China Life #6

October 19, 2025

Dear Friends and Family,

It really does not feel like we are closer to November than to September, but here we are. This last week actually went by really slowly, as I suppose tends to happen on every first week back after a holiday.

The weather is still stiflingly hot, but apparently we can expect a reprieve on Tuesday when it is finally supposed to go down into the mid-twenties. We are all looking forward to it.

School went by in a blur... always so busy. I'm constantly checking my schedule to find out where I am supposed to be and for how long. I catch the bus at 7:10 and often don't get home until after 6. On Tuesdays Noémie and I have choir so we don't get home until 10pm.

The International Choir of Guangzhou is a 4-part choir of people who all had to get through a rather gruelling audition (hello Bach Oratorio sung accappella and recorded in one take). Rehearsals are run in English and there are a variety of nationalities represented, however the vast majority of members are Chinese. We have 2 conductors. Philip is an American who conducts with great passion and volume. (I don't think he realizes that in his excitement he is almost yelling at us- but he's a good conductor and very musical). Cindy is the other conductor and she has an angelic soprano voice. She is Chinese, and has a very (VERY) different conducting style. She snaps constantly like a metronome, and yells over our singing. She will cut us off and randomly call out, "WAN, TWO, SREE!" and then get frustrated when no one knows which measure she wanted us to come in on... or why we are coming in on beat 4 when she wanted us on beat one. It's an interesting cultural experience.

Yesterday was Saturday and Kieran needed new shoes. His feet are growing as fast as the rest of him and I cannot keep up with his food consumption nor his clothing. Unfortunately he is now into a size 12 (46) shoe and most Chinese shoes do not come bigger than 10. So we went to a mall and walked from store to store where I held out my translator asking if there were any size 46 running shoes. If there were, we sought Kieran's approval and mostly he did not like what he saw. So in that I had to go downtown for a medical appointment in the afternoon, I had him hop into the cab with me because there are some enormous (think West-Edmonton-size) malls there with much more variety. Getting downtown, although it is only 11km away, usually takes between 45-60 minutes depending on traffic. Unfortunately yesterday it was bad so it took us over an hour. By the time we got there, I hardly had any time to shop because I had to get to the hospital. I helped Kieran source out one possible shoe in the Nike store, put it on hold with the nice man named Jason, and told him that he was on his own to go find something he liked better. I then took off.

Leaving Kieran alone in a shopping mall when neither of us know our way around or know how to read or talk to anyone is really not fun. He hates shopping at the best of times. He also is not super-confident with the DiDi app which is how we order cars to get around town. And...unfortunately he is not good about remembering his phone charger. 

Without a phone here we are literally lost. 

This city is huge.

We need phones for maps.

We need phones to call rides.

We need phones to pay for everything.

We need phones to translate and communicate with people.

Sooo.... when I go off to the hospital and then to a hair appointment (yes, I tried again, this time with Kevin the English-speaking guy who is not afraid of blond curls) and Kieran texts me in a panic saying, "I can't find a charger, I have not bought shoes, I'm thirsty, and my phone is about to die." --I had a less-than-relaxing afternoon.

I wrote back: "Find a charger. Now. Ask. Go to Jason in the Nike store. Buy the shoes."

Then there was silence. For far too long.

While my hair was being rinsed I could feel my phone buzzing but I couldn't read or answer.

In a nutshell, a stranger paid for him to rent a charger. Then he went and bought the shoes, but he couldn't figure out the car app... so I ordered a car to the location he sent me (texted "DO NOT MOVE.") and spent 15 minutes flipping between the car app and Kieran's map, watching the little icons (hopefully!) meet up at about the same spot. (This is extra-challenging when one cannot read any of the street names on either map.)

Thankfully he made it home, and I got home a few hours later. Hungry, a bit too blonde, but overall satisfied with having accomplished a few tasks.

Unfortunately all of this time spent in cars and traffic leaves me too much time to read updates on the local chats-- and yesterday my bleeding heart came across a plea from the local expat humane society saying that they simply have too many animals and need foster homes immediately. They pay for everything and even deliver animals and all of their food, toys, dishes, etc. right to your door. The request was for 2-8 weeks. So, uh, yeah. I kind of wrote and said, "I am leaving on December 19th. If you need a carer for a kitten between now and then, let me know-- but I do NOT want a permanent pet."

OK so a bit of a conversation ensued and I ended up agreeing to care for a brother-sister pair of kittens who had been found stuck to a rat glue-trap. That's how last night "Muffin and Mittens" were delivered to my door with a crate, food, scratch pads, kitty litter, treats, and even a bed. They're pretty cute. None of us can use those ridiculous names without smirking, but since we are not keeping them I don't really want to call them anything but "the kittens".

