Having a had a couple weeks now to acclimate myself to Shenzhen once more, I find myself increasingly comfortable in my new version of my old life.  As regards to my school, I’ve already detailed the good parts of the apartment.  When it comes to the classrooms, the luxury factor is not so evident.  Like last year, a cursory glance shows them equipped with the basic elements of any Chinese classroom: desks, chalk, more desks, overhead projector, some other desks, and a bank of overhead fans.  There is, naturally, no air-conditioning.  Never mind the tropics.  I suppose this is a fair trade considering what I get in return however.

Anyone who spoke to me about teaching last year is aware of some of my frustrations with my kids at times, though in many ways this is not on them, simply their lack of experience and practice with English as 7th graders.  Now my students are sophomores, and though I teach 55 or so at at time now instead of 27, it is much easier and less stressful.  They operate at a level that makes classroom management easier and they are more capable thanks to the extra years of English.   My nervousness about that first week at work evaporated quickly once I had been in front of them for a few minutes, and I found that by and large it was a pleasure to be teaching these kids.  So far that is holding true this week as well and I’m all the happier for it.

Most of my time back has involved going out to meet friends from last year back at my old school.  It is a strange thought to think there are new teachers there using my old apartment but that’s the nature of this machine.  I’ve played basketball a few times with Sunny and some of the other Chinese teachers, followed of course by dinner.  Here I am subject to trying to piece together Mandarin conversations as best I can and hoping they don’t lapse into Cantonese depending on who is speaking to who.  A highlights of the most recent meal included seeing the nearly 3 year old son of a teacher I knew from last year.  Then, the baby would stare at Andrew and I for several minutes before inevitably breaking into tears.  Now, he will call me ‘laowai shushu’, or ‘foreign uncle’ and will cheers a glass and have a sip of beer.  That’s apparently how it’s done here.

In my freetime otherwise I’ve been exploring my new neighborhood and catching up with old haunts as well back in the center city as I bulk up my DVD collection once more.  Just in the short time that I was gone it is clear that things have changed to some degree, that new green-clad buildings are rising where before there were only holes in the ground and that the ‘Shenzhen speed’ is still going.  I’m told the economy is bad here too, but so far there are no tangible surface signs of this.  In the meantime I have a friend from home who was in the area visiting me now, and it is fantastic to have a guest here in China.  I’ll be in Shenzhen for some time yet, so it’d be great to have others come as well.