Wuhan, China
July 12th

Today was the first day of an actual regular schedule and our first “normal” day of school. It was nice not to have to pack up and head some other place. And yes, I realize complaining about traveling around China is a bit on the whinny side but it is true none the less.

Our classes are in the International School building and are quite nice. They are well air conditioned and they have cool water and the fixing’s for green tea and what passes for coffee. I have jumped on the green tea band wagon and am not getting off anytime soon.

The first lecture we had was a “Brief Introduction to Chinese History and Culture” done by Dr. Gu Ya. She has written over five books on Chinese history and received her PhD. from Hubei University. She will give five lessons about Chinese history and culture over the course of the next few weeks. The session was quite informative. There were a lot of areas of history that I recognized but so much else I had no clue of. The initial session focused on ancient history. I learned so much. Her English is admittedly not great but she had one of her students translate for her. That took some getting used to but still worked well.

We had our usual huge lunch. I am eating less over here but it is not out of lack of good food. There are always lots of veggies in ridiculously good sauces, with rice in some manner, and a meat, and because city of Wuhan which is in Hubei province is described as a land of “a thousand lakes” there is always at least one fish dish. We ate family style with a lazy Susan in the middle. We have a lot more food at out meals than a normal Chinese group would but we are generally finishing everything.

This afternoon was our first Chinese language lesson. It was led by Dr. Wang Ruoxuan. She is an excellent teacher and very patient because we all stink at Chinese. We learned the basic sounds of beginnings (initials) and the endings (finals). We also learned how to read the accents for the tones. As a matter of clarification the tones are accents over vowels that let one know how to say the vowel. The tone is of utmost importance because you could have a word spelled the exact same way and depending on the four tones mean four absolutely different things! I totally understand how to read them now. I have little idea how to say them. It is the first lesson. We are not learning Chinese script but how to read Pinyin. An oversimplified explanation of Pinyin is this. Imagine that you started spelling things not as they we taught but only as how they sound. This was one of Communist party’s reforms to help increase literacy in China. I shudder to think what the Chinese people who happened by our classroom thought of our butchering of their language.

On the walk to Wal-Mart

After dinner we walked to the Wal-Mart, yes you read correctly, which is about a 25 minute walk from the campus. I did not need anything but I heard it was a site to behold. Paul, Sharon, Deb, and myself al made the trek. It was well worth it. The place was a sea of people. It was organized chaos. All of sat with our mouths gaped open from the sights and sounds. Capitalism is alive and well in China. Different workers demonstrated and hawked various goods and products. One of the most fun activities was the classic game, “Americans who don’t speak the language are trying to buy something.” We were looking for the schnapps like drink that we had had the previous night called “White Cloud”. By that I mean it is what the Chinese name for the product translates into. So we play this combination pictionary/charades game with the ladies in the liquor department. Finally we were aided by a five year old Chinese boy in the crowd; we had drawn a substantial crowd about three people deep around us. When Paul put his hands above his head, the little boy yelled, “Sky and Cloud!” in English. From there the workers figured out what we wanted. As a note; once we found the item in question the attendant immediately attempted to up sell us to much more expensive brand. Raw capitalism.

Every 7 Yuan is 1 dollar, you do the math.

The demonstration

White Cloud?

We left the shopping complex and crossed the street using the Frogger method and caught the “811” bus back to campus. The first public transportation you use in a foreign country is always watershed moment. We were stared at, of course. Especially me. Hey how often do you see a chubby American in the flesh? We even saw one of the ladies who waited on us in Wal-Mart. At first she was excited to see us then I think a bit embarrassed after all four of us pointed at her and yelled we know you.

Enough said

Once we returned to campus we had a few drinks from the spoils of our journey. It was not exactly Marco Polo on the silk route but still quite fun.

Link to more photos from journey to Wal-Mart