"Muffin" (ie: "the girl kitten")

Last Saturday was a day that I was advised to get out and see Guangzhou, because the Chinese were using it as a "Make-up day" for having taken a day off earlier in the week. What this meant was that there would be very little traffic and crowds, but everyone would be working (the local kids even had to go to school) so places were open.

Kieran did not want to go out, but I had heard of a "mermaid show" that I really wanted to see, so Noémie and I went to Grandview Mall and into the aquarium to see the show. It was quite amazing... the tank they perform in is HUGE and they basically are synchronized swimmers (sometimes with tails) who do beautiful routines surrounded by fish, rays, and sea turtles. I will not be going back, as there were other exhibits where animals were kept in tanks and enclosures which were overcrowded and/or far too small-- but I did love the mermaid show.

Some of the tanks were decorated like submerged cities

After that we ate a rather awful lunch at a Japanese place in the mall, then went to see one of the main temples in Guangzhou, and wandered down a pedestrian street which is normally packed with people. It was lovely to get out and explore without having to fight through huge crowds of people.

This is already far too long (again) and I must get to bed.

Take care, all!

xo

Shannon

Kieran had a very wet and muddy ride on Sunday

"The Circle"- fabulous architecture!

August 17, 2025 

China Life #2 

Dear Friends and Family, 

    We’ve now been in China for 3 weeks. In a way it feels like far longer than that— we are already planning our first holiday at the end of September. School stared last Monday for new students, and Tuesday for everyone else. Everything has been happening so fast that I can hardly keep up. My teaching schedule looks as though it has a lot of blank space on it, but every minute gets filled up. I’m pretty sure that blank-ness translates directly to my face most of the time because I spend large portions of every day just wandering around in a daze trying to figure out where I am, where I am supposed to be, what I should be doing, and who I am talking to! 

    My students are largely Asian— mostly Korean and Chinese. There are a few Japanese, some Thai, Philippino, Malay, and even less of everyone else: Indian, Russian, Kenyan, Ghanaian, American, and I have one student from Zimbabwe. The one student I have met who claims to be Canadian has a very heavy Chinese accent and “doesn’t remember much” about living in Vancouver. It appears that there are a few more European kids in the high school; I only teach 3 grade levels. Learning names is (and will continue to be) a challenge. Particularly the Korean students have names that are largely unfamiliar to me, and many of them have chosen “English” names that they prefer to use, but they say them very quietly with heavy accents and then laugh at me when I try to pronounce what they have said. 

For example, last week out on the basketball court a couple of grade 4 girls came up to say hello and I asked them to tell me their names again. The first one said what I heard as, “Chee-oh”. So I said, “Chee-oh? Is that right?” and they burst out laughing. “No, teacher! CHEEOH!” “Cheeoh?” More giggles. “NO!” So I asked her to spell it for me. “J-I-L-L” “Jill? Your name is Jill?” “YES!!!” …. and of course now I can’t remember which one she was so I’m going to face this all again tomorrow. (Because I’m sure that I do have at least one student who legit is named “Chi-oh”.) The quiet voices, combined with my huge classroom with 12-foot ceilings and the pounding (almost ceaseless) rain, make it an enormous struggle for me to hear. Luckily my classes are small, so I only have 16-18 students at a time. 

    My kids are also facing daily adventures and challenges, of course. They are not used to actually having to work at school. They are both in IB now, and both finding math in particular extremely challenging. Noémie is taking Psychology and has a wonderful teacher for that, so she loves that part of her day. Kieran has chosen Visual Art as one of his electives, and next week will decide between Spanish and Mandarin as his third language. 

    The school held the Extra-Curricular Activity fair this week, where teachers (and external staff and/or volunteers) set up tables and advertise the after-school activities we run. It is a huge deal. Kieran signed up for Cross-country and also wants to do swimming but it is on the same days. I found out that indeed he is allowed to do both, so we have to figure out how to get him registered. Noémie has signed up for Model United Nations (debate), handwriting, and Math club. I was proud of her for choosing the latter and dedicating her Tuesday afternoons to working on her math. 

    On the home front, we are figuring things out. I spent one evening putting a power-point presentation together for HR at the school of the issues in our apartment which need sorting. Yesterday the A/C in Kieran’s room was repaired so the water has stopped dripping from my bathroom ceiling. 

Last weekend we went skiing. 

Like, actual snow-skiing. 

