the final stage of cultural adjustment, where things aren't new anymore, and they aren't frustrating either; that's just the way they are. You're moving around your adopted home like a native now, and people are telling you you're more local than the locals. But you don't even notice; it's just how you do things.

But at this point, you're not even worried about those things; all you can think is, "How am I even going to pull off this move? SHOULD I even make this move?"

This article was written to help you answer those questions, introduce you to the challenges and differences you're likely to face in Beijing, and help you decide if a move to Beijing is right for you - and how best to make it if you decide it is.

5 Things to Do in Beijing (That You Probably Don't Know)

Beijing is a huge city - at almost 17,000 square kilometers (6,500 square miles) in size and nearly 20 million people in population, few other cities on Earth come close to matching its sheer size and density.

And there are tons of things to do here, too - from the many tourist sites and cultural artifacts to see, to the wide variety of restaurants to sample, to the nightlife, shows, and spectacle to take in, the city has a lot to offer.

things to do in beijing

But you'll be forgiven for thinking the actual number of things to do in Beijing is smaller than it is, based on what you'll see on most travel websites... things like:

  • The Great Wall
  • The Summer Palace
  • The Forbidden City
  • Tiananmen Square

show up on every list and can start seeming like the only things to do here!

They're not, though, and the city has a plethora of hidden gems to offer the intrepid traveler... if he or she knows where to look, that is.

Today, I want to share with you five things to do right here in Beijing that you probably haven't heard of and likely wouldn't think to do, whether you're making your first visit out or you've been here for years, so you can get a broader taste of Beijing - and sample a lot more of what this ancient, storied, but suddenly very modern city has to offer.

Beijing Real Estate: A Buyer's Guide to Home Purchasing

The first time you start thinking about buying Beijing real estate, you'd be forgiven for thinking the process must be impossible, or closed to Westerners, or that you need to go through terrifying and draconian twists and hoops and obstacles to land yourself an apartment or property.

But in fact, the Chinese government recognized some time back the value of opening its doors to foreign investment money and has done much to modernize real estate investing, making it a much more open, streamlined process than it used to be.

Beijing Real Estate

Of course, purchasing real estate in Beijing is still rather different from doing so in many Western countries - it's still a bit of a frontier out here, with fewer protections, greater risks, and odd quirks you wouldn't even think to expect without doing your homework first.

Fortunately, that's what this article is designed to be - homework on property-buying in Beijing, so you can get the Beijing real estate you most want, with as few hang-ups and as little risk as you can possibly get.

How to Find a Beijing Apartment

If you're new in town in Beijing, finding a good apartment here can be a regular pain in the butt.

Most of the decent listings are in Chinese; most of the landlords don't speak a lick of English; and if you're trying to navigate your way around the ever-present real estate agents, you'll soon realize this Herculean undertaking is also a next to impossible undertaking.

And if it's all driving you a little crazy, well, you're in luck, because you're exactly the sort of person we put today's article for: our authoritative guide on how to find your very own Beijing apartment.

beijing apartment

While the Beijing apartment market can be a bit labyrinthine to navigate, it's not a completely uncrackable nut.

And crack it for you we have - so have a seat at your computer, grab a notepad and pencil, and let's take a look into how you can pry off the lid of this perplexing place to find a new home and get yourself living in your dream flat in no time.