OUR APOLOGIES FOR THE

LONG DELAY IN SENDING THIS

NEWSLETTER OUT

This was written on the date above, 27th October and was just awaiting the addition of the second half of the photos.

Unfortunately, the Apple Laptop got slower and slower and finally became unusable.

We have had nothing but trouble with both the 24” iMac and MacBook Pro Laptop since installing Apple’s latest LION software in July.

We have previously extolled the virtues and cleverness of Apple since April 2008, but no longer. As a result we went and bought a Sony Vaio on arrival in China, rather than another Apple.

The Apple Laptop’s system wouldn’t even restore from the Apple “Time Machine” backups, and so after a m o n t h o f m e s s i n g a b o u t , I reinstalled the system from the original disks and wished I had done so in the first place.

So, we hope that you enjoy this THIRD issue and we’ll now need to get really busy with the fourth one!

TRIP TO TIANJIN 13TH TO 16TH

SEPTEMBER 2011

Just as I had finished the last newsletter (Issue 2) we were having the Mid-Autumn holiday where everyone buys “Moon Cakes”. So, people weren’t working on Monday and we were busy planning the week, when I had a call to ask if I could go to TianJin first thing the following (Tuesday) morning. Of course I said yes, even though at that stage I didn’t know where it was!

Tianjin is 2,000 Km north and to the east of Beijing. Tianjin or Tianjin

LEFT: ENTRANCE TO OLD CHINESE TOWN TIANJIN

ABOVE: CHRIS’S HUIZHOU LANGUAGE SCHOOL PHOTO WITH ONE OF HIS CLASSES

JOHN WITH HIS CORPORATE CLASS AT A SOFTWARE HOUSE

CHRIS WITH CAROLYN A COLLEAGUE AT A NEW SCHOOL

OPENING DAY ANOTHER HUIZHOU CLASS

Written Thursday 27th October 2011Distributed 1st December 2011

John & Chrisʼs News from China - Issue 3

SHENZHEN

Shenzhen is a major city in the south of Southern Chinaʼs

Guangdong Province, situated immediately north of Hong

Kong. The area became China's first—and one of the most

successful Special Economic Zones (SEZs). It currently

also holds sub-provincial administrative status, with powers

slightly less than a province.

Shenzhen's modern cityscape is the result of the vibrant

economy made possible by rapid foreign investment since

the institution of the policy of "reform and opening"

establishment of the SEZ in the late 1970s. Before this,

Shenzhen was a small village.

Both Chinese and foreign nationals have invested

enormous sums in the Shenzhen SEZ. More than US

$30 billion in foreign investment has gone into both foreign-

owned and joint ventures, at first mainly in manufacturing

but more recently in the service industries as well.

Shenzhen is now reputedly one of the fastest-growing

cities in the world.

Being southern mainland China's major financial centre,

Shenzhen is home to the Shenzhen Stock Exchange as

well as the headquarters of numerous high-tech

companies. Shenzhen is also the third busiest container

port in China, after Shanghai and Hong Kong.

This red square is where Shenzhen is, right next to Hong Kong

One of the “English Corner’s” - This one meets every Saturday. This group meet in a park next to the Library.

Shenzhen’s Tallest Building which at night is phenomenal, with lights going up and down the building.

It’s near the Stock Exchange and near the hotel we next stayed in - See next month’s newsletter, issue 4!

was created in historical times by sedimentation of various rivers entering the sea at Bohai Gulf, including the Yellow River, which entered the sea in this area at one point.

The opening of the Grand Canal of China during the Sui Dynasty prompted the development of Tianjin into a trading centre. Until 1404, Tianjin was called "Zhigu" (直沽), or

"Straight Port". In that year, the Yongle Emperor renamed the city Tianjin, means "the Heavenly Ford", to indicate that the Emperor (son of heaven) forded the river at that point.

Tianjin is located to the east of Beijing and near the Bay of Bohai in the west. It’s one of four municipalities in China that comes directly under the the Central Government. It has a total area of 11,900 square metres and a population of 10 million.

As the biggest coastal city and economic centre of North China, Tianjin is called the Pearl of Bohai Bay.

The name of Tianjin refers to the ferry for the Tianz (emperor). After more than 600 years of evolution Tianjin has become a mixture of ancient past and modern present with Chinese and western characteristics. Tianjin has been opening up to the world and has become an International metropolis now.

We arrived on Tuesday night and found that I was sharing a room when they kept saying that we only had ONE room key. When we got to the room the penny dropped, I was sharing with a colleague who was 72. (And still working part time!). He realised that although it’s the norm to share in China he told me that he realised this was not done in the West. I said that I had never shared on any business trips. They said it happened because the client had booked all the rooms. The 72 year old phoned the General Manager and they paid for a separate room for me. This was a 4 star hotel and so cost them a lot, it worked out at about £35! This is double what Chris and I have been paying all this time for a large double room. It was a 4 star hotel and all the rooms had their own desktop PC too, as well as free broadband.

