I'm teaching in Guangzhou, a city that has about 10 million people in it. I have heard it's an economic hub for China. Guangzhou used to be called Canton, where the term Cantonese came from. Cantonese food is famous...lots of steaming and stir frying.
A city this size has to have wealthy people in it, and Guangzhou is no exception. Gated communities are popular, and I live on one of the top end ones. It's called Summer Palace, and is about 30 mins north of the city-centre by bus. A lot of very wealthy people live here, more wealthy than most of the people I know at home. The cars that are parked here are very expensive.
Summer Palace is a very large gated community. There are uniformed guards at the three gates, and others that randomly patrol the grounds. There is a hotel on the grounds, as well as villas where families live.
There are about four types of residences: a big twenty-three story condo building which I assume has one and two-bedroom apartments in it; some low-rise appartments, about 6 floors tall; some row housing that contains mulit-story units, and very few free-standing houses. Wealthy families live in these places, and a lot of the students I teach live on the compound/campus/gated community.
Summer Palace has three swimming pools. Two are at the hotel, and one is quite close to where I live.
Here is a picture of it. They don't clean them as much as North American pools, but when it's 30 degrees C outside, it doesn't matter! The pools have swim-up bars built into them, which I haven't seen used.There is a large hill/mountain on the property, and a large pagoda has been built.
It houses a restaurant which seems popular for Guangzhou's upwardly mobile. The switchback road up to the restaurant frequently has BMWs and Lexuses (Lexi?) driving up and down it.There is a primary school on-site, as well as a Kindergarten. I work at the Kindergarten. The company that runs/owns Summer Palace is called YIHE. They were at one time involved in shipping, but are mostly involved in hotels and real-estate. Now, they've gotten into education. It seems that private education in China is a money making venture, just like anything else. That YIHE got into education is evidence of that.
So, the kindergarten where I work is in its third school year. It's still new, and still working out kinks. I also think they're still learning how to run a school and teach children. I don't know if there's an approval process that a school must pass if it wants to educate, but I am doubting it. I think you can hang out your shingle and start teaching children, as long as you have a facility.
Our kindergarten is called an International Kindergarten, which means there are foreign teachers here. It's funny...Carolyn and I are the foreign teachers. Very odd to think of myself as a teacher!Our kindergarten has about 4 or 5 different classes, and in my estimation, about 70 students in all. There are children as young as 2.5, and as old as 5. I teach children 3 years old and up.
The school charges tuition on a monthly basis, and the cost is relative to the amount of English instruction the child receives. Carolyn teaches the same class all day, all in English. This is the most expensive class. I teach one group all morning, all in English. I think this is the second most expensive class to be in, as they get 50% English instruction. In the afternoons, I spread my services over three classes, for half an hour each. I believe these would be the cheapest classes to be in. Every class gets at least 30 mins of English a day, to keep the International School moniker intact, and the tuition fees up.
So, that's one overview! Hopefully soon I can start typing the interesting stuff!
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