Wuhan - Cooling Off

12nd October 2008

Ni hao,

Renzo "The Red" reporting from China.

Find attached 3 photos:

• The first of me with a couple of kids I've "adopted", with a waterfall in the background
• Me with the father of the boy
• Lastly, an Australian (Deanne) friend's bathroom which I have dubbed "Deanne's Dunny" which can act as the toilet, shower and sink for peeling vegetables. Apparently all three modes of operation have been known to occur concurrently, in some parts of the country!

Wuhan the 'hot centre" is rapidly cooling down, which has forced me to go on a winter clothes shopping spree. Fortunately clothes are relatively cheap here and I am becoming less reliant on my Chinese teacher translator, getting by with a few chosen words and lots of gestures. One salesperson took it to the extreme when pointing to a price tag with 348 yuan written on it by showing me 3 fingers, followed by 4 and finally raising 8 fingers - I felt like raising 2 fingers to her (but not as a victory salute!).

I've also bought myself a new bicycle - decided I couldn't wait for the Chinese mafia to steal (oops, I mean find) a second-hand one for me. It's a 21-speed mountain bike with Shimano gears, front shocks and light enough for me to carry up to my 3rd-floor apartment: students and teachers are amazed that I would outlay such an enormous sum of money as Y698 (approx $120 at the time). However, I'm whizzing past all the rusting 50-100 year-old bikes (and riders to match) whilst keeping an eye on the rest of the traffic.

The English teaching is a lot of fun and quite rewarding, especially when I've been recognised by the students and teachers who have dubbed me a workaholic. I've now been taken out to a number of banquets where a whole variety of dishes have been served, including frogs, doves and a variety of fish: the last one was a teachers' dinner given by the Dean of the faculty where he asked me if I would be interested in teaching a Business course, to which I respectfully declined.

Reading many students' essays can get very boring but every now and then I get a good laugh, such as one student commenting on an author's view of English spoken in non-English-speaking countries: he took great offence at the author referrring to the use of "bastardised" English - the student writing, at length, on how rude the author was in using such bad language! I now have a new group of students, some of whom did not have an English name. To rectify this I've been handing out names that sound a bit like their Chinese names (Sheryl, Shawn and Jamie amongst them). One student with a "wal..." sound I anointed as "Wally", figuring he won't know any better until he later came up to me with a dictionary in his hand asking "please teacher, can I change my name" whilst showing me the definition of Wally as "a silly or inept person". We then settled on "Walter".

Zai jian from the "Not-So-Hot Centre".

Wuhan - Hot One Day, Stinking Hot The Next

30th September 2008

Ni hao: Renzo "The Red" reporting:

A variation on a Queensland saying, to describe Wuhan: "Hot one day, stinking hot the next...". Wuhan is known throughout China as one of the "Three Ovens" cities along the Yangtse river. However, the weather has turned and it did it overnight: last Friday everyone was wearing short-sleeved shirts - on Saturday morning I went out in my usual light T-shirt and 3/4 pants and everyone else was wearing winter clothes! As if I didn't look conspicuous enough as the only "Westerner" in the district! Of course it would help if the TV news had given me a hint... all I see is Chinese characters for all the major cities.

"Inflation is rampant on the streets of Wuhan": I was told that only a few weeks ago, a street-side shoe-shine only cost 1 yuan (17c), now it's 2 yuan (extortion!). Talking about extortion, whilst food and clothes are relatively cheap here many branded goods are not. I've been trying to buy an iPod Touch and a decent compact camera and both are appreciably more expensive than purchasing through eBay in Australia - even when my Chinese colleagues looked into the Chinese eBay, the camera is $200 cheaper in Australia. One Chinese English teacher wanted to buy a similar Oxford Electronic Dictionary to the one I bought in Melbourne, only to find they don't sell them here. Guess where it's made? Yep, 'Made in China', so naturally I ordered one for her from eBay Australia!

Another oddity: there is no second-hand market in China - old things are either passed on or thrown out. I was looking for a second-hand bike but absolutely not possible (including bike shops), until the word got around and I was approached by a suspicious-looking guy who spoke some English. "You want to buy bike cheap" he whispered, "I find you one". I was later warned that it meant "I'll steal one for you".

