Back in Wuhan Again!

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Arrived back in Wuhan, Chinaone week ago after almost 24 hours of travel from SFO. This marks my 3^rdvisit to Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST) to teach English to doctoral candidates.

I’m now well settled into the Hong Jia Hotel on campus. The Hong Jia promises “Dazzling Place, People's Attention..From quiet and comfortable rooms to sleep lying.The little drops of life, nuance of every show quality of service." I don't know where that hotel is (or even what that means!) but it must be located at some other HUST in some other city in some other China. My room is more Motel 6ish, but with a flat screen TV that only gets 5 different versions of CCTV, the Chinese version of BBC. One is in English, but basically repeats the same 2 hours of programs throughout the day. Advertising appears to be limited to various regions of China promoting themselves for tourism or industry.

As usual, almost immediately on arrival, I went out with my teaching assistant, Luna, to find bike in bad enough shape that it is unlikely to get stolen while I’m here. The campus is large and I hate to be limited to walking distance. There are some shuttles on campus at only about 15c a ride, but they get so crowded and are of such limited range, they don't do the trick for me.

The bike also lets me get off campus like to the nearby shopping center, which seems to expand every year. Last year, there was the new Spanish Style Mall, they are months away from adding the Italian Style Mall, with German Style Mall not far behind,and who knows what next....the list goes on and on. That is, if the economy continues to grow at a brisk, which there seems to be some question about as housing construction is down and the many housing towers built were bought up by investors but appear to have few actual residents.

The Hong Jia is just a short bike ride from my classroom where I’m teaching 6 hours a day, 5 days a week. The schedule is two 1 ½ hour classes in the morning beginning at 8:30AM, followed by a 3 hour lunch and nap break, then another two 1 ½ hour classes. I have a total of about 80 students over the course of a day of varying English speaking abilities. They are required to take the class as part of their doctoral program...but the only requirement is that they attend, so keeping them engaged is exhausting. Despite having done this two times before, I'm still entirely drained after a day of teaching.

That doesn't stop me from getting out and trying new places around the campus and getting to parts of Wuhan I hadn't had a chance to visit on previous trips. It takes about an hour to get to another part of town by bus, since the traffic is a mess. The reality is that, once there, and after visiting the two or three "tourist" sites, there's really not much more to do than shopping and eating.

What I love about coming here is getting to know the students a bit and catching up with some of my former students. I spent Saturday with Luna and my TA from last year, Tom, on the antique street in town. Actually, we didn't get far. After the hour bus ride, and Luna getting involved in selecting beads to put together a bracelet for her mother, we were all starving and had to have lunch. By then, it was time to head back to campus, with a short stop at a temple on the way back.

Sunday now and some free time to catch up on this and some rest. More to come.

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