My Graced Journey: Teaching and living in Southern China

Saturday, 27 August 2005

Teaching and living in Southern China

English Teacher in China

Teaching in Zhongshan & Houjie

December 2004 - August 2005

During my first 8 months in Mainland China, in 2005, I taught ESL (English as a Second language) in Guangdong province. I left South Africa in June of 2003 to go and teach ESL in Taiwan. I stayed for 18 months in Taiwan and then decided to also experience mainland China. I stayed for a period of 19 months in China.

My first ESL job was at the Bond Institute in Zhongshan. They placed me at an International boarding school on the outskirts of Zhongshan with a very scenic campus. After two months I decided to accept a position with Skyline English. They placed me at the Oxford Bi-lingual school in Houjie, near Dongguan, where I taught Kindergarten. I shared an apartment with two other South Africans, Andrew, and Dylan. It was during this time that I took extra part-time jobs to make a little extra cash.

One day I took a taxi from Dongguan where I had morning lessons back to Houjie to teach employees at a shoe company. There was a heavy rain shower and the road was flooded. We could go no further. I saw some wading through the river of water towards the other side, and as I wanted to keep my appointment, I decided to follow suit. As I was about halfway through, I stepped into something....I’m not sure what it was....but it cut a deep gash into my ankle, nearly amputating my foot. A Chinese guy saw what took place and carried me on his back to the other side. They hailed a taxi and got me to a hospital in Houjie, where they stitched me back together again. I had to spend 3 days in a Wuhu hospital. The company paid for all the expenses. A young Chinese doctor had pity on me and bought me three meals a day....as hospitals in China don’t prepare meals.

During my stay in Houjie, I took a 5 day trip to Beijing. I got to see the Great Wall of China near Beijing and took the most beautiful pictures. I also explored the Houjie area quite extensively by bicycle. At the end of my term at Houjie, we did a summer camp for kids at coincidentally the same school in Zhongshan I initially taught at when I arrived in China. In September of 2005, I accepted an ESL position with Delter Telfort in Nanjing, teaching college students.

House of Sun Yat Sen - Zhongshan

Zhongshan

About Zhongshan

Zhongshan is a prefecture-level city in the south of the Pearl River Delta in Guangdong province, China. It has a population of over 3 million (2012). Zhongshan is one of a very few cities in China named after a person, Dr. Sun Yat-sen (1866–1925), who is known in Mandarin as Sun Zhongshan. Sun, is regarded as the founding father of the Republic of China. He is also regarded positively by the People's Republic. He was born in Cuiheng village in Nanlang Township of what was then Xiangshan County. In 1925, the year after his death, Xiangshan was renamed Zhongshan in his honor (Wikipedia).

Zhongshan scenery

My first job was at a private school in Zhongshan. I was a TEFL teacher responsible for teaching English to grade 3-5.

International school near Zhongshan I taught at for 2 months

View from my International school apartment - Zhongshan

Time for morning exercise.

Every morning the students had ‘controlled’ exercise with music before school started.

Playground scenery

I was asked to judge an English speech competition at the China Hong Kong English School (Zhongshan), which was broadcasted on CCTV.

Speech competition I judged - Zhongshan

Group photo - Speech competition participants and judges - Zhongshan

At the China Hong Kong school in Zhongshan

Visiting Shamian island - Guangzhou

Old buildings - Shamian island

Shamian island - Guangzhou

On Shamian Island

About Houjie

Houjie is a town under the jurisdiction of Dongguan, a prefecture-level city in Guangdong province, in Southern China. Houjie Town is located at the east bank of the Pearl River Delta, the middle section of the Guangzhou-Shenzhen economic corridor. In the south, it borders Humen Port, and in the north, it links to the Dongguan city proper. There is a total area of 126.15 square kilometers under its jurisdiction, with a permanent population of 93,000, and more than 400,000 as a temporary population.

It is a town of old and prosperous business and trade, rich in products like Guancao (Dongguan Grass) and sausages renowned both home and abroad. Its industrial, commercial and trading enterprises were all set up and developed from traditional lines and are thriving and deeply rooted in Houjie Town. Throughout 30 years of reform and opening up, rural industrialization and urbanization were achieved, making the town a new modernized industrial town of the Pearl River Delta region. Houjie town is famous for her shoes design and manufacturing center, and mainly in branded shoes (Wikipedia).