At University I've gained a reputation as being a good bargainer because all the goods I've bought from the local department stores have been at a discount from the ticket price (apparently it's a not the done thing at department stores). I decided to try my hand at a small little shop selling DVDs. I picked out the first English DVD: Tom Cruise in "M:I:III" and asked "how much?". The young lady signalled 9 yuan (a whopping $1.50). But desperate for some English movies I selected 6 DVDs and cooly made an offer of 50 yaun. The girl said "no, no!", and as I began to prepare to demonstrate my bagaining prowess she continued with "no, no - you pay 42 yuan!". Apparantly the first DVD I had chosen was a "blu-ray" version (which my HP laptop will play), some of the others were only 5 yuan (85c).

To finish with a Chinglish, I've had to mark 61 Critical Essays in one weekend for those students who will be continuing their Business studies at RMIT next year. When I complained to the acting Deputy Dean (herself an English teacher) about the amount of effort I would have to put in, especially given the unintelligible writing of some of the students, she sympathised with me by saying "I really appreciate your hard work. I fully understand that marking essays will make you feel headache".

In my inimitable way I am questioning many things about the way in which the English programme is being run - I'll either raise the bar or they'll throw me out, over the bar!

Until next time, Zai jian from the "Hot Centre".

Wuhan - Landed in China

15th September 2008

After being mucked about by Qantas on Monday 25 Aug, I finally landed in Wuhan, China on Wednesday (27th): the scheduled 22:50 flight out of Tullamarine was delayed and delayed (maintenance problems) until at 03:30 they announced that the flight had to be cancelled! So Qantas bussed us to the Citigate hotel in Queen's Road at ~ 4:30am.

My Chinese English teacher contacts (including the deputy Dean of the Wuhan University of Science and Technology) have been very kind to me and have allowed me to stay in one of their spare units close to the University. It's in a terribly old and dirty-exterior building; inside not too bad, but bathroom and kitchen are horrible (I'm told that the Chinese are more concerned with living and bedroom areas!). Apart from the dirty exterior, the unit itself isn't too bad - enough room to swing more than one cat. Not that I've spotted any cats here at all - makes me wonder what they have been feeding me at the restaurants!

There's absolutely no English spoken anywhere I've been and there's no takeaways - I'm living on fruit, cereal, and bread and spreads until I get more settled and comfortable with eating at restaurants by myself. Good thing is that one of my Chinese contacts is always at the end of a mobile phone call - on two occasions I've had to call her, whilst in a taxi, so that she could direct the taxi driver to the shopping mall or to my place (not easy to find - it's a lane off a lane, off the main street!). I'm told Melway-type maps are not available and what is available is in Chinese characters anyway. However, I'm starting to get my bearings to the point where I can direct a driver once he gets close.

I guess there's no such thing as a free lunch, hence, they have asked me if I can help out (a couple of days a week) with teaching writing to level 7 English students who are about to continue their business studies at RMIT. My helping role is to teach them to critically appraise documents and write university business-type critical reviews. Some examples I’ve seen are: "Contrast the positions which Charles Darwin and the Catholic Church have on man's creation", and "Consider the Enlightenment position that one is not born with a culture but is coerced into accepting.........", and on it goes... Sounds like fun.

I have an Australian contact who is working approx one hour away from Wuhan. To date we have visited:

• The Hubei National Museum (including the impressive “Ringing of the Bells”)
• A large and popular recreation area called East Lake (a bigger version of Glen Waverley’s Jell’s Park)
• Chairman Mao’s lakeside summer retreat villa, where we saw his house and many of his artefacts (including his swimming trunks which could accommodate 3 average people!).

Yesterday I walked to the Yangtse river (approx 2 blocks away) and it is “ginormous”: the width alone resembles a huge lake. The river divides Wuhan in a similar way that the Yarra separates North and South of Melbourne, except that everything is on a bigger scale: I’m told the population of Wuhan is somewhere between 8-10M people.

The traffic here is unbelievably chaotic: the only rule here is the biggest vehicle and the gamest driver gets right of way. As you can imagine buses and trucks do very well – this is combated by the nippy cars (especially taxi drivers) who swerve in and out of lanes (regardless of which side of the double lines!). Whenever I need a thrill and an adrenalin rush I go for a taxi ride!

Lastly, what little English is on public display in Wuhan is generally called Chinglish: I went to the main police station yesterday to register my temporary visa and I was taken by their motto on the wall, in big bold letters:

"Enforce the law with civilisation and serve everyone with enthusiasm".

I was going to suggest "Enforce the law in a civil manner and treat everyone fairly" but I was jokingly told that if I did do so they may send me back to Australia!


Regards… Renzo