Newman Huo

ART and history teacher at International School of Sino-Canada (ISSC) in Nanshan District, Samantha Caines loves being in an art classroom every day as it keeps the artist in her alive.

"Being an art teacher can be very inspiring and it keeps me motivated to create art," said Caines, 28, from Newfoundland in Canada.

"Working with students constantly gives me fresh ideas for assignments, lessons and my own artwork,?± she said. She often does the assignment she gives her students and comes up with something she likes.

She creates her own work, although not nearly as much or as often as she would like.

Inspired by the everyday images she photographs, she has been painting and sketching abstract images of people and architecture in the city.

Some of the most interesting artworks she has seen here are in Dafen Oil Painting Village in Longgang District.

"Not the mass-produced Chinese scenery paintings you can buy at the village, but those really great things done by independent artists there," she said.

One particular artist, whose name she cannot remember, paints portraits of ordinary people in a very surreal way. In his paintings, faces of pretty women, construction workers and businessmen are enlarged and distorted.

"His work has inspired me to play with reality in my own work," she said.

She loves walking around Shenzhen and seeing the city through the eyes of a tourist even though she has been here almost three years. She never leaves campus without her camera as she believes there are always opportunities for great photos.

"Being an artist, I have a knack for ??seeing things" and this has made walking around different parts of the city really interesting," she said.

"There are some pockets of Chinese culture here that make you feel like you are in a whole other world," she said.

She said she had never seen such life and activity in a park until she moved to Shenzhen in August 2005.

"People jogging in high heels, flying kites, running backward, doing tai chi and ballroom dancing in Lixiang Park every day are so interesting to watch,?± she said.

She visits the park early almost every day and is amazed at seeing something new every time.

Caines comes from Deer Lake, a small town with a population of only 5,000 in Newfoundland.

From there she went to university in Halifax, Nova Scotia, where she obtained a degree in fine arts from Nova Scotia College of Art and Design and a degree in education from Mount Saint Vincent University.

She heard about ISSC at a job fair in Halifax in January 2005. She knew many people who had gone to teach English in China, but that was the first time she heard of teaching Canadian curriculum in an international school overseas.

She didn?ˉt know much about Shenzhen, other than it was warm and near Hong Kong, but that was enough for her.

Ready for something new and exciting, she packed her bags and said goodbye to family and friends.