China here I come!

Day –1, July 4, 2010

So, a strange way to spend the 4th of July: doing the final preparations for a 30+ day out of the country to China. In case you missed what the heck I am doing, here it the plan:

The company that is bringing us to China is InterLangua , a group based of the San Francisco Bay area. The program is a 3 week Chin Summer school/summer camp program called “The American Scene”. There will be twenty of us from the US (mostly from the San Diego area, but also from some other places). We will be teaching elementary ages students (grades 2nd-7th grade). We’ll be in Shenzhen City in the very south of China, one hour by ferry from Hong Kong).

The focus of the program is giving the children, as well as Chinese English teachers an exposure to American teaching methods, especially using creativity and the arts. Each day the kids will have sessions in reading/stories, visual arts, music, games, and performance. We’ll teach for three weeks, Monday-Friday, with each Friday late afternoon culminating in a special performance for the parents. The school that will host and house us and our teaching teams is one of the most elite and innovative schools in China.

We will be staying in a small Chinese hotel in Shekou, very close to Shenzhen.

Weekends and then for a chunk of time at the end of the trip, we will get a little taste of traveling and seeing more touristy sites. Th s will include Guilin and a river cruise on the Li River. Then for the last several days, I am choosing to stay with a group for several days in Hong Kong, just for fun.

I will plan to blog here as often as is practical. The technical aspects of being in contact out of China are a bit more complicated due to some of the controversy over internet censorship. We’ll see if I can do it directly, or if I will need to email updates to my husband and have him post them. (It looks like that will need to happen.) We will also not be able to access FACEBOOK, but I may be able to do something of the same thing there….have my husband do some posting.

Plan on checking back to this link address periodically to find out what I have been up to. The address is http://pattistory.blogspot.com/

So the suitcases are ready to be packed, I have prepared for every contingency that I can think of....

Getting the last pieces in place and then leaving from LAX, Los Angles Airport at 1:50am July 5th. Look out China, here I come!