到外国体验与学习的互惠生

互惠生（Au-Pair）来自法语，意为互相帮助。这一活动50年代起源于欧洲，给来自全世界的青年们提供一个在别国的寄宿家庭里体验文化和学习语言的机会。由于这一形式给了外国家庭和青年学生交流文化的机会，所以受到越来越多的家庭和青年欢迎。如今这一项目也走入了中国，很多外国的互惠生受到了中国家庭的欢迎。

A lot of middle and upper class Chinese families already have a housekeeper or nanny to care for the children and maintain the house. However, the idea of cultural exchange through a foreign 'au pair' is only now starting to catch on.

Mr. Michael Xie, Manager of HHS' Cultural Exchange Program in China, has been working the last few years to facilitate the placement of inbound and outbound 'au pairs.' The majority of the inbound participants come from the UK and America and are typically in their early twenties.

"We realized there is a strong focus on inbound programs, especially in the context of globalization, the Olympic Games and the Expo in Shanghai. So we have become more aware that this trend is becoming important."

HHS provides volunteer positions and internships in eight major Chinese cities, mostly in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou. As a pioneer of this innovative exchange program, Mr. Xie explains that, as the French name, 'au pair' implies, the relationship is mutually benefitial.

"The host family would offer free accommodation, a monthly stipend and the main purpose is to experience the foreign country's culture and living with a foreign family in order to experience their commonplace family life in a foreign country. So, it is not seen as a duty and a privilege to host the au pair as an employee in order to have professional childcare service but it's rather an all in one package."

Li Long and Ma Jia are two freelance interior designers who work from their beautiful apartment in Beijing's Chaoyang district. Their young daughter, Sisi, is only 10 months old, but is already learning English and an astounding number of other subjects.

Because they value their daughter's education, they wanted to start teaching her at a young age, says Sisi's mother Ma Jia.

"I think in the future, English is going to be the most basic language skill that every Chinese needs to master. I don't want my child to start to learn English until school age and learn it in a hard way. I don't want her to learn the language by way of memorizing and reciting, like other kids do now in school. I want her to pick up the language naturally, the same way she learns her mother tongue."

Twenty-three-year-old Adam Parkin is from Sheffield, England, and arrived to live with the family as their 'au pair' two months ago. In England, he worked in a mother and baby unit while participating in social services. Even though he'd never been out of the UK before, he wanted to culturally immerse himself in China.

Some may wonder, 'how does one teach a baby English?' but Parkin explains it's never too young to start.

"It takes a lot less to teach a baby, because she will just accept it the new word and remember it and that's it. It's an evolution of the method her mother's been using to teach her Chinese. So, within a week, she'd understood that OK, these flashcards aren't Chinese, these are something else, and she caught on to the concept of English and just rolled with it."

Apparently, this little Chinese Einstein already knows the periodic table of elements and can do math as well, using only flashcards.

"The first things you get when someone says, 'you can teach a baby,' is you try to debunk it yourself. And I've tried a lot of things, closed my eyes, I don't know which one it is and she's still grabbing it. So, you can see the effect quite clearly, but we're still sort of evolving the process to some degree. I take the idea quite seriously and I try to provide the best I can so I'm still trying to think of new ways and better ways, I'm still trying to push the limits of what she can do."

Ma Jia and Li Long have enjoyed the overall cultural exchange, says Ma.

"Having Adam with us helped us learn a lot about British culture, which we would never have been able to learn so thoroughly otherwise. I think this is a great opportunity for us to gain insight into each other's country and what's happening there. I think this is very meaningful."

Parkin says he would definitely recommend being an 'au pair.'

"I think it's something that a lot of people could benefit from in a lot of ways, regardless of their intentions, they want to learn or just do it for the experience just to do something different, or even if they have more fun-based needs, China offers it. I think there are a lot of good reasons to be involved in China one way or the other. You get a lot of support, a lot of help, if you're prepared to do something different, I think it's a brilliant idea."

Xie says that the programs have definitely gotten more popular and most likely continue this way as long as foreigners and Chinese families want to be 'au paired up.'

Perhaps this means that for some adventurous young people, the best way to get a foot into China's cultural door, is to know a bit about babies.

For CRI, I'm Andrea Hunt.