Una red social para el cambio social

Hosoda, a Japanese-American doctor of family medicine, was recruited by Beijing United Family Hospital after that facility lost its only Japanese-speaking doctor. Her previous Sino exposure had been a trip to Shanghai, but China had a homecoming of appeal - partly because of family roots."My husband Rob was born in Hong Kong and his family was from Guangzhou," she says, though they emigrated to Canada when he was a year old. "And my mother lived in Tianjin for several years, working as a midwife."

Her husband's work had almost brought the family to China before. The couple was eager for their two children, age 4 and 8, to learn a second language, and Mandarin seemed more useful in today's world than their own languages, Japanese and Cantonese.It was a little hard to leave Seattle, she says, "because my sisters are there, my parents in Japan plan to retire there, and Rob's family is nearby in Vancouver."

So although the family's destiny may be back in the US, homecoming is in Beijing on a three-year contract and intent on making the most of it."When I came here for an interview in 2009, I was blown away," she says. "I knew Shanghai as a modern city, but my idea of Beijing was something out of the 1970s, I guess - all Mao outfits and bicycles."