Wuhan and the Last of Hubei Province

A couple more things about Hubei province before I move on to more recent stuff. Our last 48 hours in Hubei were spent in the massive city of Wuhan (武汉). It is one of the most populated in all of China and reminded me greatly of Beijing. Two of the most obvious things I noticed that set Wuhan apart from Beijing, however, were the massive Yangtze river (长江) running through the middle of the city and the taxi drivers. The river was pleasant; the taxi drivers weren't. Beijing taxi drivers are generally very honest -- there's a 90% chance they know where you want to go, and if they don't, they'll tell you up front. Wuhan taxi drivers were quite the opposite -- they didn't know any of the places we wanted to go, but they claimed they knew the general vicinity of where we wanted to go and would therefore be able to take us. Each time I got in a taxi, the taxi driver ended up getting lost. One even got lost after I called the front desk at our hotel for him and had the hotel give him explicit directions. Irritating, but not enough to prevent me from going back to Wuhan.

While in Wuhan, we had a "cultural friendship exchange" with an arts university there. The university students were all extremely talented, and performed numerous dances and skits for us. We had been told ahead of time that we needed to prepare a song to sing on stage in front of the university students. What were not told was that we would be randomly chosen to go up on stage and be quizzed on Chinese history/culture as well. I don't do well speaking in front of people in my own mother tongue, much less being tested on Chinese trivia in front of people in Mandarin. Unfortunately, that didn't stop them from picking me to go up in front of hundreds of people to answer a question. I was so nervous I could barely hold the microphone, and my voice was shaking as I was forced to introduce myself and where I was from. Luckily, my trivia question was about a pagoda in Wuhan that I had studied in class, and I answered my question correctly. Doesn't make the experience any less terrifying, however.

Photo 1: Female students performing an amazingly well synchronized dance with umbrellas.
Photo 2: Male student (and two more students dressed as dragons) during the opening performance.
Photo 3: Me laughing (extremely nervously) during my time on stage. Photo courtesy of my classmate Jin Yunmei.
Photo 4: A Norwegian classmate of mine who had the guts to get up on stage and do a Kungfu routine, solo. To the lay observer, the movements appeared quite peculiar.

More Hubei Province

Took more than 500 photos in Hubei, so thought I should post a few more of days two and three of the trip. After waking up to the sea of clouds, we went to a forest to do more hiking, much to everyone's chagrin. Our calves were all so sore from climbing the day before that our speed was greatly reduced. I hobbled next to the teachers most of the way, and stopped often to take photos. At one point, we climbed down a crevasse about 5 stories deep. The walls on either side of us were rock covered in bright green moss, which made for excellent photo taking. The other photos I have included were taken at the ancient palace and park that was once home to emperors of the Tujia ethnic minority. Most of the visitors at the palace were locals and were shocked to see so many foreigners. Many talked about my hair in front of me, assuming I could not understand. This rarely happens in Beijing anymore, and took me by surprise. It was a tad awkward, so I decided to look and smile at whoever was talking about me.

云海

On the second night of the trip to Hubei, we stayed in a hotel on the top of a mountain overlooking Enshi. Much to everyone's surprise, we woke up the next morning and discovered a sea of clouds next to the hotel (see photos -- describing it does no justice). On sunny afternoons, the clouds disappear and the city of Enshi is visible below. Looking at the sea of clouds felt quite like looking out the window of a plane.