In another hotel I saw what I thought was a young husband an wife in the lift from Beijing. I saw them again in the morning and they had travel rep.

The Tianjin TV Tower is oneof the tallest in the world

Tianjin

Tianjin

SCOOTER MADNESS!

I HAVE ACTUALLY SEEN A FAMILY OF 5 ON ONE SCOOTER BUT WASN’T QUICK ENOUGH WITH MY CAMERA! MOST ARE ELECTRIC TOO!

THESE PHOTOS SHOULD GIVE YOU A GOOD IDEA THOUGH! THEY EVEN DRIVE PAST POLICEMEN ON TRAFFIC DUTY LIKE THIS.

There is the driver andTHREE kids on this one!

Shirts. So, it would seem that even the opposite sex has to share!

As an aside, ALL hotels here have FREE broadband in every room. It might not sometimes be working, in which case we just swapped rooms. They even have FREE WIFI in reception. It’s a shame that the British Hotels are so greedy!

I went out with the team for a traditional Chinese meal and they kept ordering the local beer Tsingtao, amazed that I could drink a lot! It seems that most Chinese are unable to drink too much without falling over, yet I only had 3 or 4 pints!

We then met the person from the customer side who had organised it all. We had a great day looking round the area to be developed, after which they bussed us all over the city to study the architecture, which was stunning.

They flew back and booked me a flight two days later. This meant that I had a whole day sightseeing on my own. I had a great day out and in the evening was mesmerised by all the building with stunning light displays! In fact I took a heap of videos. It will be a trip to remember for a long time to come.

CHRIS’S TEACHING JOBS

Chris completed one month work teaching at the STL private language centre in Huizhou, and had given his notice to leave on account of his general unsuitability in teaching young children (some might say horrible little brats!).

However, he left on good terms with the school, who appraised his efforts and his personality, so much so that the head of the foreign teachers in all branches of STL in Guang Dong, offered him a job with proper training in their newly opened second school in Huizhou, but he declined on the basis that he really just wants to teach adults.

Then we met a Chinese girl on the metro train one night and she told us about 'English Corner' at the Shenzhen library on Saturdays. So, we went along and met a young American teacher there called Ryan, who told us about a job vacancy teaching individual adults on a 'one to one' basis in a private training centre, where he also works. We were introduced to the centre and they immediately signed up both of us with a three month contract.

Chris did his first class of two hours on Saturday 22nd teaching business English to the president of a company that imports and sells Australian wine in China. Chris said the class went really well and that the guy thought he was very good and booked several more lessons before his trip.

So Chris is now satisfied that he has at length found a job that he feels he is far better suited to, and that he can enjoy and reap some reward from, both financially and personally.

He has also been signed up a a “Big Nose Job” for the same architects / urban planners as John and as a result

we now have a free flat in a plush area overlooking Shenzhen Port!

COSTS HERE

I have begun to realise that I now begrudge anything in double figures of local currency! For example the taxi from the airport to the port hotel cost them about 150 RMB or Juan (It’s called both) for a ONE hour journey. That to me sounded expensive, but it’s only £15! An hours taxi drive in the UK would perhaps be 10 times that. We missed the last metro home last week and got a taxi that took about an hour to get back to our hotel in the north of the city. It cost 66 RNB, which is £6!

Any beer over 10 Juan is expensive - That’s £1! The last two nights of my trip to Tianjin, I obviously had to pay for my own hotel bill and I nearly fell over when it wasn’t the normal 168 RNB and was 200 RNB! It was only £3.20 more than normal yet I begrudged it! I got a discount the second night as it was a year since Ibis opened in Tianjin.

On our “holiday trip” to Shenzhen a month ago, we went into the hotel next door which I think would be 5 stars. We had three 1.25 litre jugs of beer and we paid 300 RNB PLUS a tip! This is the most expensive beer so far.

It should be said also that this is the FIRST time we have had to pay ANY tip in China. The culture of tipping is completely unknown and the staff expect to serve you to the best of their ability, as part of the price you pay! Except for that hotel of course, which must have been an international chain and one that ripped us off charging a 15% tip!

If you go to an outside street cafe/bar they charge 6 RNB for a 600 ml bottle. That’s 60 pence per pint! Some inside bar/restaurants charge from 8 RNB to 12 RNB. The more western and plusher ones charge 16 RNB, which is only £1.60.

DRIVING

Some motorways seem to have entrances straight into them. On one such entrance a BMW 4x4 came straight out, across all lanes and into outside lane at 30 mph and on his phone!

