Suzanne Mahadeo: blog

Happy Chinese New Year. The reverberations in my ears of celebratory firecrackers going off at all hours of the day are finally starting to die down, thankfully. Nothing like walking passed 3,000 blackcats still strung together and thrown into the street to explode in succession for five minutes. I also managed to poke my eye with a hairbrush, which resulted in a hospital visit to the Eur-Am clinic downstairs from our apartment and two days in bed resting, unable to open my eye. Luckily, my voice is still in working order, as I’ve taken a few voiceover projects here in Guangzhou. I had to read a few lines with a British accent, which I pulled out of my crumpet at the last minute.

Here’s a profile I wrote, by the request of EF. Seems like they weren’t too miffed by my honest account of my experience in China, so that’s a relief.

Suzanne: Abroad in Guangzhou

Hello! Haven’t updated in a while. Life these days is full with the challenge of teaching, freelance editing, traveling, writing and general randomness. We’ve made it five months into our one-year contract here in Guangzhou. It’s going by relatively fast, but not fast enough. I still only know a handful of Mandarin since our interaction with people happens mostly in English or charades.

Here’s a new article I wrote for The Get Go about a visit to “China’s Hawaii” (cough).

It’s on page 26: “Island Under Water”

At the last Get Go party, I won the Texas Hold ‘em table, so a trip to Macau might be in the works soon…

Lots more to share, but have to run.

About a month ago, I wrote an article for a new magazine published by Being Fun China called The Get Go. My article is about a nightmare weekend trip I took out of Guangzhou to a city called Zhaoqing in a neighboring province. The launch party for the magazine was this weekend and it was really fun.

Lights!

Dapper and happy

There were salsa dancers, glow lights, an English band, a DJ who spins at the city’s sole Mexican restaurant, and lots of raffle prizes — three of which Ben, Kevin, and I all won. Ben won a number of brews at the German pub in town called the Wunderbar. And Kevin and I each won 500RMB worth of “hair treatments” from Toni & Guy, which we couldn’t stop laughing about.

(Last week turned out to be a lucky week. I found out last Thursday that I won the video contest at work: see previous entry. But, so did everyone else who entered since there were so few entries…hehe.)

I was amused and embarrassed when I walked into Bravo and saw my face on the homepage of the Being Fun China homepage displayed on a projection screen on the wall…

On the Being Fun China homepage

The  e-magazine has a nicer layout of the article if you download it and open the table of contents. I can’t see the issue with my Mac, so here’s an HTML version:

Month One in China: Needing a Break and Breaking the Bank
by Suzanne Mahadeo

Well, hello there. It’s been 2.5 months now that we’ve been in China. I’ve had intermittent and unreliable internet access, with a fairly busy schedule up until the last few weeks.

Now that I have the time (and the internet connection!), here’s a video I made for a contest at work. It’s a two-minute glimpse at an average day in Guangzhou.

A Day in the life of Suzanne Mahadeo in Guangzhou

Hope all is well, wherever you are.

Made it safely to Guangzhou, China!

First impressions of the route from the airport to our hotel, after three months in India:

• The streets here are newly paved, wide, clean, and lined with big, beautiful, green trees. (I haven’t spotted a single cow yet.)
• The people are friendly, helpful, and happy.
• The women are very fashionable! They wear short, classy dresses and heels at all hours of the day. My plaid shirts won’t cut it here unless there’s a resurgence of Grunge in the East.
• The men are very polite and offer friendly smiles as you pass them on the street.
• It’s quiiiiiiiiiet!

We purchased several pairs of khaki pants to go with the rugby and polo shirts we are to don for our new positions, at a branch of the largest language institution in the world, located in hundreds of cities and countries around the world (some of which I haven’t even heard of, like “Nice” in North Italy). So far the company has been very kind, picking up our flight to/from China, two weeks in our hotel while we look for an apartment, and Mandarin lessons throughout the year. They’re also flying us to Shanghai next week for some more training. I’ll be honest, though, after several months of living out of luggage, I’m ready for a clean apartment, a closet, and to get back to work…

This video goes out to Mr. “Daddy Dan” Mahadeo, one of the kindness, smartest, funniest people I know. I’m fortunate to have such a supportive, understanding father. I love you very much, pops. Thanks, today and always, for being you, lollygagger and all.

Happy Father’s Day, from the Great, Great Grandfather Land

My wish of having a blog so that I can keep in touch with friends and family while overseas has been granted by the genius genies over at 82 birds! My favorite design/web team always manages to make me smile. I recommend them if you (or anyone you know) needs marketing material, brochures, business cards, newsletters, a fresh new website, or a blog customized and added to your existing site, like this one.

Thanks so much, Bibi and Ben. As always, I love your work.

I look forward to using this blog, especially since I’m about to move to a country that blocks sites like Facebook and YouTube (more on that in another post)!