There is a mall about an hour’s drive from here that claims the world’s “second largest indoor ski resort”. So— off we went to Sunac Snow Park. It was really weird packing our socks, thermals and winter jackets into a bag while it was 37 degrees outside. Then we got there and had to figure out lift tickets and rentals. The lady selling us the tickets was skeptical that all three of us wanted access to the “expert” run. (Thank goodness we did!) It is the run with the chair lift and takes about 45 seconds to ski down. I’ll attach pictures… it is kind of hard to describe the insanity. 

It is a joy having Ayi come once a week to clean. 

Kieran bought a skateboard and is enjoying that. 

Noémie got her nails done and was thrilled. 

Noémie and I spent a LONG time putting together audition tapes for the Guangzhou International Choir and are really hoping that we both make it in. (They sent us 3 pages of a very complicated Bach oratorio and gave us 48 hours to record ourselves singing it and send it back). 

    I am getting better at ordering everything online but I still get surprises in the bags. Last night I ordered us dinner from some place called “Mom Feeds Your Stomach”. Here are some of the options I came across: 

I managed to find about 5 dishes that sounded good and had good reviews so I placed my order and crossed my fingers. It arrived about half an hour later… the flavour was good but everything had so many chilies in it that we were all sniffling and crying. It was pretty funny. We could hardly speak it was so spicy. One chicken dish had so many bones in it (they literally just chop the whole thing, bones and all, and throw it into the pan) that we gave up trying. We had a good laugh, then I told the kids to make a quesadilla and call it a night. 

    There was a monsoon in Taiwan this past week which definitely affected the weather here. It was raining so hard that the water was bouncing up and we were getting soaked no matter how covered our heads were. A “red” alert went out on Thursday, which actually had us wondering if we might be stuck at school because the busses might not be running, but fortunately we managed to make it home. People were even saying that the school might have to close. The ground is so saturated that everything was covered in an inch of water. Even the giant snails didn’t come out! There is more of this forecast this week. 

    My colleagues here are amazing and SO helpful. There is a lovely South-African couple names James and Sally who invited me over for a drink on Friday night after their hilarious autistic twins overheard me telling another teacher about my apartment cleaning/repair fiasco. Turns out their boys have no filter but can remember everything they hear and repeat it all when they get home, so Sally said that it sounded like I needed a G&T. I ended up staying all evening and we had a great visit. Every English (or French) speaker I meet gives me at least one piece of advice about a useful store, app, or person to talk to who can help me web together what we need to settle in here. One person knows a good place to get bread, another has a connection to a reliable VPN/internet provider, James took us on a 10-km (sweaty!!!) walk around Baiyun Mountain last week (which is just across the street), my Chinese colleague Jessie helps me translate websites and find cheaper Chinese alternatives to brand-name items I am familiar with (hello $50 oven/air fryer/toaster machine!). 

    Today is Sunday. I was going to take Kieran to a nearby city called Zhongshan where there is allegedly a mountain bike park, but the forecast there is calling for 25-30mm of rain so we decided to hold off. Instead I’ll be doing some lesson planning, hopefully finding an actual grocery store, and tonight we have been invited to dinner at the home of some other teachers. I’ll send this off before it gets any longer.

A view from the school cafeteria

The (VERY HOT) whole-school photo. Good thing you can't see the sweat.

A rainy view from an upstairs primary classroom

A LEGO Chinese tea ceremony

Missing you all. 

xo 

Love,

 Shannon

China Life #5

 October 8, 2025

I have moved to a blog format to make everything easier with regards to sending and viewing files. Hopefully this works well for everyone! (Sorry for the weird formatting and odd spacing of pictures, etc. I'll get better at this as I learn!)

So last time I wrote, there was a "super typhoon" in the works and Kieran's camp to Hong Kong had been cancelled while Noémie was still looking forward to going to Beijing. As it turns out, changing the camps around was a good idea because the typhoon was indeed a beast and did absolutely plummel Hong Kong. In fact, the authorities in Guangdong province were so concerned about it that they issued a rare "red alert" on the Monday night (Noémie had flown to Beijing with her grade level that morning) and school was cancelled on Tuesday and Wednesday. The Tuesday turned out to be beautiful and sunny here, so I enjoyed getting some things done around the house, getting a pedicure, and inviting a couple of other teachers over for a glass of wine that evening.

At 2:00am Kieran came bursting into my room saying, "Mom! Get up! There's water everywhere!" so I dived out of bed, assuming that the typhoon had arrived and blown in some windows or something. However, despite running out into the hall and indeed splashing my way to the kitchen, it was eerily calm and quiet outside. No windows broken, not even any rain. 

