I thought that, while I’m still fresh off the boat in China, I’d take some time to describe a typical day for me here. I’m sure that in about 6 months, when I’m more established with a local bank account, better Mandarin, and the ability to scan QR codes in a meaningful way (I’m telling you, they’re everywhere), I will know so much more and my day might look a little different – maybe even a bit more efficient. FYI, I stealth-took a lot of these pictures, so the composition isn’t the hottest.
I wake up around 6 next to one of the 3 big bay windows in our apartment. After feeding the cats, I walk into the living room for some stretching, and look out another bay window at the mountain park across the street from us. In the distance, you can see a really tall hotel near Shangmeilin, the hoppin’ metro stop with a mall (and a Starbucks!) one stop away from us. Today is a beautiful day! I’m a morning person.
Winston for scale. And he says hi!
Seth and I leave for the metro at 7 – it takes him an hour to get to his school (about 7 metro stops and a bus), while for me it takes about 35-40 minutes door-to-door (3 metro stops and a walk). We probably could have made a better decision regarding where to live, because that’s a bit uneven, but our decision was rushed due to our efforts to move out of our Airbnb. We met with the apartment agent at 9AM on Saturday last week and moved in about 8 hours later to a place that is about 15 minutes from the Hong Kong border by metro. It was kinda nice to be that mobile, although it is artificial. (Shoutout to my parents and in-laws for keeping boxes of our junk at your houses until we can bring them here! And to Laura, for keeping my wine rack table for now!)
Anyway, this is what I see when I walk to the metro, which takes about 4 minutes. And there’s my handsome studmuffin, who has no idea that he’s being photographed. He is not a morning person.
I also pass some shops close to the metro, but I don’t know what they are.
Our metro stop has blue tiles on the walls! All the metro stops I’ve been to in Shenzhen (like 7 so far) have been really clean – there’s no eating or drinking allowed, and there are people always cleaning the floors or the railings. The front and back cars for some of the subway lines are marked as “priority carriages for women” (in pink!) but the times that I’ve ended up in these cars, there has always been a plethora of men. It’s a nice idea, though. There are also lines and little feet on the floor with arrows for where you’re supposed to stand and let people off first when they leave the train. I have not seen consistency in following the rules here, either. There’s always someone who goes to the middle! Also here’s a selfie of me while I’m being super stealthy. A stealthy selfie.
(I would also like to point out that everyone has well-fitting shoes here. After a long internal battle, I have given in and repurposed my running shoes for everyday use. There’s so much walking; it’s just necessary. Eventually my supportive flip-flops should suffice.)
There’s also always a security guard with a baton standing outside the doors, to keep order. I don’t think I’ve ever seen one of them “keeping order” in action, but they turn like soldiers in tandem with their partners down the length of the train. One time, I asked a guard for help figuring out where I was going. It was like my second day riding the subway and, after getting off in the right place at the right exit, I turned the wrong way, got lost, second-guessed myself, and got back on the metro. I then went two stops in the wrong direction and then back to the right stop. The metro system here is kind of hard to get wrong; it’s very dummy-proof. Anyway, the security guard was nice and just pointed to the map with English on it, 3 paces away from where we were standing.
(Sorry I got you mid-lip lick there, friend)
I arrive at the metro stop for my school, which is also a long-distance bus stop; so, right outside is a line of little quickie shops with fresh produce and restaurants selling dumplings for breakfast. Like this nice man below (top right picture), from whom I purchased some steamed dumplings “to-go” on my way to school a week ago. After successfully communicating without words that I wanted them to-go, he gave them to me in a little bag and held up five fingers. Naturally, I gave him a high-five! Then I realized he wanted 5 yuan (a little under a dollar). That was probably a funny story for him to tell later.
My walk to school is about 12 minutes, and I pass a bunch of apartment buildings. Sometimes I pass a dog taking a poop in the middle of the sidewalk. Gross.
