I come from an international marriage that has run aground. Thus in educating my son I not only carry the burden of reconciling Eastern and Western culture, I have the pressures of being a single parent. As I have watched my son Hai-li grow up strong and healthy over the past 17 years, I cannot help but have a sense of pride and satisfaction. Pride, because he not only can speak, read, and write Chinese fluently, he also blends right into Taiwan's society when we are there. Satisfaction, because he likewise fits in well in German society.

I have been determined not to speak German with him ever since his birth. The intervention of his grandparents or the nervousness of friends have not softened my decision in the least. The language I used with him when he was still in swaddling clothes was Chinese. Given the outside environment, naturally there were times when it was unavoidable for him to address me in German. But as soon as I heard German, I would feign total ignorance and give no response at all. He had no choice but to reluctantly switch to Chinese. From first to fourth grade I brought him back to Taipei to study in the Kuang Jen Primary School. These four years gave him his strong foundation in Chinese, and allowed him to fully understand student life in Taiwan.

As Hai-li was about to enter the fifth grade, my former husband and I talked it over and decided to send him back to Germany to study. It just happens that I was assigned to my company's office in Germany, so mother and child reentered German society together.

Since coming back to Germany I have shifted my attention to his non-academic physical and psychological development. I provide the "hardware" and the financial support for him to pursue whatever he has an interest in, and I don't make decisions for him. I have taught him to make his own decisions, and then to be responsible for them. For example, I let him open a bank account, and put his spending money directly into the account. He can use it any way he wants, with one restriction: no drugs. He has switched from soccer to basketball, and gave up piano, in which he had no interest, and instead has pursued his special fascination for model car building. I helped him to achieve all of these ambitions after we thoroughly talked them through.

Another thing that I am working hard to achieve is to develop his "global outlook." Having parents from two different cultures has helped him travel along this road. I encourage him to spend more time studying foreign languages. It goes without saying that he must become fluent in English as well as German and Chinese. Further, he studied French and Latin in school. Lately he has taken to studying Japanese on his own initiative, and it delights me to see that he really understands that language can narrow the distance between people. When time permits, I give him the chance to travel to other countries. And we spend the winter or summer holiday in Taiwan every year or two. Last summer he came back to join the young overseas Chinese tour group organized by the government's Overseas Chinese Affairs Commission. This gave him an excellent opportunity to spend his holiday with other children of overseas Chinese, and to see how the nation is developing. It really helped him to grow and mature.

Education is like relationships. If all the effort is on one side, the experience will not only be difficult, it will be unrewarding. Fortunately my son is very cooperative and understands his mother's intentions. My German ex-husband, seeing how the educational principles I have always insisted upon have gradually produced concrete and positive results, has given his unconditional emotional and material support to my methods for raising our son. With everyone in step, and striving in the same direction, not only has "educating the next generation" not been an arduous duty, I have been very happy in taking on this responsibility. So now, in my forties, I have "adopted" the daughters of a Chinese friend, and I am thinking of the best way I can help this friend to educate her next generation.