Chinese nannies are the latest New York trend

China Daily ^ | 1/6/2006

[oblomov]

Chinese au pairs are New York's latest fashion: Manhattan's elite wants to prepare its progeny for the economic world of tomorrow.

Her parents are caucasian Americans, her home is a $1 million villa on the Hudson River and her favorite place to play is a swing in the yard.

But when Hilton Augusta Rogers, aged 2, swings through the air on sunny mornings she doesn't express her joy in English. "Geng gao," she calls to her father Jim. "That means 'higher,'" he says, pushing the swing.

The girl is happy and burbles in a child's Mandarin Chinese: "le, le," she says. Then she asks for a fresh piece of "gua gua." Each word makes her parents proud of their little globalization project: Who else at Hilton's age can already say "melon" in the language of a future economic world power?

Hilton is Jim Rogers' latest investment. The 63-year-old earned millions of dollars by founding the Quantum Fund in the 1970s with George Soros. And while the world speculated on Internet startups a few years ago, Rogers invested (successfully) in sugar, copper, and nickel. Since then he's been known as the "Commodities Guru."

[CJ Wolf]

If all goes according to soros plan Hilton will be able to scream "Don't touch my Melons!" in Mandarin during the 2012 invasion and rape of New York.

[BUDDYCAT]

I wonder if her parents will understand her when she says "I have a bad earache" in Mandarin.

[CatoRenasci]

Actually, there's nothing WASPy about it, rather it's an arriveste ethnic's notion of WASPY. As I mentioned in another reply, if the child were a truly well-born WASP, she would have three given names, not two, and all of them would be servicable as surnames, possibly excepting the first one. Soros connections, of course, would absolutely make the girl's father declasse in WASP circles, as would his talk about the child as an "investment." Good Northeastern WASPs may well spend less time with their children than their nannies do, and may well pack them off to boarding schools somewhere between the ages of 8 and 14, because they believe it is a better way to form their characters, but they don't prattle on about the "villa" or the "investment." If this couple belongs to any decent clubs, I would expect they'll be the object of some derision after this article.

[Proud_USA_Republican]

at least she'll be able to say it Chinese.

[netmilsmom]

LOL!

[The_Republican]

Jim Rogers is smart man.

However, he does have tendency to take things to extreme.

If people don't know him, HE IS NOT A LIBERAL by any strecth of imagination. If any thing, he is Conservative as far as economic policy goes.

In any case, hope I am wrong, but I believe Nuclear Holocaust would have wiped off civilization long before 2040.

[marsh_of_mists]

LOL, well, there are major differences between old money Boston brahmins and nouveau-riche yuppies aping them.

[Mordacious]

I wonder if her parents will understand her when she says "I have a bad earache" in Mandarin.

I have neighbors with a foreign nanny who has watched their almost 4 yr. old son since he was born. Kid speaks fabulous Spanish, but only a handful of English words.

[linda_22003]

"Actually, there's nothing WASPy about it, rather it's an arriveste ethnic's notion of WASPY."

Exactly, like all the unfortunate little girls that got stuck with "Crystal" (Krystal?) while "Dynasty" was on TV.

[marsh_of_mists]

A REAL lattes-n'-limos mom would probably spell it "Kristyl". Horrendous misspelled are "inventive" and "chic".

[Mears]

Great response---these folks would not be made to feel at home among many in Dover,MA where you never,ever would talk about money or investments .

[CatoRenasci]

Indeed. Although, just to confound things, I have a friend of impeccable breeding and education who named one of her daughters "Krysti" to the horror of her entire family. Oh, well, that husband didn't last....

[standingfirm]

"Kid speaks fabulous Spanish, but only a handful of English words."

Shows you how much time they spent talking to their child.

[Blood of Tyrants]

It is beyond me why people would have children when they are going to hire someone else to raise them. If their goal was to reproduce, they could save a fortune by giving the baby up for adoption.

[Blood of Tyrants]

Na, they would go for Khrystuol.

[Sonny M]

the oh-so-trendy idea of getting a Chinese nanny (God forbid the PARENTS raise the child) to "prepare" the child for the "economic world of tomorrow" in which China is inevitably the "future economic world power".

Trendy is the right word.

My father knew folks who 16 or 17 years ago got themselves japanese nannies (as many of their friends did) because they thought Japan was going to be the future economic world power.

My father laughed it off, saying in 10 years people like them would be looking to get chinese nannies and saying the same nonsense (his timing is off but he had a point).

Today he jokes that in 10 years, we'll see this trend with Indian nannies.

His other joke is that in between all these "trends" everybody gets illegals or legal hispanics.

[WVNan]

Why is he hanging out with Soros?

[The_Republican]

WAS hanging out with Soros.

They made lots of money together before splitting up.

Politically he is ANTI-SOROS.

[bellas_sister]

check it out...so Liberty will know Vietnamese. It's close enough.