But there was definitely water. 

Everywhere. 

As I started waking up and turning on lights I realized that I could hear a spraying sound and I went into the kitchen, where we had our own personal indoor typhoon taking place. Water was literally spraying everywhere. I couldn't even really tell from where. 

I reached into the spray and opened the cupboard under the sink, which was the source. I felt my way through the spraying water until I grabbed a pipe and felt a big hole. Panic was setting in as I had absolutely no idea where the main water shutoff was, nor who to call. My pyjamas were soaked. Kieran was soaked. I followed along the pipe until I felt a valve and twisted it, hoping for the best. Thankfully that worked and the spray stopped. 

It is hard to describe how much water was all over the house. The floor rugs were saturated. Kieran's bed, which is just a mattress on the floor in his room across the dining room from the kitchen, was drenched. Our sunken livingroom and 2x3m rug was in a cm of water.

We have no big rags, only a few towels, and no form of water vacuum. I did manage to locate a couple of mops.

Kieran opened the patio door in the kitchen and started sweeping the puddle out over the balcony. I began mopping and wringing out his room. We moved his dry things into Noémie's room (which luckily, being at the far end of the hall, had just barely stayed dry). After about an hour I told him to go to bed-- there was no sense in both of us being up all night. Fortunately school was already canceled the next day, and Noémie's room was available for him to use. I continued mopping and wringing until 4:30am.

The real typhoon was disappointingly anti-climactic around here. It was definitely windier than usual and it rained pretty hard, but was by far not the biggest storm we had experienced. As a matter of fact, the biggest part of the typhoon that we saw actually hit on the first day we were back at school after “sheltering” for 2 days.

On the Friday of that week, Kieran and I packed up and headed to a hotel near the airport. Noémie met us there that evening once she was home from Beijing. We were flying out at 5:30am so had to be back at the airport really early, and then had a full day in Bangkok. Our trip to Thailand was a lovely getaway. We had 3 days in Bangkok during which time we went on a food tour (it POURED rain) in the back streets and sampled 16 different Thai foods. 

Fire Exting Sher at the Bangkok Airport

This was at a Michelin-star restaurant in a back alley in Chinatown of Bangkok. 

The kids both had smoothie-bowls that looked like a beach.

    We also went to a fabulous shopping mall which had themes of different world cities on every level and a wonderful food court. The highlights for me were the bathrooms, which all were elaborately decorated in the theme of that floor’s city. 

  The "London" bathroom.

                                                  

The "Istanbul" bathroom decorated like a Turkish bathhouse.

The men's "San Francisco" bathroom was a locker room theme at the end of this elaborate "Football" hall, while the women's washroom was decked out in pom-poms and cheerleading paraphernalia.

I loved the bathrooms! This hot-air balloon/Cappadoccia themed washroom was also on the Istanbul floor.

OK just one more bathroom shot. This was "Tokyo" and all in the style of a peaceful Japanese garden.

We also went to the wild and endless Chatuchak market, with over 15,000 stalls selling everything you can (and cannot) imagine. We took the public ferry to various temples and the flower market, and saw the enormous Reclining Buddha.

The Reclining Buddha

 

Wat Arun

Trying to cool off in the temple

After Bangkok we flew to Phuket and I had underestimated the size of the island. Our BnB was over an hour from the airport and although it was geographically close to the beach, it was physically impossible to access because there was a busy 4-lane highway separating our neighbourhood from the ocean… and various resorts and private homes blocking access. In that Noémie was not feeling well and Kieran really wanted to surf, I booked us a different cheap hotel near Kata beach which was much more suited to our wants. We went straight to the beach and rented a surf board for Kieran. Noémie and I took turns going to cool off in the waves while the other guarded our stuff under a beach umbrella. Kieran had a great few hours surfing, however all of us were neglectful with the amount of sun we got and all ended up burned. The beach was beautiful, however, despite the heat and the surprisingly huge number of Russian tourists.

Kieran catching a wave

Kata Beach

A happy surfer

A few blocks away from our hotel was the Kata Beach Night Market, where we went every night for pad thai, curries, coconut ice cream, seafood, and crêpes. It was fabulous.

Kieran took his PADI course and I went out on the boat with him to do a couple of dives on the second day. On the third day as he was wrapping up his certification, Noémie and I went into Phuket town and wandered around looking at a few temples, markets, and poking in and out of shops. 

I was enchanted by this honesty

My new dive buddy in the making!

A SCUBA diver is born!

