Hi Diary,
It is almost the end of my first working week in Beijing. I never imagined that I would one day work outside Hong Kong, yet here I am, starting a new chapter as a bilingual speech-language pathologist.
Hong Kong will always be my hometown. Tokyo and Tsukuba became my second home during my exchange-student days. And now, somehow, Beijing is becoming my third.
The strange thing is that it already feels as though I have been living and working here for much longer than a few days. Perhaps so much has happened that my sense of time has not quite caught up.
From the moment my plane landed, everything was a rush. Getting a mainland mobile number, having a haircut, checking into a hotel and viewing apartments—all squeezed into one afternoon. There was barely a moment to take in the fact that I had actually moved.
Then came the smallest hotel room I have ever stayed in. It felt almost like a cage home: I could barely open my suitcase. Thankfully, a colleague who was away on holiday generously offered to sublet her flat to me for a while. Having a little nest to return to has meant so much in the middle of all this change.
Meeting children and their parents has brought a different kind of adjustment. In some of my conversations this week, parents described sensing that their child needed help, while struggling to find clear information about child development and special educational needs (SEN). Some had pieced together what they knew from word of mouth or short videos on platforms such as Douyin. Others had already taken their children to several training centres, yet felt that the progress they hoped for was becoming harder to see as their children grew older.
Listening to them, I felt sad about how long and uncertain the search for suitable support could be. It made me wish these families had been able to access clearer guidance and appropriate help earlier. Coming from the settings I knew in Hong Kong, where early identification and intervention were familiar parts of my work and training, these encounters have made me realise how much I still need to learn about the routes to support here. They have also reminded me to begin with each family's story, and with what we can work towards together now.
Working with embassy families in Beijing is another new experience. Serving families across languages and cultural backgrounds feels both challenging and fascinating. It is one of the parts of this new role that I am especially looking forward to growing into.
Through all of this, I am beginning to feel that I came to Beijing for a reason. From my time as a fellow at Teach For Hong Kong, to teaching students with visual impairment, and now working as a speech therapist, I have kept returning to the same hope: to serve children and young people whose needs too often go unmet.
I hope that what I have learned through speech-language pathology, special education and inclusive teaching can help me make sense of these families' concerns with them, and bring a little light to the difficulties they are facing.
It has only been a few days. I am still finding my feet, still learning how life works here, and still making a home. But at the end of this first working week, I can already see why this new chapter matters to me.
For now, Beijing, I am glad to be here.
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