Our new home is in the city of Dongguan. It's located in south China in the province of Guangdong. We decided that this was the place for us based on two factors: 1. We really wanted to relocate to a smaller, more manageable city in China, and 2. The school we work for seemed like the right fit for us.Speaking to the first point, Dongguan is much smaller than Beijing. The population of Beijing is roughly about 14 million people strong. Combining this with the fact that Beijing is so spread out, it was literally exhausting to go out! Dongguan is much different. The city is smaller and has a population of only 6.5 million. Now, we know what you are thinking but remember we never said it was Idaho tiny. Dongguan is China's sixth largest city right behind Hong Kong so it still is good-sized.
The second reason we chose this city was because of our opportunity to work with an international school that we felt was right for us. It is called Quality Schools International of Dongguan. It is a non-profit that has 36 schools in 26 countries! The organization does a good job of taking care of both teachers and students. The people we work with are friendly and generous. We'll talk more about the school in our next blog entry.Where we call home
As part of most overseas contracts, educators are given living arrangements. QSI was kind enough to provide us with a very modern and spacious apartment. We thought that our apartment in Beijing was nice, but our new home is twice the size and has two balconies! The only hiccup was it took us over a week to get an air conditioning unit. It is extremely hot and humid here in Dongguan so air is a must (imagine south Texas in the summer)!
The apartment has both a master bedroom and a spare bedroom. Both have all the amenities we could ask for. There are two full bathrooms which is a huge bonus considering we had to share just one in Beijing. We also have an office room with a desk and storage shelves. We really have more room than what is truly needed.Pazi loves the fact that the kitchen was newly remodeled and has both a microwave and toaster oven for heating up food and light baking! These are two features that our apartment in Beijing never had. Also, there's even a dining room area that gives us a great place to eat our meals and share how our days went. It's a cozy place for sure.
Adan's goal is to buy a small BBQ grill and lawn chairs to feel more at home in our new location, especially since he loves to cook outside. These items are sold here so it will be just a matter of time before they are purchased. As for Pazi, she can't wait to hit the market and purchase the beautiful Chinese artwork that is so cheap to buy. She already envisions scrolls, paper cuts, and ceramic artwork placed throughout the apartment to make it feel warm and welcoming.The apartment complex we live in is called Jiang Nan Ya Zhu and according to the local Chinese employees at our school, it is one of just a handful of complexes that have stayed true to create a living community that maintains a traditional Chinese setting. What we mean by this is that beautiful man-made ponds, and walkways with carved posts are between each building. Ting Zi, Chinese pavilions, are also available to residents for chatting with neighbors or practicing Tai Chi. (Check out the picture with Pazi posing by one!)
The people we live with are extremely nice. They always go out of their way to greet us and help us with the gate to the complex. We get many surprised looks when we speak to them with our limited Chinese. They appreciate our efforts. And because many families with small children live in the area, we communicate with them as well. These little ones are learning English at school so they practice their words and phrases with us occasionally. We are impressed with how good they pronounce a number of English words.In our next blog entry we will share more about our first couple of weeks in Dongguan both at work and at play!
