A couple weeks back I had, as alluded to in the last post, a visitor from the States, my ever upbeat friend Susanna, came to stay with me in Shenzhen for a week.  Counting my time traveling with Tori last summer, this made for a grand total of 2 visitors in my time here, a sign that most of you reading this now ought to make plans to come travel out to Asia.  Susanna had been here with her family, visiting other family in Hong Kong and Vietnam prior to joining me on the mainland.  It was exciting for me to finally have someone in Shenzhen whom I could show the city to and let in on just why I do enjoy myself over here the way I do.

She arrived Saturday evening with her dad, whose linguistic abilities (spanning Cantonese and Mandarin, among others) served us well on a non-stop weekend tour of Shenzhen, highlighted with a visit to the commercial mecca that is Dongmen in the city center, meeting my old contact teacher Sarah there, and days punctuated by the short spans of time between filling, delicious meals.  Monday morning he left to do some other traveling, leaving Susanna and I to fill out the week with activities.  The first of these involved me getting a stomach virus for 24 hours.  Needless to say, this had not been on my original plan and I was none to thrilled to teach my kids for a couple days as a result.   We powered through, still managing to explore the neighborhood, take advantage of the abundant fruit for sale, see the gates of many, many factories, and enjoy the experience that is the Dafen Oil Painting Village.

Wednesday offered us the first real chance to get out of the neighborhood.  With my stomach better and an early finish to my so-called work day, we were off to climb Dawutongshan, the 3000 foot mountain in my old neighborhood.  It made for a leisurely hike up the winding road toward the summit, the weather fairly ideal and only a thin fog of pollution over Shenzhen.  We had several fun pauses, including an obligatory picture with strangers, a stop at a Chinese outdoor gym, and a Shanghainese guy with long fingernails cautioning us that the hike would take six hours.  Invariably, these estimates are almost always double the actual time.  I think the Chinese just walk slow.  Our timing however was suspect, and as we eyed the stairs (always with the stairs!) for the final stretch, the worrier in me debated whether we’d run out of daylight going down, while Susanna’s patient persistence said go up.  Well, she won that round, so up we went.  The effort was well spent however, and the view from the top was spectacular, taking in a huge swath of Shenzhen and parts of Hong Kong, as well as the Pacific.  The day offered both of us a break from the bustle and grime of the city, and in the evening we went down and met with Sunny in the old neighborhood for dinner, badminton, and later, street food.

Thursday was the day Susanna sat in on one of my classes, getting to see the well-renowned Mr. Bennett step in front of 55 teenagers to spout off about Valentine’s Day and play Hangman.  She was recruited to lead a round of Hangman for the kids and proved a good sport about it, despite me putting her on the spot.  The kids gave her a round of applause.  Past that, we game-planned our big weekend escape, vowing that, despite my as-of-yet unreturned passport and visa, that we would go somewhere beyond the Shenzhen city limits.  Sick of constant company, we parted ways for a few hours, Susanna off to souvenir shop and me to finish my classes and stock up on muesli.  She managed to find me just in time however, as in the short time I was waiting at our rendezvous point I had been accosted already by two women offering me ‘massage from pretty girl’.  No offer in this town scares me more.

‘Somewhere’ ended up being Guangzhou, the Cantonese-speaking mega city an hour north of here by bullet train.  I’d never been, but with Susanna’s fluent Cantonese and my superb mapreading, we made short work of the city, finding a hotel who would let me stay without a passport on hand (normally obligatory) on Shamian Island, the home of the old French and British concessions.  With limited time, we found a great restaurant and walked along the Pearl River waterfront, a large promenade that is filled at night with Chinese and some tourists, similar in some respects to Shanghai’s Bund.

Saturday morning after a late start we were off to Baiyunshan, a park chock full of hills to the north of the city.  It proved to be a rather popular weekend retreat, as the entire expanse was packed with Chinese people.  Me being white and Susanna being Asian, we drew quite the number of stares walking around, and I think I was the only visible foreigner in the park that day.  Chinese parks may be the best place to absorb culture in the country though, as the people unwind with games, socializing, and of course the favorite pasttime: eating.  It was a lot of fun simply to people-watch throughout the day as well as take in the hazy views of the city from above before we descended on the cable car, sparing our calves which had still been aching from the Wednesday conquest of Wutongshan.

The next day Susanna left for the US, leaving me back in Shenzhen to fend for myself.  Thankfully I manage alright.  It was a fun experience having somebody with me who speaks Chinese (at least better than me!) and can show me parts of the culture I had not yet seen, but also someone with whom I could show off Shenzhen and parts of China that were new to her.  Her familiarity with China also made it easier on me as I never had to explain any of the weird things that people do here, which was nice.  Since then, I’ve been settling into my routine, spending more time with my roommate, and finally knuckling down on learning Mandarin, though that seems a long march.