beijingkids Magazine

International Food Warehouse (IFW)
Only available on their weekday a la carte menu, International Food Warehouse's fish and chips is the priciest of all our picks, but well worth it for the authentic taste. Parents will appreciate the attentive service and sleek décor.
Mon-Fri 7.30am-10pm, Sat-Sun 10.30am-10pm. B1/F, Park Life, Yintai Center, 2 Jianguomenwai Dajie, Chaoyang District (8567 1568)
朝阳区建国门外大街2号北京银泰中心悦·生活地下1层

Orange Tree Bistro
What's better than nibbling on fried fish and potatoes while sitting outdoors? If the weather permits, then Orange Tree Bistro's courtyard and rooftop deck are a perfect fit. The kids are free to run around as you sit back and enjoy the view.
Daily 11am-11.30pm. 27 Dashibei Hutong (near Yandai Xiejie, north of Houhai lake), Xicheng District (6401 7797)
西城区大石碑胡同27号（后海烟袋斜街附近)

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Chinese people love to disperse pregnancy tips, share their birthing traditions and offer up their age-old superstitions. beijingkids seeks out the modern take on these traditional Chinese beliefs from Deng Lei, mother of 13-year-old daughter Li Jiameng and one-year-old Li Jiaxua Beijing, and Dr. Sun, a gynecologist at International Medical Clinic (IMC) who has been treating Chinese and foreign patients in Beijing for the past five years.

1. After the first three months, the shape of the mother's pregnant belly is a prediction of the sex of the baby.

It is said that a pointed belly means the baby is male, while rounded indicates a female fetus. To conceive a baby of the desired sex, tradition advises a couple to feast on specific foods seven days before conception. If they want a boy, they should eat tofu, mushrooms, carrots and lettuce. For a girl, the diet is pickles, meat and fish.

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Five years ago, Holly Chang sold everything she owned, from her house in Kentucky to the car in her driveway, and moved to Beijing to study Mandarin. Chang holds a dual bachelor degree in Civil Engineering and Psychology from the University of Kentucky, as well as an MBA from Bellarmine University, specializing in the Chinese market. In 2007, she founded the non-profit organization Golden Bridges, a Beijing-based service provider that creates peace-building missions between the US and China. Recently, Golden Bridges supported a grassroots youth NGO in mobilizing a delegation of 40 young people to attend the UN Climate Conference in Copenhagen, marking the first time in history that China's youth had major representation at a UN event. As founder and CEO of Golden Bridges, Chang spoke with students from Beijing BISS International School about the importance of social value, the challenge of running your own business and the difficulties of being a social entrepreneur.

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When I studied Chinese formally for a year at Beijing Language and Culture University back in the halcyon, pre-fatherhood days of 2003-2004, I was one of three swotty types who sat at the front. We had the unfair advantage of having native Chinese speaker spouses (by the way, I always think the plural of "spouse" should be "spice", don't you?), and the dubious qualification of being "maturer" than the rest of the class. After we had done battle with the language for a while and discovered that the more Chinese characters we learned, the less we remembered. I recall a conversation in which a fellow square and I asked ourselves whether we would still have set out to climb the mountain that is Chinese if we had known what we were letting ourselves in for. "No," we concluded.

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