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Published: September 25th 2011
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Today marks the end of my first two weeks in China. I’ve returned to teach English at HUST (Huzhong University of Science and Technology), where I taught in July last year. I’m enjoying being back. This is the first time I’ve returned to an international destination so soon after my first visit. I feel very comfortable here. While the campus and Wuhan itself are large and populous, I’ve run into former and current students several times as I’ve biked around campus and at the nearest shopping mall (more on the mall later).
The campus itself hasn’t changed much since my last trip here, but being here in September makes it a very different place. First, in July, the campus is fairly deserted. Now, most students have returned to campus for the fall semester. That means it’s fairly crowded, since the student population numbers close to 50,000 on this campus of the university. Every morning as I ride my bike down the main road to one of the largest teaching complexes on campus where I teach, there are streams of students headed to class. The competition for seats in the various campus canteens is stiff, as everyone heads to eat at
the same time. There’s also the novelty of seeing 8,000 freshmen in army fatigues marching and participating in military exercises, as their first 3 weeks of university here and everywhere in China is devoted to their required military service.
The other major difference is the weather. In July, it was over 90 degrees most days and raining or over 80% humidity. Today, I’m wearing a long sleeve shirt and the air conditioning is off.
I’m also teaching a different group of students. Last year, I was teaching a total of about 40 undergrads; now I’m teaching a total of about 80 doctoral candidates. The undergrads enrolled in the course; it’s a requirement for the doctoral candidates. Last year, my group of 40 undergrads was divided in half. I taught each half about 3 hours daily. Now, my group of 80 students is split into 4 groups, each with 1 ½ hour of classes with me daily.
I’d heard the doctoral candidates weren’t going to be too involved in the classes, since attendance is the only real requirement. As it turns out, my group of engineering, physics, architecture and environmental science doctoral candidates has been a lot
of fun. The students are involved and even willing to do the exercises I thought they might shun.
We’ve had some interesting discussions. The most recent was what they believe a survey of 18-29 year olds in China would indicate as the top social problems in China. The list included unemployment, high housing prices, the quality and cost of education, and the gap between the rich and the poor. My students found it interesting that 18-29 year old Americans ranked some of the same issues among the most serious in the U.S.
Enough about school and teaching…though that has occupied most of my time and energy since my arrival in China.
Besides teaching, I’ve had a chance to do more exploring of Wuhan than I did last year, mainly because the weather is so much better suited for walking around. But, there’s still another hindrance to seeing much of the city: traffic. Wuhan is a city of over 10 million and crazy. Traffic is horrible, making trips even relatively short distances long trips. Transportation infrastructure hasn’t kept pace with the rapid expansion in auto ownership. They’re working on improving the infrastructure, including building a subway, which is
only making transportation worse as roads are narrowed and detours are frequent.
Despite that, I made it down to the Yangtze, which splits Wuhan in two. HUST is in Wu Chang, which is on the Eastern side of the Yangtze; Han Kou is on the Western side. The city has almost no charm. It is fairly pragmatic. There’s a nice park along the Yangtze, but the views aren’t particularly beautiful. The best stop is the “Breakfast Street”, a pedestrian street lined with food stalls where I had great fun sampling far too many different things. The primary tourist sight is the Yellow Crane Tower, which looks old, but was actually built in 1987 replacing an earlier structure that burned down. The Tower is scenic and offers great views of the city, but the air is seldom clear enough to see very far into the distance.
I’ve been eating well, with a couple of particularly memorable feasts more for the occasions than the food. First was on the Autumn Moon Festival, a major Chinese holiday. Several students invited me and my teaching partner John and his wife to dinner for the celebration. The restaurant was a great
setting with a spectacular view of the rising full moon. The other, a dinner some of my former students from July invited me to at a hot pot place where you have a personal hot pot and pick your own ingredients. It was fun catching up with all of them and seeing them all taking full advantage of the all you can eat set-up. I thought I could eat, but would lose any eating competition easily to a few of these students who must have starved themselves for a week before dinner.
I’ve been happily busy. When not busy teaching or spending time with students, I’ve been happily riding around the parts of the city easily accessible by bike from campus, including an older University nearby, Wuhan University, which is far more picturesque than HUST. There’s a woman’s dorm on campus that is an architectural landmark (second pic below, not first, which is the Admin building). It resembles a prison. No air conditioning or heat. No private baths. 4 women to a small room. The silver lining: only the equivalent of about $125 per year per student.
What amazed me a year ago and still amazes me
is the amount of building I see as I ride just a short distance around the univeristy. Housing tower complexes are being built everywhere. When they’re not building housing towers, they seem to be building new malls or expanding the ones already here. The already huge complex of malls near the campus has been expanded since I was last here with the addition of “Spanish Style Road”, which has little to do with Spain except for the sculptures of flamenco dancers and Don Quixote. What it does resemble is any upscale outdoor mall anywhere in the States. And, what’s built is only the first stage. Just beyond the barriers, more housing towers are rising and the Spanish Style Road is scheduled to extend into infinity and beyond, including a cathedral replica which will likely house a new H&M, Nike Store or food court. Guess I’ll have to wait till next year to see how that plays out.
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KW
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Wuhan breakfast....mmmmm
Many many Chinese would agree that one of the best kept secrets of Wuhan is that it has the BEST street breakfast food (and prehaps nearly the most varieties as well) of the entire China. Yes, it bests both Southern cities such as Shanghai, Guangzhou or Northern/Western ones like Beijing, Xian, Chengdu, etc., by a mile! Don't be fooled by those so called "street food" as all your 4 "breakfast"photos showed - those on the sticks and those red "stuff". Those are WRONG food. They are mostly SNACKS (some of them even catered for tourists), not typical Wuhan breakfast food at all. Go ask typical locals for authentic Wuhan breakfast food - you can eat a different one everyday for A MONTH without repeating. They are absolutely delicious and many are unique in that region, such as Shaomei( as prestigious as Shanghaiese world-beating XiaoLongbao), ReGanMian (a special noodle, a proper version of it would put Berlusconi's home-made spaghetti to shame), DouPi (a pastry with rice/ham that is obsolutely out of this world!), TangBao ( Wuhan's version of XiaoLongbao), ChiShuiBao (streamed pastry filled with rice and ham), MiJiu (a rice lichor/soup used to cook with eggs, etc), JianYouBing, etc, etc... the list just goes on and on and on... Man, you don't know that you are sitting on a gold mine. My saliva's dripping as I write... :D Rule #1 in China: NO breakfast food is on a stick! C'mon, who you think China is? Turkey? Morrocco? lol (The main reason that Wuhan has such a variety of food is that, IMO, it's situated in the very center of China and has absorbed many styles from travellers from all walks of China over many centries.)