THE seven-day holiday also witnessed many foreigners staying in Shenzhen, relaxing or sharing time with Chinese friends.

　　"I took advantage of the week-long holiday to study and have parties with my friends," said 35-year-old Canadian Kamran Sadeghi, an English teacher at a school in Luohu District.

　　He is improving his Chinese because he hopes one day to open an export business between Canada and China.

　　He is also working on an MBA program offered by the University of Edinburgh through E-learning.

　　"Besides the busy study schedule, I had two different parties. One was with my American friends and the other with my Chinese friends. We had a lot of fun at both parties," Sadeghi said.

　　"This is really a busy but rewarding holiday for me," he said.

　　Brent Deverman, a software engineer with a local watch manufacturing and designing company, said he mainly spent the holidays in Shenzhen. 

　　For most of the holidays, Deverman worked on his party Web site which he co-founded with friends and which has become a hub of a popular network of local expatriate partygoers. He and his friends were promoting a salsa party that will be held soon at the famous V-Bar of the Crowne Plaza Hotel. Devermen said three to four professional salsa dancers would be flown in from abroad for the party.

　　But some foreigners were busy with work during the holidays. Robert Cinquina, the operations manager of a plant in Bao'an District, said he didn't even have time to play tennis because the factory's production was racing against time.

　　Ike Mahmood, a Pakistani said he didn't stop during the week-long holiday.

　　Kim Byung Sup, a South Korean taekwondo instructor, was also fully occupied during the holidays preparing his students for the world taekwondo games next year. He said a long rest would do no good to a man like him who had been practicing for more than 30 years.