Abstract:
In this paper, I argue that auto-ethnographic research is an appropriate method for documenting how I understand early childhood education in China, USA, and New Zealand from the past to the present, and the process of continuing my master’s study, including the possibilities (and impossibilities) for being an international student in the context of the unexpected global COVID-19 pandemic. My role is explored through an auto-ethnographic account of experiences, positions, and emotions. I illustrate my story through a two-phase process that begins with recalling my childhood experiences, including with the SARS pandemic in China in 2002. My identification reflects on who I am, where I come from, and what my memories of childhood and of early childhood education are, when I was a child in China. The second phase of my statement aims to explore what early childhood education looks in a Chinese context during recent quarantine in 2020. It mainly draws on stories, news, personal observations, narratives shared over social media, official educational websites, and newspapers. By recalling my childhood memories and presenting current early children’s lives during home quarantine, readers could become conscious of the differences between two different time periods because diverse childhoods exist in different cultures at different points in history.