12. Teaching in China
My journey to
Wuhan by train involved one of those coincidences which make me believe I am being looked after by a higher power.
Alice was going to come with me but could not because her father had an accident. She saw me safely onto the train and left. A couple of about my age came and sat in the same group of seats. Eventually we talked a little. The man knew some English from thirty years ago at school and I had my phrasebook. By the end of the journey I knew that he had been one of
Alice‘s teachers at school and his wife worked in the Primary School I can see from my window.
Using the instructions Bob gave me in Chinese I took a taxi to
Wuhan
University, a large campus set amongst wooded hills wearing autumn colours. The driver stopped to ask students the way to the foreign students’ quarters where I was to stay and the third person he asked got into the cab and directed us. I showed my papers, paid the key deposit and room charge and was shown to a basic but warm room with a bathroom with a western style toilet and hot water. There was a little shop on the ground floor of a nearby building where I found some very palatable burgers for eighty cents each and bought toilet paper. (Next time I will heed all the advice on the Lonely Planet website.) At the shop I was helped by a Congolese student whose native language is French, but who is learning English and Chinese to study law in
Wuhan. Later, still hungry, my helper was
Vladimir from Vladivostock. I flicked the channels on the TV for a while, discovering there is a French one but no English, then went to sleep.
The next day I set out to find my way to a Foreign Language Bookshop Bob mentioned. The first task was to get out of the University grounds. It really is huge. I found one exit which was padlocked and retraced my steps a bit then started asking the way out. I approached a couple and the girl, Lily, a journalism student who spoke English, said they would walk with me. She then told me which bus went to the bookshop and even came onto the bus to instruct the driver where to put me off. Lily also gave me the number of a bus which goes from the University to the station I arrived at on the far side of the city. The bookshop was not easy to find even then, being a fair way from the bus stop, and my search was delayed by the irresistible pull of a place called “Coffee Language” where I had a Cappuccino which proved to be a Café au Crème, but who’s complaining? I managed to find an English/Pinyin Dictionary but none of the novels I hoped to buy and no learning tapes.
In the evening I took a taxi to “The Blue Sky” which is one of the favourite hang-outs of expats in
Wuhan. I met Robyn there and met Curt Rafe for the first time. Curt recruited me and Bob’s business placed me. I met some other Australians there and an American engineer retired in China with a very beautiful Chinese wife came and said hello and invited me to visit them the next time I go to
Wuhan. I also met Canti, a young Chinese artist who had the Sony camera I almost bought instead of the Nikon. Its low-light functionality is much better. One day we will have a show of one another’s photos. Curt lent me a Chinese language course. The Blue Sky is managed with the same flexibility of mind as Coffee Language and the Borscht I ordered took on the guise of Minestrone. The patrons were diverse. There were black people, probably African rather than Afro-Americans. There were fresh faced young Caucasians and a few older ones. One woman in her late thirties to early forties had an air of decadence about her. A sort of Angelina Jolie in a few years look. At a table of four ‘professional ladies’ with emotionally closed faces there was one Caucasian woman who looked quite unpleasant.
The next day I left the University in the morning to catch the train back to Xiangfan. All rail tickets in
China are one way. Returns are not available. After I accidentally approached the right stall outside the station building I was helped by an information officer to purchase a ticket. It was a bad time as I was not able to get a train until evening. I explored the small market area near the station and for about half of that exploration was followed by two giggling boys. When I got back to the Station complex I went into a restaurant and the boys stood outside the window watching me until one of the staff chased them away. My helper told me she had bought me a ticket for the four o’clock train but when I was about to enter the station building I took out the ticket and noticed it said ten past six. I showed it to the girl and she was taken aback as she also thought she had been given the four o’clock ticket I requested but there was nothing she could do.
I went back to the restaurant. After a while I began to feel bored and had just sent up a plea for company when I looked up to see a young man walking towards me. I actually thought this was a High School student. Zhang is a 28 year old PhD student in
Beijing and his thesis is in a useful area of knowledge. He comes from a poor family in a small town but his brothers have good jobs and provide the money for his education. He is married and his wife works. Our conversation kept us both happy until my train was due and his was only half an hour away.
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