Lin Lin

linlin_szdaily@126.com

IN Shekou, if you bump into a Latin American family who start dancing at a HeyTea store while waiting for their bubble tea, that could be the Angaritas from Colombia.

“Being an expat mom in Shenzhen is busy, but it’s fulfilling,” said Karla Angarita, who works as a kindergarten teacher at Shen Wai International School. “Shenzhen is welcoming. It’s open, and you find a support system within your school community, your city community, and your neighborhood that makes it different.”

Karla and her husband Ramón Angarita came to Shenzhen in March 2007. Back then their expectation was to stay for one year for a music contract with InterContinental Shenzhen. It is the “support system” that they find in the city that has prolonged their stay. Now they credit Shenzhen as their home after being here for more than 15 years.

Shortly after they arrived, Karla found that she was expecting a baby. “Although back then it was really hard to find doctors who could communicate with us in English, we found very helpful people,” Karla said. “People were willing to help all the time with the appointments and translations. We just felt Shenzhen was the right place to stay throughout the pregnancy.”

When the baby was born, Karla met a special someone in her hospital ward, an experience that filled her eyes with tears as she recalled. “I was sharing a room with a Chinese family who had just delivered a baby,” she said. “The mother of this lady adopted me as a child. Every time she brought food to her daughter, she would bring some for me too. We were just so blessed that we always had people around that appeared like angels wanting to help.”

The warmth and support which Karla and Ramón gained during their first year in the city made them feel at home.

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They decided to stay here and raise their first child David. Two years later, their daughter Valentina was born, and then their little boy Santiago in 2012.

As years go by, the support system for Karla grows bigger and stronger as she continues to meet more people, including those from the local Latin community. “We all were like a family. We raised our kids together. To me, that made a whole world of difference,” she said.

In 2021, Karla started sharing her daily life in Shenzhen on Instagram and received many questions about how she raised her children in the city.

As a tech hub and an important city for international trade, Shenzhen has attracted talents from around the world. When it comes to education, Karla observed that the city’s international vibe is a great source for her children to experience diverse cultures — not only her home country’s culture, but also cultures of different communities.

“I’m not teaching them about a different culture. I am letting them be exposed to this culture by just having friends,” she explained. “It’s not a choice I make. It’s a natural thing that happens because they get to go to an international school or because of the neighbors from different countries. So I see in my kids this open-mindedness that makes them global citizens and they have a hunger for the world. It makes me realize I wasn’t raised that way. Everything we knew about other cultures was because we read about it or we watched a documentary. My kids get to live it.”

In this Colombian mother’s eyes, family is the center of every community. Over the past years, she observed that the city is becoming more friendly to children with more parks, kindergartens, playgrounds and free play opportunities for children to make friends. “If Shenzhen continues with this, we will be more open to expat communities trying to settle in this city, because the family will always be what drives the choices of parents,” she said.