We regularly see whole families of 4 and 5 on their scooters without crash hats and the driver on his mobile phone! I have collected various photos but was too slow getting the ones with 4 and 5 on a scooter.

They have thousands of electric scooters and you have to be careful as you cannot hear them. I think many cars must be hybrid too as many are silent as well

The car transporters stack cars two abreast and are rather wide! See photos - I think there are 12 cars on this one!

We talk about middle lane road hogs on English motorways, well, here they hog every lane at all sorts of speeds. The solution is to weave in and out and undertake, constantly changing lanes. They don’t bother

PHOTOS OF SHENZHEN

flashing or hooting, they just get past! They even undertake Police cars!

In the towns they hoot all the time even when it’s obvious they can’t g e t t h r o u g h . B u t , surprisingly, we have only seen one accident where a scooter driver was sat in the middle of a crossroads. The police came and went, yet the driver continued to sit there. It seems that this is the norm here, even with no injury!

The only person I have seen flashing their lights was the t a x i d r i v e r i n Guangzhou last week and people DID move out of his way. Perhaps

the capital city has

a more sophisticated driving style, but he was still weaving in and out!

Interesting Information about China

( E x t r a c t e d f r o m

SUNDRY PHOTOS IN SHENZHEN

C h i n a D a i l y o f W e d n e s d a y 7 t h September 2011)

C h i n a h a s a l a r g e population yet a weak economic base. It has to feed close to 20 percent of the world’s population with 7.9% of the world’s farmland and 6.5% of the world’s fresh water. What has been achieved i n i t ’ s s o c i a l a n d economic development must meet the need of 1.3 billion people, which p r e s e n t s a g r e a t challenge to China. China’s per capita GDP in 2010 was about $ 4 , 4 0 0 , r a n k i n g a r o u n d t h e 1 0 0 t h place in the world.

The whole article was entitled “China sticks t o p e a c e f u l development” and

was a statement of several pages from the Office of the State Council.

Another interesting paragraph goes on to state that China made important contributions to the stable development of the world economy. Since it’s entry into the WTO in 2001, China has imported goods worth nearly $750 billion every year and created more than 14 million jobs for those exporting countries and regions. Over the past decade, foreign funded companies in china have remitted a total of $261.7 billion of profits with an annual increase of 30%. China’s annual non-financial overseas investment grew from less than $1 billion in 2000 to $59 billion in 2010, thus boosting the economic development in the recipient countries. In 2009, overseas China-invested companies paid taxes worth $10.6 billion and employed 439,000 local people. China has contributed more than 10% to world economic growth every year in recent years. In 1997, when the Asian financial crisis caused a dramatic devaluation of currencies

A di f ferent “Eng l i sh Corner”, this one is every Sunday afternoon and has apparently been going 20 years without anyone organising it!

YES! It DOES rain and hard. This is the first umbrella John has bought in his life!

A Metro Car - Notice how wide they are as they had a c lean sheet of paper 20 y e a r s a g o w h e n planning it all.

in countries and regions close to it, China succeeded in keeping the RMB exchange rate basically stable.

Finally of note was their overseas aid programme worth $33 billion to 161 countries.

FOOD

They have all manner of takeaways in China, but NOT English ones! We did have a Sunday Roast many w e e k s b a c k o r g a n i s e d a t a Ukrainian's restaurant - It was great.

It's so easy to walk round the corner and eat out in all kinds of cheap bars/restaurants. Even the posh restaurants serving more western style food are not that expensive.

In 9 weeks we have never had a takeaway and never eaten in, even after getting our own flat. For example, lunch in a reasonable restaurant, with soup and main courses to share, with a beer yesterday was £3.20 each! Breakfast in a western style, posher restaurant today cost £6.00 each. They also h a v e P i z z a H u t , K F C a n d McDonalds. Pizza Hut actually have some great dishes. In the UK I wouldn't go in any of these! In fact it was 8 years since I last went in any of them until I got here.

THE WEATHER

On Monday 19th September the temperatures were still hot and sticky and about 34º C outside. We had the air-conditioning on all the time and inside it was around 22º C despite being being set at 16º C. Then in the afternoon we had a thunderstorm and all of a sudden the temperatures dropped 8º C and for the first night so far, we had all the windows open all night long and the temperatures inside and outside was 24º C, with no air-con! How strange to get such a sudden drop.

The only drawback was some people in the corridor or lift lobby making a lot of noise talking loudly at about 7 am and we had a late night at the bar, as it's Chris's day off.

Since then the temperature has risen again slightly and sometimes it does get a bit “muggy”!

OUR LOCAL BAR IN HUIZHOU

Our local restaurant bar in Huizhou was outside and overlooks a massive swimming pool, so gave us rather a holiday feel to it all!

