As we often say about life itself -- we wonder where the time has gone and we feel like time is running out too quickly on all we want to experience and learn. It has all been fantastically interesting -- such that our learning continues after our daily experiences, late into the evening both from conversation with the kids and from reading from the many books the kids have here. In addition, we've eaten in the high school cafeteria several times this week that has allowed us to enjoy enlightening conversations with the kids' "contact" teachers -- one in his mid-30's who has been teaching 14 years and the other, age 24, who just started teaching last year. It's been so interesting to be able to learn from them about all aspects of Chinese life, education, food, culture, attitudes.
Rather than writing a daily journal for the week, I'm going to just highlight some of our activities and summarize a tiny bit of what we have learned/experienced.
I'd never even heard of Shenzhen until just a few years ago when our daughter-in-law's brother was here participating in the same English teaching program that the kids are doing. I still remember seeing him on the video-chat program (Gmail Talk) and contacting him for a brief conversation. Now that I've had a first-hand look for myself, allow me to share some background and personal observations (a little of this repeats what I posted previously -- but is helpful to understand what follows):
Shenzhen (pronounced Shen-Jen) is a mega-metropolis just north of the Hong Kong territory that is home to 12 to 14 million people. However, just 25 years ago, it was just a small fishing village. In the 1980's it was designated by the Chinese government as one of the "Special Economic Zones" where capitalism was encouraged and government assisted. Today it ranks in the top of first-tier cities in China along with Shanghai and Beijing and is said to be the number-one Chinese city for quality of life and the richest city in China.
Shenzhen is comprised of several "districts" just like any large US city -- and a new and growing underground metro subway system that appears to be as good as, if not better,than the newer ones in the US like in Washington, DC and Atlanta and far superior to the aging ones in Chicago and New York. Like US big cities, it has huge, mega-destination shopping malls packed with high-end stores that I could never afford to shop at -- as well as the typical big box stores familiar in the US: IKEA, Sams Club, WalMart and electronic/computer/camera stores on a massive scale that I've never seen in the US.
Like all big US cities, it has destination tourist attractions, massive traffic problems (though on a scale and with a seemingly chaotic lawlessness that I've never seen before -- where pedestrians appear to have no right-of-way even in cross walks), seemingly unlimited places to eat and shop, and a wide diversity of income and quality of life for its residents. Like all major US cities, there is clearly many who have little amongst many who have it all.
With that background, I want to explain that the Staci/Martin were assigned to a school which is outside the "Special Economic Zone" of Shenzhen in an "outer district" called Bao'an" (pronounced Bough-On") where they have gotten to experience all of the diversity of Shenzhen. Their nearest "shopping" is truly a rural village which is a 25 minute walk or the equivalent of about 30 cent bus ride away. It has one main, smaller grocery store but lots of crowded stalls and street vendors, and many eating opportunities including a few nicer restaurants (table cloths!) and many "hole-in-the-wall" type diners. One of the nicer restaurants cost us the equivalent of under $15 for all four of us and one of the diners cost us the equivalent of about $5 for complete dinners (four plates of different items plus rice and tea). Yes, that's right -- not $5 each, $5 for all of us. Both served incredibly delicious food -- the diner gave us the opportunity watch them make the spaghetti like noodles that were hand-stretched to the perfect size.
The following picture is our $15 meal (not pictured are two beers, tea and rice -- all for $15)
I'm out of time right now -- and we are headed on a bullet train out of Shenzhen for two nights (more on the trip later) -- so I'll add to this later as well.
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