Photo 1: Clouds, taken from the lookout point
Photo 2: Clouds and the railing of the lookout point
Photo 3: More clouds and mountain
Photo 4: The hotel on the top of the mountain
Photo 5: Me at the lookout

Enshi Grand Canyon

Just returned from a trip to Hubei province that was organized by the school for students in my level of Chinese. This post will only be about the first day, during which we hiked a series of mountains in an area known as the "Enshi Grand Canyon." Enshi is a region in Hubei province heavily populated by people of the Tujia ethnic minority (土家族). To get to the "Grand Canyon," we took a bus up extremely windy mountain roads, which resulted in motion-sickness for many students. For reasons unknown, our bus driver felt it necessary to drive a break-neck speeds up the rather narrow and unsafe mountain roads. Anyhow, we hiked for a total of about 4 hours, and by the end were completely exhausted. It felt similar to climbing the Great Wall -- up and down and up and down. The scenery was incredible, as can be seen in the photos. Although it was an overcast day, my nose got sunburnt -- one of the many joys of having pale skin. At the end of the hike we descended down staircases for about 40 minutes, which took a large tole on our knees and calf muscles. As a result, everyone was limping and wobbling for the next 48 hours or so. 

Photos (in no particular order):

First one was taken at the end of the hike while descending. Second one is a view of the mountains we climbed. Third one was taken before we started hiking. It is of my class. Fourth photo is of the walkway on the side of the mountain that we walked along. Fifth is me at some point on the mountain. All were taken with my new camera, Milton! 

Revival of the Blog

New name, newish look, same blogger. Back in China at Beijing Language and Culture University (北京语言大学) for a year. Currently on break for the national holiday and thought I'd post some pictures of a recent trip to Tianjin (天津）(120 km from Beijing, urban population of about 4 million according to Wikipedia). Drove there with my old host family and stayed about 36 hours. Tianjin has a massive ferris wheel that affords a nice view of the city. Waited in line for it for three hours. The ferris wheel ride itself takes a half an hour because of how slow the wheel turns. My host mama's cousin lives in Tianjin, and went to the ferris wheel with us. She is 60, has lived in Tianjin her entire life, and has never received much of an education from what I gathered from my host sister. In line for the ferris wheel, she leaned over and whispered in my ear, "I wanted to ask you... In America, do white people discriminate against black people?" I gave her the simplest answer I could think of to avoid confusion, and told her that I don't, but some people do. My host mama later told me that her tendency to whisper about potentially controversial topics is a habit leftover from the Mao era.

For lunch on Tuesday, my host mama's cousin brought us to a rather undesirable restaurant filled with cigarette smoke and people. They had no tables, as it was lunch hour, so we ended up going to a nicer restaurant one block down, attached to a hotel. We sat down, ordered, food came, and all was well, for a while. My host mama had ordered a bowl of white rice when we ordered our food, but it didn't come for a while and eventually she decided she didn't want it. When she told the waitress, however, the waitress said that the bowl of white rice (an estimated 2 RMB, or 31 US cents) could not be cancelled, as it was already prepared. My host mama said that that was ridiculous, and my host sister immediately demanded to speak with the manager of the restaurant over the matter. When the manager came, she apparently gave my host sister a dirty look before explaining to us that the order of rice indeed could be cancelled but the waitress didn't have the authority to do it. Although the matter could have been calmly resolved, that one dirty look and bit of sassiness from the waitress and manager set me host sister off like none other. In no time my host sister was yelling insults and the entire restaurant was turning around to stare at us. I learned 5 new words from that conversation, including "worthless creature" (lit. "cheap bones"). The argument ended in my sister telling the manager that if the waitress didn't come over and personally apologize, we wouldn't pay the bill. All this mess over a bowl of white rice. Just another day in China.

About the photos: First one is my host sister and me in the car at 6:30 AM on our way to Tianjin. Second one is me holding three 10-day old baby kittens born in some distant relative's hutong-style home in Tianjin. Third one is of the "Tianjin Eye," the enormous ferris wheel. Fourth one is me holding onto the lantern my host sister and I bought. Seconds after the photo was taken I let go and it floated up into the sky. People buy them, write their wishes on them, and release them at night. It is quite a sight to see hundreds of them in the sky at once. Boy next to me is another distant relative. He is 16, dropped out of school years ago, and is now doing some sort of labor-intensive work. Very mannerly, friendly boy, and very down-to-earth.