branhow.com

Hey everyone! I just wanted to give an update on everything so far! I haven’t really been able to take pictures of Guangzhou yet, but I will definitely be doing more of that in the next few days! Well the first day in Guangzhou was kind of difficult for me, I have been extremely excited about this opportunity for so long. It finally hit me about really not seeing my family and friends until next year. I have been away from my family before, but on short trips (at the most almost 3 months when I last studied in China). Just keep myself and my family in your thoughts.

Well what do I think about Guangzhou?! That is a great question. First off, I thought we would be living in Guangzhou City (we are, but only kind of). My new friend Hebe helped pick me up at the GZ Intl Airport and I asked her how far away the school was from the airport. She told me almost 2 hours!!! Apparently Guangzhou is set up much like Shanghai, where Guangzhou is the major city and you have surrounding districts or villages (whatever you want to call them) that are all apart of Guangzhou. So our school is in a district of Guangzhou called Nansha 南沙。We are kinda out tucked away from most of the big city life. Its like the suburbs of Guangzhou

So far what is my favorite part about Nansha? Well I like that they speak both Cantonese and Mandarin here. A lot of the locals mostly speak Cantonese, while a lot of the upper level faculty members speak Mandarin and or Cantonese. This will give me a chance to greatly improve on both of these dialects. The second thing that I like about this place, there are not a lot of foreigners and people who speak English (besides a couple of the teachers and most of my students). This has been giving me that extra push I needed to speak Chinese more, even if I don’t say it right. The people have been very friendly and willing to put up with my mistakes. Most people I think in any culture are willing to work with non-native speakers if they honestly see that they are trying to learn the language. That’s just a good reminder for those who often forget that (including myself).

Well I just wanted to give you all an update, I hope everyone is doing well on that side of the world!

~ by branhow on August 30, 2016.

Posted in Archived, China, Personal
Tags: guangzhou, gz, living in China, nansha, new arrival