Lily and her driver picked me up at 8:00 A.M. and we made our way to Shenzhen. We met Pan Yao at the hotel that his family had arranged for me. After checking in we meet Larry Li, who we had also spent time with in Beijing. Larry had a new student he wanted us to interview so we traveled to a restaurant to meet “baby” (Sibei - her real name) and her mother. Lily and Pan Yao took my computer and proceeded with one of the the three presentations we have been using. The student, “baby” is young, but very bright and at the top of her class at the best school in Shenzhen, according to Lily and Pan Yao, who both attended schools in Shenzhen. The mother had no less than 300 questions (it seemed) and Lily and Pan Yao answered all of them.The mother asked if her daughter, because of her young age could live with my daughter and her family for her first year. I told her that that was a possibility.
We then traveled 2 hours to the Shenzhen Chinaus (China and US) School for a meeting of their owner (President) and administrators. This is a school we have been talking with for over a year via email, so it was good to connect faces to names. The owner overseas 5 such schools in China. This particular schoo
l has been built within the last two years and has an elementary, middle and high school. They would like to exchange teachers and students with us, as well as have us help them understand a “western” approach to education. Lastly, they would like to create the ability for Chinaus to award a diploma from a partnering US high school. Because time was short and I had a 5:00 P.M. meeting back in Shenzhen we agreed to continue our very preliminary discussions via email. Lily traveled with me and took photos as we meet as well as had further conversations with “baby” who came with us as did her mother. Her mother is a personal friends of the President of the 5 schools.We got back to the hotel in time to meet a new incoming student and her parents. I had left Pan Yao at the hotel while Lily and I traveled to the school, just in case I was late. We were about 20 minutes late and Pan Yao had begun the meeting without me which I had asked him to do. The consultant who was with the new student was very impressed with Pan Yao’s leadership ability in the situation and commented to everyone on his ability.
After our meeting we headed to dinner with Pan Yao’s family and a few other families, including Weijia Shen. Lily and her driver headed back to Guangzhou after a long day. We finished our dinner meeting around 9 pm. Pan Yao wanted to see if I could eat the most spicy food at the restaurant so he kept asking the manager for hotter and hotter dishes. I was a sucker for the challenge because I paid for it that night. Pan Yao also ordered a 4 lb lobster for us - cooked Shenzhen style and it was delicious. I also had octopus and a few other fish dishes which I did not recognize. Got back to my room around 9:30 pm. with enough time to get caught up with a few phone calls and emails.
