Hi, just wanted to thank everyone again for the tips and let people know how everything went, just for reference in case other parents are going through something similar.
So our first choice for my son was football (soccer), since he really likes it, there’s lots of exercise involved and it’s very international, so if we ever move back to Canada (or somewhere else), he can continue playing. I called MFA, but their Xindian session is more like a private class organized by parents, so we weren’t able to participate. MFA’s “open” Saturday session starts at 9 a.m. and is way, way the f**k up in Shilin somewhere, so living in Zhonghe we would have had to get up super early on Saturday morning to get out there on time. Call me crazy, but I like to sleep in on Saturdays, so we decided to forget it. It’s really too bad because we took my son to an MFA thing a long time ago and he loved it, so that would have been our first choice.
Anyway I also found out about another group that has football classes for kids called “Songshan F.C.”, you might have seen them at Living Mall (Jing Hua Cheng) on the weekends. They actually have classes all over the place and have one relatively close to where we live, at the No. 4 Park in Zhong He. Unfortunately they don’t have a class on the weekends at that location, only on Mondays and Thursdays from 4:30-6:30. I took my kid to one session and it seemed good. He enjoyed it and the coach seemed quite professional and very fun. The kids were a little younger, mostly between “Zhong Ban” (middle class) up to 2nd grade. The cost was also ok, I believe NT2k for 3 months (one 2-hour session per week). Unfortunately my wife and I both work and couldn’t figure out another way to get my kid back and forth, so we had to abandon that one too.
After that we sort of concluded that football just wasn’t practical in Taiwan under the circumstances. I think if someone were living in the northern part of Taipei, then football would be do-able since both Songshan FC and MFA have activities in that part of the city on weekends. I guess that’s what we get for living in Taipei’s “armpit”!
So here’s what we are doing for now:
- On Saturdays, my wife, son and I are taking tennis lessons together at Hsin Zhuang Stadium. I wouldn’t say it’s cheap (7 or 8k for 10 hours I believe) but it is a private class and we are free to use the courts to practice afterward, so it seems worth it. I also travel a lot and am frequently out of town on weekends, so the private class makes sense for us because we can cancel and don’t have to pay if I’m not around. Plus it’s fun to learn something together as a family. And if my son decides he likes it we might put him in the normal kid’s class after, which is much cheaper.
- During the week, my son is learning Taekwondo near our place. Personally it wasn’t my first choice, but my wife and her brothers all learned when they were kids so she she has a positive opinion of it, and I actually think it’s pretty good too now that he’s started. The good thing about Taekwondo is that there are little schools on practically every street in Taipei County, so it is super-convenient for us and also very cheap. The little schools are usually on the upper floors along main streets, I never even noticed them until I learnt the Chinese characters and now I see them everywhere.
So that’s what we’re doing this year. I would have liked for my son to participate in a team sport, but maybe next year when he is in grade 3 he can do something at his elementary school. So we are also looking at different elementary schools and trying to figure out what kinds of programs they have, but that’s another story! I will post another update about that sometime in the future. I have numbers for Songshan F.C, MFA, Hsin Zhuang Stadium tennis courts, etc. if anyone needs them…
