So it's been a while.
A really long while.
Life has a tendency to get in the way of me writing. I'm not a very routine person anyway so I do even worse!
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| Litchi Park at night... sooo pretty |
It's a Sunday night. There are women arguing loudly in the housing estate behind my room. It's noisy living in Shenzhen. It's noisy living in any big city. I remember the first time I tried to sleep on my brother's sofa in Brixton, I thought I'd need earplugs! But its quite a nice noisy normally, its the noise of millions of people getting on with their lives.
Shenzhen feels like home now. It's remarkably easy to get about, and as I get used to things here I'm much more comfortable. Not to say there aren't things I miss. One of the big advantages of Shenzhen are the number of expats - it makes it possible to find the things you crave. And being able to hop over to Hong Kong for a weekend is awesome!
I've been having busy weekends. There's either planned outings with teachers from our school, or a friend's school - Dapeng peninsula is beautiful - or events with other foreign teachers. Big groups of us foreign teachers went over to Hong Kong for Pride last weekend. I didn't really get pictures because it was rainy, but there was a big turnout. It seemed a little more like a rally than a parade, but gender and sexuality equality is still more of a struggle in a lot of Asia, so that's not totally surprising.
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| A little bundle of treats from Hong Kong. |
Today my headmaster took me and the other foreign teacher out for dinner. I'd love to say "I've never been so full", but I'm a massive foodie so that would be an outrageous lie. This was definitely up there though, almost as stuffed as Christmas afternoon, or any family reunion! I tried traditional smoked duck, two types of steamed dumplings, two kinds of tofu, prawns cooked in special tea leaves (amazing), bamboo shoots (literal translation of their name is "jade magnolia"), candied lotus root stuffed with sticky rice, various green vegetables, and dates stuffed with stcky rice (lit. translation "arrow through the heart") which were incredible. I think there may have been more but I genuinely don't remember. Ooh actually there were pork and water chestnut meatballs and slow cooked honey pork belly. Now I feel fat and slightly hungry, which should be impossible!
Teaching is a weird thing. It's exhausting teaching primary, and the number of students we teach occasionally still blows my mind. It's fun but not massively mentally challenging. and there are moments when my stamina runs low. The kids are great though. They seem to really like us, even if they're not always great in class. There are a few that we see a lot more of. The teachers' children eat lunch in the cafeteria with us and the other teachers. At first only one or two were brave enough to talk to us, but now we're in such demand we have to haggle over who we sit with so no-one is disappointed! It's great for the kids' English, and they think its hilarious to try and teach us Chinese! I have an adorable 6 year old student who's appointed herself our teacher. Her English is incredible for her age, and it's improving so fast! I also need to brush up on my first person shooters and GTA to keep up with my grade 4 boys. They're hilarious.
Anyhoo, it's getting late on a school night so I should sign off...
Hopefully I won't leave it so long next time!
xx
I started work as a primary (age 6-12) school English teacher at the beginning of September. I cant believe it's already been 3 weeks and I'm about to start my 4th! True to my expectations China, and teaching, have been a roller-coaster so far, although my most recent drama is definitely more my fault than anything else. Yesterday I went to a really fun music "festival." Having been to several festivals in the past I'm not totally sure it qualified, but it was fun none-the-less, decent DJs, fun crowd, good dancing... that is until my knee decided to dislocate. Nothing serious but I will be teaching in a knee brace for a week or two!
Aside from that little drama, Shenzhen is lovely. It's a mega-city, so there are skyscrapers everywhere, but it still manages to be lively, amicable and verdant! (I need to use the long words because from 8 am tomorrow I'm back in much simplified teacher talk!).
