Well, we never got any snow at Xmas - New Year but I'm told there's still a chance...
New Year was a non-event in Wuhan even though a number of Chinese friends and acquaintences sent me greetings (even an SMS at midnight when I was asleep, recovering from the previous week).
On Xmas eve my atheist friend, Sharon, and her girlfriend took me to a Christian Church where I was "forced" to pray. She then carried out some bizarre Chinese Xmas ritual where she approached total strangers asking them to donate one only of the smallest monetary coin (1/10th of one yuan), until she had collected 24 of them; she then shopped for an apple which had to cost exactly 2.4 yuan, after which she presented it to me with the message that when I eat it, whatever wish I make will come true - it was a truly magic apple...
At the famed Jiang Han Road shopping walkways and shops the enormous crowd shuffled shoulder to shoulder, from Xmas midnight, taking advantage of the many 50% discounts on offer. After 2.5 hours of window shopping we headed home with the total purchase, between the three of us, of one solitary apple!
I've found that the average-quality clothes are cheaper to buy here than in Australia, but the high-quality, good brands are much more expensive e.g. good woollen jumpers cost between 2,000 and 3,500 yuan (~ $400 and $700) before a discount; moreover, goods are cheaper in Wuhan than in Shanghai and Beijing! However, Xmas cards cost 1.5 yuan (25 cents) and for 12 yuan ($2.40) I just bought a 3-DVD pack of block-buster movies containing (according to the cover) "In the History 20 Greatly Most Look at the Movie".
Stop the Press: It's 11pm Monday the 5th of January, as I am writing, and it's SNOWING!!
The other exhausting event for me was trying to prepare for the end-of-year school concert. I went to a rehearsal 2 hours before the performance was due to start, with around 50 spectators watching, and soon found out I would die a slow death, in front of a 200+ audience, if I went on with it - so I pulled out 1 hour before show time. The whole thing was mismanaged for me and although it was obvious to me (and I had said so on a number of occasions), the young student organiser who had asked me to perform had insisted on me doing it - I finally convinced her at the 11th hour (after I was on the printed program and expected to perform my customised "Shaddap You Face" routine!).
Tomorrow is my last official class at WUST, even though the semester ends on Jan 17th. We've had visitors from overseas universities visit the school, including the President (aka Dean) of the Singapore University who happened to drop in on my class (refer photos):
- The President addressing the class
- Group photo with the school's teachers (me in patriotic red)
- Me doing an impression of the Leaning Tower of Pisa?
Regards for now... Renzo
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