Finally got around to finishing up my Cerro Chirripo, Costa Rica, movie. Here’s the original story, if you’d like to read it.

I told myself that I’d never be an English teacher in China.  It just seems that most every foreigner in China is an English teacher.  So, not wanting to be like the average foreigner in China, I simply said that I wouldn’t teach English, even though I enjoy teaching.  When Davide‘s wife first asked me to teach at her fledgling English school, I declined saying that I was too busy (true!).

But, when she sent me a desperate text message saying that a teacher had canceled at the last minute (a common problem among those bums), what could I say?  So, I showed up and winged a class.  Turns out it was a lot of fun and quite easy.  There wasn’t much more to do than just talk, ask them to repeat, and correct pronunciation.  OK, a little more than that, but still easy if you’re willing to be a bit of an actor and have a good time with the kids, there’s really nothing to it.

The kids can be totally rambunctious, much wilder than western kids.  And the parents, who enjoy watching too, will usually not do anything.  When they do scowl at the kids, the rebuke only has effect for maybe one minute.  However, the last class that I taught (a duo of the better English speakers), one of the girls just would not behave at all.  Her mom happened to be inside the office.  After telling the girl to sit down and behave for the 25th time, I stood up and knocked on the door.  The kids immediately got quiet.  I told the mom to have a talk with her daughter and tell her to behave.  Well, the end result was a fit of crying and I had to teach the remainder of the class as a 1:1.  Oh yeah, and because that disruption was so big, I felt like I needed to improvise a game.  So, I came up with sort of a charades game:  We took turns drawing on the whiteboard.  The other person would think of an animal or object and describe it.  The other would draw it.  The result was often funny.  I’m only able to do this game with this one student, who lived in Toronto for a while.  Impossible for the other students.

Most of their English ability is deceptively bad.  They have a decent amount of vocabulary, but when I got bold in one class and suggested that we started working on basic sentences, I was shocked at how hard this was for them.  Sentences like, “Are you awake?” and “I’m going to school.” took a lot of effort!  I wonder how they’re teaching English in the native schools?  Guess I’ll learn more about all this as I go along.

Oh, here’s another interesting thing, our classroom is in an apartment that’s been converted into a school.  This is quite common in China.  There’s some sort of after-school school being conducted in an apartment on the first floor of my building.  Not sure the legality of this (I suspect there’s no issue with it), but this is quite common.  There’s an old lady in an apartment under the school that I teach at who periodically complains about the shouting kids.  Can’t say I blame her.  They do love to shout.

Here’s a shot right before class.  Normally, there are five students in this class:

My new favorite place to go spend a few hours and crank out some work:  High Tea.  High Tea is located in LuoHu in the building next to the Di Wang tower that is supposed to look like an open book, just across from Shenzhen Book City.  Find it by taking the escalator up between the KFC and McDonald’s (remember, this is China!).  On that floor, turn left and follow the hallway to the end.  You’ll see “Friday’s Cafe” right in front of you and an elevator on the right.  Take the elevator to the 4th floor (the highest floor that this elevator goes to).

The food is priced well since everything on the menu is half-priced.  The best deal however is between 2-5pm where you can order a snack for between 8-15 RMB and, for 1 RMB extra, you can add a drink of your choice.  The drinks to choose from are great:  coffees, teas, milk teas, ice cream and red bean drinks – and all come prepared in with a nice presentation.

Of course, for working, there’s high quality wireless internet that’s just as good as Everybody’s Happy.  The interior looks great, very modern and clean.  The only downside for us foreigners is that the menus, like Everybody’s Happy, are all in Chinese and no one speaks English.  So, take a local along or brush up on some Chinese.

Before you react to the title, note that I’m not converting.  Alright.  I have a friend that I met at the gym; a Hong Kong guy who is now retired living in Shenzhen with his wife, who is a mainland Chinese.  He’s a nice guy, a successful businessman, and I respect him quite a bit.  We have lunch from time to time.  Over our last meal, a delicious Cantonese “dim sum” meal ($4 for the two of us), we revisited the topic of religion, an enjoyable topic for him since he converted to Buddhism just a few of years ago.  He asked me if I’d like to try meditiation, that there was a class being held in his apartment by a Buddhist monk from Hong Kong.  I thought this would be interested so I decided to attend.

The format of the class was to be two hours long, opening with a long meditation, followed by a lesson, and then wrapped up with a final meditation on the lesson.  The class was to be taught in Mandarin, which would likely mean that I wouldn’t understand what was going on during the lesson.  What the heck, this is a great opportunity.

I showed up fifteen minutes early.  My friend’s apartment was the nicest I’ve seen in Shenzhen yet.  Very comfortable and stylishly decorated.  There were several other people already there.  Many said hello to me and I could hear them asking each other in Mandarin if I’d be able to understand the lesson, to which I replied, “Maybe a little!”.  A woman, dressed in robes, then began talking to me in excellent English – another resident of Hong Kong, naturally.  She explained some more about what to expect and the various programs they had in Hong Kong.

Before the monk giving the lesson appeared, we all stood up to show our respect I suppose, much like when standing up before a judge.  As the meditation began, I was thankful for the various yoga classes I attended in Mandarin as well.  I was able to recognize several of the commands for relaxing different parts of the body, focusing on breathing, etc.  When the lesson began, I was initially lost.  However, the monk was indeed speaking very slowly and repeated many ideas.  This gave me ample opportunity to put it all together and by the time we were about halfway through the lesson, I knew what was going on.  And, by the end, I could pretty much get the gist of it.  A good lesson for everyone to be reminded of, regardless of religion – basically, when someone does you harm, looking past the person doing that to the root causes and seeing that as the impetus for whatever damage may have been caused as opposed to the person.  I’m simplifying quite a bit, but that was it.  We followed up with another long meditation on the lesson.

So, all in all, it was a fun experience and I’d gladly do it again.  Unfortunately, these lessons aren’t so common in Shenzhen, maybe once every couple of months.

This was also a great Mandarin lesson too.  Oh, I also remember the monk stumbling on some words he was not sure about, to which the audience always helped him.  That in turn helped me.

Thanks again, Raymond, for the invitation.