The water was stunning

Noémie is in this photo.

Exploring Phuket town

Our last day in Phuket was a bit stressful because I had arranged a ride to take us to our next BnB in Khao Sok National Park (2.5 hours away) and the driver cancelled at the last minute. Every other driver I contacted said that it was too far. In desperation I went into one of the few travel agencies that was open on a Sunday morning, and asked how we could get to our next destination. I was told to wait 2 hours, then take a taxi into Phuket town (45 minutes away) and then take a public bus for 6 hours which would then drop us off 2 kilometres from our BnB. 

This news was so depressing to me that I told Kieran to go back to the beach and surf while I tried to come up with a Plan B. 

Back at Kata Beach

Noémie and I decided to go get a coffee at a little shop down the street. On our way, we passed a guy sitting in the back of his van next to a sign offering local tours and activities. He looked at us hopefully. I said, “You don’t happen to drive to Khao Sok, do you?” He nodded, then said, “5000 Baht”. (Which was almost double what I was going to pay our original driver). Dejected, we just kept walking. Then he called, “OK! Lady! 3500!” I turned back towards him and countered with 3200, and he accepted. He also agreed to pick us up from our hotel and drop us right at the door of our BnB that night. Hooray! So as soon as Kieran was back from the beach, we bought some lunch (rather spicy but delicious) and hopped into our private air-conditioned mini-van. We arrived at our treehouse by 4:00pm, just in time to go for a tube ride down the river!

Tubing turned out to be a highlight

We were told to keep moving so that the "bubble fish" wouldn't bite us. Still don't know what that was about.

Khao Sok is a beautiful area— home to the rafflesia, the world’s biggest (and allegedly stinkiest) flower. As we tubed down the river we saw monkeys, and our guides (a couple of kids) pointed out both a mangrove snake and a python up in a tree. The tubing was wonderful—cool and shady, and had a few sets of small rapids so we got pushed along at a good pace. There were karst formations and large walls covered in honey bee nests. We passed many riverside lodges and campgrounds before being picked up by the manager of our BnB, who helped load us into the back of his pickup truck for the ride back to our BnB through palm and eucalyptus plantations.

Our treehouse was beyond basic— it was more like glamping. But we had essentially a giant triple bed, a small balcony, and a functional bathroom which we shared with a cockroach.

Our treehouse.

Dinner by the river

Endless amazing food!

Unfortunately Noémie was still battling a vicious cold so she was miserable when I pulled her out of bed and made her come hiking with us. We were trying to find a waterfall but either we missed it, or the translation of “waterfall” was loosely referring to a small set of rapids on the river. Regardless, we did get to walk right through a huge family of macaques who were not in the least bothered by us. Kieran and I enjoyed the walk through the jungle and poor Noémie sniffled and dragged herself along. That evening we went to a nearby elephant reserve where we got to feed two older female elephants some bananas, leaves, and cane.

We did not take the special tour to go find the rafflesia.

There were so many macaques!

Peaceful, old elephants

The final tube ride

Our last morning in Thailand started with another early tube ride down the river, before piling into a mini-van full of people for the ride to Surat Thani airport. We then flew back to Bangkok, but unfortunately arrived with our bags at a different airport from the one we would be departing from later that night. So we had to figure out how to get the shuttle between airports, then find the luggage consignment at the international terminal, and by the time we had dropped our bags off and were ready to go spend a few more hours in Bangkok, it was absolutely POURING rain and there was lightning and thunder. Our cab driver texted me while we were waiting to be picked up to head into the city, and he said that traffic was terrible and we would never get back to the airport in time for our next flight if we went too far. So he suggested taking us to a mall which was much closer, mostly indoors, and was open. That’s where we ended up— at an outlet mall near the airport in the pouring rain— so we had a nice dinner, poked into some stores, and then when everything started to close we went back to the airport and sat around waiting until our flight left at 2:30am.

We made it home yesterday at about 8:00am and went to bed after a long night of travel. Thank goodness that China has such great grocery-ordering apps! I put in my orders at 2 different stores and the fridge was re-stocked within an hour. In the afternoon I walked down to the local market for a few things that I had forgotten.

Today I was back at work. Tomorrow is another PD day, so Kieran is going mountain biking and Noémie is catching up on homework. They start school again on Monday, and we have about 9 weeks until our next big break.

It’s still really hot and humid here, but after spending 10 days constantly looking for the next restaurant, site, or activity and having to pay for every little thing we did, it was nice to be back in our own beds. We are all actually finding Guangzhou feeling somewhat familiar.