After five years in Qatar, Elisa Orsi and her husband, David Sleight, knew they were ready to leave the desert behind.
They had moved from Australia to the Middle Eastern country in 2019 with their three kids — all under 6 — after Sleight accepted a job there.
Already big travelers before they had kids, the couple used school holidays to see the world after starting a family, before later leveraging Sleight’s teaching career to travel even more.
“Usually when people have children, it deters them from travel, but we went completely the other way,” Orsi, 37, a stay-at-home mom, told Business Insider.
Life in Qatar felt safe and comfortable, and it served as a base from which they could explore the region, traveling to places like Jordan, Turkey, and Egypt.
Gradually, the couple found themselves looking for something new.
“By the time we came back from our summer holiday in 2024, we said, ‘OK, we’re done. We need a change,'” Orsi said.
In August 2024, the family packed up their bags and moved to Hangzhou, a bustling city in eastern China.
Moving to China
China had been on their radar for a long time, though neither of them had visited before.
It wasn’t until Sleight came across an online job ad for a teaching role in Hangzhou that they began looking into the city.
“I was impressed with the natural beauty and how modern the city appeared. I knew China was very well connected by the railway infrastructure, so I wasn’t overly concerned about the location,” Sleight, 45, told Business Insider.
The couple looped their kids, who are now 11, 9, and 7, into the conversation about moving to China early. “We wanted to give them lots of time to process and to get an understanding of what was happening,” she said.
“We have a philosophy that we talk to our children, and we keep them informed about the decisions we make,” Orsi said.
To ease the transition, they showed their kids YouTube videos about China and the school they would attend.
When they arrived in Hangzhou, Orsi said their first impressions quickly put any lingering nerves at ease.
“We were actually quite shocked to see how clean, how modern, how organized, and how convenient everything is,” Orsi said. “Sometimes you watch videos, but unless you’re actually in it, you can’t really understand it to that degree until it affects your life.”
Their children attend an international school, and Sleight teaches English in the school’s bilingual program.
House-hunting was a breeze because the school put them in contact with a real-estate agent ahead of their move.
“We wanted to have a bedroom for each of the kids, and we were looking for amenities,” she said. “Most importantly, we wanted to be close to the school.”
Within 10 days of arriving in China, the family moved into a four-bedroom apartment. It’s about a five-minute drive from the school and roughly 50 minutes outside the city center, in a neighborhood dominated by local Chinese families.
Rent is 5,500 Chinese yuan, or about $790 a month, and is covered by the school as part of Sleight’s employment contract.
Life in Hangzhou
Moves like the couple’s have become more common in recent years. China’s latest national census shows that 845,697 foreigners were living in the country in 2020, up from 593,832 a decade earlier.
Even with a growing foreign community, the transition isn’t always easy.
The biggest challenge has been the language barrier, though translation apps have helped. Orsi is learning Mandarin through online apps, while the children learn it at school.
Sleight relies on support from bilingual teachers and staff, and many parents at the school speak English.
“During staff meetings and presentations, I wear an earpiece and listen to a live translation provided by the school’s professional translator,” he said. Sleight added that parents and staff also communicate through a messaging app with built-in translation.
In China, the family also had to get used to a system in which nearly everything, including payments, is done on a smartphone.
Despite those adjustments, Orsi said safety has been one of the most striking aspects of life in China. She said she’s often asked about the presence of surveillance cameras, but sees them as a positive.
“If anything were to go wrong, the issue would be resolved very, very quickly. So the children, they can be outside on their own,” Orsi said. She added that she probably wouldn’t feel comfortable giving her kids the same level of freedom even in Townsville, a city in North Queensland, where they lived before moving to Qatar.
It’s also common to see children wearing kid-friendly smartwatches, which let them be more independent.
“You can see their location, they can call you, they can pay for things, and so they can go anywhere. They’ll organize their own play dates and go and meet their friends,” she said.
As a woman, Orsi also feels safe walking alone, including from the train station late at night. “I have not thought about it twice. I wouldn’t do it in Australia. And I wouldn’t do it in Argentina, where I’m from,” she said. Orsi moved to Australia in her teens and later met Sleight while working at a telecommunications company.
It took a year, but Orsi says the family finally feels settled in their new home. Most of their social circle has grown out of the school community, including other parents and foreign teachers.
The longer school days have also given Orsi more time for herself. She said she’s picked up new hobbies, including learning to play the piano, going to the gym, and focusing on content creation for their YouTube channel, where she and Sleight document their family life in China.
Sleight is on a three-year contract at the school. As for what comes next, Orsi said the family hasn’t made any firm decisions.
“I think we would probably like to move elsewhere and go to another country when our contract is up, but that could change,” she said. “We may very well decide to stay in China and move to another school or experience a different city.”
Do you have a story to share about relocating to a new city? Contact this reporter at [email protected].
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