Then when I get to my school, I take a seat in my “office” — a desk in a first-grade classroom. The kids usually spend the first part of the morning reading aloud! I had to do a video of this. It was just too cute.
Oh yeah — all the children who attend a school in Shenzhen appear to wear the exact same track suit. When we first arrived I thought, “oh, this child and the one I saw a few minutes ago must attend the same school!” but now I realize that this is just the school outfit for them. There might be a kid whose suit is in the wash one day, but overall it’s pretty consistent. I guess it’s easier for the parents this way, to dress their child in the same clothes every day.
Teaching in China is definitely a walk in the park compared to teaching in Korea. On my longest days in China (Wednesdays/Thursdays), I teach 5 classes. There are more students (over twice as many — up to 36 per class), but at the end of the day, I have energy to keep going! I taught 10 classes per day every day in Korea, except for Fridays when I taught 9. I’m actually writing this blog in my office hours, because I teach for 13.3 hours per week and have the rest of my time at work for lesson planning. It’s insane. On Fridays (today), I have two. TWO CLASSES. Seth’s schedule is a bit more full than mine: he has three whole classes on Fridays. Anyone want to hire me for part-time work? I have the time to do it!
For lunch I usually eat at school — the food isn’t fancy but it’s usually a healthy balance of some kind of meat, steamed cabbage, some other thing with possibly vegetables and a bit of rice. But today I went to the rooftop bar near my school with the other foreign colleagues. We had some beers and bar food. It wasn’t enough. Oh yeah, and Chinese people don’t like to get their hands dirty with food, so finger food at bars apparently comes with gloves. The bar had a really nice view, though.
Anyway, at the end of the day we go home and feed our kitties. Then, since we don’t yet have dish ware at our apartment (except for a steamer we bought at Ikea), we usually go out on a hunt for dinner. We have made several mistakes in this area. The other day, we were at a little hole in the wall restaurant and pointed to a few pictures of food they had on the wall. We were told “mei you” (don’t have), so we panicked and pointed to some other stuff, agreeing to what the person behind the cash register said. 10 minutes later, she brought us dessert — sweet, puffy dumplings filled with something orange and sticky. Sweet potato? Red beans? Jujubes? We’ll never know. Or maybe we will, someday. The other night, though, we went to this cool ramen bar where you choose your noodles, mushrooms, lettuce leaves, meatballs, and whatever else you want (like chicken feet) and then they heat it up in a soup for you — málà is the “numbing” spice popular in this region, and it makes your tongue numb. A little. It’s not too bad. And it’s the only soup-related word we know, so I said it when asked through a translation app what flavor we wanted, and luckily they had it. Then, depending on where we end up for food, we’ll often take a cab home. About half the cabs in Shenzhen are electric cars! I’m not kidding.
This day we ended up going to a foreigner bar in Shenzhen and met some new friends 😍, which is probably what we’ll be doing most Friday nights. We refrained from karaoke afterward, but we did get to see the 4th tallest building in the world — the Ping An Finance Center, completed in 2017. It has 115 floors, and is 1,821 ft (555.1m) tall:
These LED flowers are on a lot of buildings in Shenzhen.
A few points before I wrap this up:
- I’ve been asked if I feel like this is a polluted city. The answer is a resounding “no” — although there are lots of people and cars, it was planned so well to be a huge city that it’s very clean with a ton of parks and green space. Everywhere you look, there’s always flora. The buses and a lot of taxis are also electric, which is pretty cool.
- The food here rocks. But I think it would be hard for vegetarians to eat here, as in much of Asia. I’m glad my vegetarian mother won’t be visiting until my Mandarin and general knowledge of the place improves.
- Linguistic observation: Chinese people have trouble pronouncing the ends of their syllables. I probably seem like an obsessive crazy person who keeps telling her students to say “moMMMM,” not “ma.” This makes sense, since most of their syllables don’t have an ending consonant, except for “n” or “ng.”
And that’s all I have to say about that! Well I probably have more to say but thanks for sticking with me this long. Maybe Seth will add his contributions later!