Track days and western treats

So after my last blog, I had three random people message me saying that it wasn’t bamboo I was eating, it was sugar cane… haha that makes a LOT more sense. Guess my Chinese communication skills aren’t that good after all.

Time has been flying here in Wuhan. A few weeks ago, we had a Sports Day which brought back a ton of memories. It was basically a track meet with some other fun games added into the mix. It reminded me of my elementary school days when all the schools got together at the college for the track and field day. It was great to see a different side of all my students. Some of my students who seem to loathe English class were killing it in the 1500m. It was very refreshing to see them take pride in something and feel very confident in themselves.

Others were acting quite unusual. After watching the girls run the 800m, I notice one girl looking like she is going to die from exhaustion. Her friends were helping her as her knees would give out, and she’d fall to the ground, roll around a bit and her friends would pick her up and she’d fall into them limp. Concerned, I looked for help and saw about 4 other girls doing the same thing. When I asked another teacher about this she said “Oh yeah, this is part of the game. If they didn’t win, they have to show that they gave everything they possibly could. I asked the girls if they thought it was annoying when their friends did this and they said ‘no, she needs our help because she ran so hard she can’t walk now’”. Long way from home where the girls are trying to keep up to the boys. The boys acted the same way, but weren’t quite so dramatic about it.

I spent the day as a timer/photographer and had a great time. Sometimes, however, I found it difficult to stay in those roles and not take over the role of “track rule enforcer” even though I knew they were doing it wrong. I had to keep telling myself “This is sports day, its fun, it doesn’t matter if they are not in the passing zone for the 4 x 100m relay”. The teachers’ non-competitive fun ended, however, in the teachers vs students tug-of-war. In that case, it was do-or-die and we were strategizing as to who should participate when and where they should be positioned along the rope. We were dominating easily until we got up against the grade 11’s. After what seemed like a 10 minute war, they ended up victorious, and a few of us were not satisfied. Then we heard they were little cheaters, having twice the amount of people pulling on their side so we had a rematch and rightfully won. Haha imagine such competition between 15 year olds and 30 year olds (ish).

The next weekend I went to Beijing where I met Emilie. We had two things on our minds: good food and Christmas shopping. We got both in abundance. Em used to frequent Beijing when she lived in Dalian three years ago so I was looking forward to having a tour guide. However, there was this little thing that happened there called the Olympics, and it made locating things a bit difficult. Everywhere we went Em was saying, “I don’t recognize any of this, I have no idea where we are”, then 10 seconds later, we’d be at the restaurant or mall we were looking for. I had heard that Beijing was cleaning up for the Olympics but had no idea how drastic the changes were.

We managed to get to all her favorite places, and feast on western food which I took for granted til I left Canada: eggs bendict, real fruit smoothies, greek salad and import wines. This is something I also took for granted in Bangkok. Although it was relatively expensive, with a little effort you could always find a place that serves decent versions of your western favorites. So far in Wuhan, we have eaten at one good western restaurant that took us a little over an hour in a cab to get to. So I got in all the great food I could and let my stomach expand three times to make room.

When we weren’t eating like starved Canadians, we were using our energy to empty our pockets. We walked into the silk market and Em says “okay, time to get to business. Divide and conquer. Meet at the doors in an hour.” We then proceeded to go crazy. Purses, dresses, jackets, shoes, you name it, they had it. I would leave one stall and love everything at the next. An hour and a half later, I met up with Em and said “oh my god, Em, I just got ALL my Christmas shopping done in an hour and a half. ALL of it!” and by the looks of her hands, she was pretty much done as well. I was quite impressed.

The most interesting thing I saw was the motorbikes in Beijing. China has a huge number of scooters and motorbikes and motortricycle looking things as a means of getting around. Much cheaper and more convenient in a country population of 1.4 billion people. However, Bejing gets very cold, which temperatures dropping to -10 (I know you Canadians don’t think that’s cold, but imagine being on a motorbike). How to accommodate? Build a cab of course! Everywhere I looked I saw these little motorbikes with cabs on them as they bob in and out of traffic. It was quite a sight!

I didn’t do any sight seeing in Beijing (and am planning to back just to do so) but from what I saw, Beijing wasn’t as nice as Shanghai. You could still see the pollution hanging in the air in the mornings and people were still spitting on the street. When I pointed this out to Em, her reply was “yeah, but that’s what I love about Beijing. It has a lot of western elements, yet its still very much China” and to that I had to very much agree. Being in Shanghai was like escaping China and entering a bigger, more modern North American city, except with a higher Chinese population. Beijing had a multicultural mix without losing the China feel.

I am definitely looking forward to going back in the spring (if not earlier) to do all the touristy things.

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