The beer and food was very cheap and as is usual with us, we had found it and few people knew about it, even those living opposite!

TRIP TO RED FLOWER LAKE

AND THE PAGODA

Before leaving Huizhou to move to Shenzhen, we had two separate days out visiting the so called Red Flower Lake, above the city, which is actually a huge reservoir, but looks perfectly natural and is a very enjoyable but rather long, scenic walk (long being the operative word here!).

On the second visit we 'climbed' the mountain up to the Pagoda on the summit. The Pagoda is a contemporary structure in the traditional style, but none the less amazing, and the views from the upper most level over Huizhou and the surrounding countryside were absolutely spectacular! The s e e m i n g l y e n d l e s s c l i m b u p innumerable flights of steps was good for us,as physical exercise is n o t a w o r d i n o u r c u r r e n t vocabulary, or has been for enough time.

THE LANGUAGE

A s f a r a s l e a r n i n g ‘Putonghau’ (Mandarin Chinese), we only know a few words yet and to be honest it’s not really a lingo I think I would care to learn much of, as I don’t like the sounds in it, but we’ll no doubt eventually learn enough to get us by.

We’re in the city of Shenzhen in South China, just across the border from Hong Kong and in the province of Guangdong, or Kwang Tong, which was anglicised to Canton - hence Cantonese. However, as in Valencia, we’re not going to bother

O n e o f t h e B u s i n e s s Lunches with the client. T h e L a z y S u s a n wa s motorised!

Tianjin with really modern buildings.

TianjinWith really modern

buildings.At night they all look

stunning

TianjinThe old and the new!

with lesser provincial languages. We’ll have enough to cope getting by with the Putonghau!

THE METRO IN SHENZHEN

During a brief 3 day holiday” in Shenzhen four weeks ago, we had purchased travel cards for the metro, but Chris lost his and John gave Chris his and enquired f he could get a concession fare, being over 60.

The lady in the booth called for backup and so a another lady with limited English came along to help.

The gist of it is that on every station there is a guard at a special entrance called “Free passage” and anyone over 60 can go through this gate by showing their ID card. In my case it is sufficient to show my passport. A couple of times it has been queried, so once I point out my date of birth, I am waved through. As we use the metro almost every day travelling huge distances, my free passage is worth it’s weight in gold!

Having said that Chris has only put 100 RNB on in all this time, which is about £10. Every day we travel about 18 stops going to places and 18 stops returning, so you can see how cheap their transport system is!

THE MOVE TO SHENZHEN AND OUR APARTMENT

On Wednesday 19th October we moved into a huge duplex apartment located in the Nanshan district of Shenzhen, which we'll be sharing

with several others. And as of Tuesday 18th we have also both, landed jobs teaching one on one in a private training centre. John’s first class was on Thursday 20th in the evening at a company premises. More in the next newsletter.

The same day as Chris was helped to move in by a Chinese friend with his car, with the mountain of stuff we had already and what we have collected, John had to go on another 'big nose' job to Guangzhou, the capital of the Guang Dong Province. He got back at 11:30 pm, just about catching the last Metro. They were taken by car, but had to get a train back, which John noted was quietly doing 160 to 165 km per hour (160 kph = 100 mph)

Chris had to meet John at our new local Metro station, as John wasn’t sure where exactly the apartment was, as it was about 4 weeks since we saw it for the first time.

See this You Tube link to see the apartment.

In the middle of all this, Chris landed his job teaching the President of a Chinese wine company English to help specifically with his forthcoming trip to Australia and his negotiations there. Chris has now done three lessons and is thoroughly enjoying it.

John has now done two classes of 15 a a software house in Shenzhen and is also happy, as it’s something new and exciting.We are quite staggered by the infrastructure here, in terms of the modern buildings, many lit up at night. See YouTube video here.

We are also impressed by the clean and modern metros all of which are air-conditioned, including the stations. See photo to see how wide these trains are. The trains are also very wide - see photo.

They have a modern fleet of planes, but some of the buses are a bit tired. The intercity buses have reclining seats, air-conditioning and a video. They take a video of all passengers before setting off. We were told this is in case of any problems, but we are also told that there is little crime!

What is most impressive is that all transport is run at reasonable prices.

Window of the World in Shenzhen

Window of the World in Shenzhen

Sweet & Sour FishReally nicely prepared ...

And, VERY tasty!

Over-ground Metro StationNear our Longhau Hotel

RED FLOWER LAKE ABOVE HUIZHOU

FINALLY

We hope you have enjoyed this, our third newsletter from China, but remember that if you want to

unsubscribe, we will not be offended!

OUR SHARED FLAT IN SHENZHEN

Roof Garden

Our Master Bedroom & Balcony

Lounge

Lounge

And, at a nearby restaurant Our Bedroom

Office

Private Road& Gardens