About us

I write this on the 1st of August 2024, 20 years to the day since Xiaoying and I first met.

The name of this blog is becoming increasingly inaccurate.  The problem is, children grow up.  They start to know more than their parents.  Homeschooling turns into home-advising or home-chatting.

Oh well, let's keep the name, and the blog -- it's a good record of our history.

My wife, Xiaoying (AKA Mama), and I met in Malaysia in August 2004 while we were both on holiday.  The day after we met we did a 20 km walk together, and during that walk I decided she was worth chasing.

So, in July 2005 I packed up and moved from Auckland, New Zealand to her hometown of Guangzhou.  In China, Xiaoying had a real career as a senior academic at one of the top universities in the country.  (Since moving to New Zealand, in 2014, she's continued to be the main breadwinner, teaching privately from home.)

Our eldest child, Mulan, was born in March 2007 (we named her after a character in the novel Moment in Peking).  At the time both Xiaoying and I were working fulltime as university teachers, so fortunately we both had fairly flexible hours and we were both able to take turns working and looking after Mulan.

In mid-2008, after three years teaching in China, I switched to being a fulltime student again (I got a scholarship from the Chinese government to do a PhD -- I'd already spent ten years studying at Auckland University).

But it was hard to do everything, and our family was suffering.

In October 2009, as a way of trying to articulate things, I started blogging my experiences of family, study, travel and life in China at http://blog.sina.com.cn/kiwidaddy.  (I continued blogging there until January 2014, but unfortunately all my writings are now lost as sina.com deleted it all.)

After much talk and thought, in December 2009 we made a drastic family change (at the time, I wrote about it here).  Partway through my PhD I quit my studies and became a fulltime stay-at-home dad.

This was our first step on the path to homeschooling.

Around that same time Mulan's playmates in China were all starting to go to preschool/daycare/kindergarten.  We looked at various options for Mulan, and I took her to a local preschool for a few months (I stayed there and helped out, and observed).

But we started to think that Mulan would do better without preschool life.  Chinese schools are not great places for children.  Mulan stopped going to preschool, and we started thinking about Mulan's educational and social needs ourselves.

Our second step on the path to homeschooling.

Our second child, Miya, was born in 2010 (I wrote about her birth here), and life continued on, in China.  Mulan learnt to read at home, and was very soon reading to Miya.

During our time in China we lived mostly in Guangzhou, though we often visited Xiaoying's mother (Laolao) in Beijing.  We also frequently visited Auckland, to see my parents (Nainai and Yeye) and sister (Gugu) and family.

Over time four cats have moved into our home to live with us.

We met Maggie on the street in China in January 2008 when we were out for a family walk.  She was a half-dead wobbly, skinny little kitten, and so Yeye bought her a baozi from the nearby shop.  Mulan named her -- we asked her what we should call the new cat, and 10-month-old Mulan said ma-gee.  Maggie now has only three legs, as our neighbour (here in New Zealand) drove too fast and ran over her in our shared driveway.  She's now 16 1/2, and getting a bit slow.

We met Kitty in June 2011.  We noticed her hanging around our apartment building with an injured leg, and we asked if anyone knew her.  No one did, so we took her home.  Mulan also named her.  I wrote about Kitty's arrival here, and her death here.

We met Mickey in February 2014, also on the street in China.  Mickey was a sick kitten, and only lived with us a few months.  I wrote about his death here.

We met Mushy (AKA Mushroom, AKA Mushroom Soup) here in New Zealand in February 2019.  She was yet another starving stray who we adopted.

(When blogging at sina.com became too troublesome I started another blog at   http://homeschoolingwithdad.blog.co.nz.  Unfortunately blog.com stopped working in August 2016, and I lost a lot of my writings from there as well.  I then started this blog at blogspot.com, and transferred what I could.)

In November 2014 we moved from China to New Zealand.  Maggie and Kitty came with us, though they had to spend six months quarantined in Hong Kong on the way.

Mulan was 7 1/2 when we moved to New Zealand.  In China she didn't need to attend school, and she simply educated with us.  At some point we'd started homeschooling, but without any official declarations it was never clear when normal life child-raising had evolved into schooling.

But in New Zealand we had to apply to homeschool Mulan.

Our final step on the path to homeschooling was when, on the 3rd of December 2014, we got our official New Zealand certificate of exemption (from enrolment at a registered school).

A couple of years later Miya also got her homeschooling certificate of exemption.

This blog is a record of our homeschooling journey.

In August 2021 Mulan started at Westlake Girls High School, and then in January 2024 Miya did the same.  Mulan will finish at Westlake at the end of this year; she's currently in the process of enrolling at Auckland University, likely studying Biomedical Science.  Miya's got another four years before thinking of university.

After more than ten years, officially our homeschooling journey is now over.  It's been incredibly rewarding to see Mulan and Miya growing in their own ways, learning so much, and then in many ways surpassing us.