June 2010

IT WAS A RAINY DAY in November 2004 as I made my way through conversations with other mothers at a playgroup. My family was newly arrived in Shanghai and I asked the usual round of questions – where to buy diapers, decent bread, organic produce, whether to move or live with the leaky bathroom pipe. It occurred to me that in my home country, we have regional parenting magazines that offer this kind of information and support. Couldn’t we create a similar publication here?

I’d recently made my first friend while standing in the yard of my daughter’s preschool, Tiny Tots. I took the idea to her, and later that week we sat together in her playroom and mapped out content ideas. We envisioned an eight-page black and white newsletter that we self-funded as a community service. Eight months later, with a few hard knocks and a lot of serendipity, we published our first issue of Shanghai Family, then in partnership with Community Center Shanghai.

From there, important friends, colleagues and members of the community guided us along at each bend in the road.  Some of those women are on the cover of this very issue. Others are now settled in different countries and pursuits. To all of them, and particularly to Eugenia Yen, my founding partner who fielded a wacky idea on a wacky day, I’m grateful.

And now it’s my turn. As my family moves toward our next destination (as yet unknown at the time of printing) and Sheila Wong becomes Shanghai Family’s new editor, I look forward to becoming just one in a lovely line of many to have been part of this magazine.

In a conversation about transitions, a good friend in the U.S. recently said, “We’re most fulfilled when the community around us is strong.”  It’s true. So thank you, most of all, to Shanghai’s broad and vibrant expatriate community.

With warmth and appreciation,

Kate Lilienthal