WUHAN IS NOT LIKE WHAT THEY SAY ABOUT IT

People keep telling us NOT to visit Wuhan because it is hot, dirty, and boring. It is a working class city, a steeltown. Definitely not a tourist destination.

Those denuciations only make it more tempting to visit because that's just what people in Canada say about our hometown, Hamilton.

Wuhan has the reputation of being one of the three "furnaces" of China, which traditionally experience very hot temperatures. For instance, on one day in April of this year, when we checked, the temperature had hit 38 degrees C.

We had put Wuhan on our itinerary because my Mandarin teacher had suggested visiting her brother, a worker at the big steel plant (I mean BIG: 50,000 workers!) However, that didn't work out. And after the temperature hit 33 C. one humid day in Nanjing, we weren't sure of the wisdom of continuing on to Wuhan.

But, when we arrive by fast train in Wuhan, it is rainy and cool (17C.). I have the first opportunity in China to wear my leather jacket which I had been shlepping around for 10 days.

Siobhan and I are getting more confident. At the train station, we decide to take two city buses to the Pathfinder Youth Hostel. It costs 1 yuan (16 cents Cdn.) per bus. We are not sure where to find the appropriate bus. Luckily, there is a real tourist information office at the station's bus area and an employee who speaks English fairly well. On top of all this, she leaves her post and personally leads us to the proper bus. This is a first for us in China.The buses are packed but we muscle on. The first bus driver kindly indicates to us when to disembark to catch the next bus.

The next bus driver is a dud, doesn't even want to read the name and address of our hostel, which was written in nice, big Chinese characters by a staff member at our last hostel. We have learned the hard way that every single excursion in China requires almost as much preparation as a military expedition: name, address, and phone number of target in Chinese and English, map, money, documentation, potable water, plan B (in case you just can't find the target), snacks, proper clothing and footwear for the weather, toilet paper, hand wipes, hand sanitizer, pocket knife, pen, paper.

The other passengers on the bus try to be helpful by looking at the name and address of the hostel. There is much discussion and debate over the issue, but, in the end, despite their best intentions, none of them have a clue. But one young man steps forward who speaks pretty good English and then whips out a cellphone to call the hostel. The staff there describe to him the proper bus stop. The windows of the bus are all misted up so that one can't see anything outside and it is getting dark outside. So, Li decides to get off with us at the stop he believes is the right one.

"Is this your stop?" Siobhan asks.

"No, but no problem. Pleaase to follow me." He doesn't have a raincoat, a poncho, or even a hat on his head, and it's raining pretty hard.

Li wants to know where we are from. When he hears Canada, he notes that is where Dr. Norman Bethune came from. Dr. Bethune is a hero in China. He was a member of the Communist Party of Canada in Montreal who came over here in 1937 (?) after serving in the Spanish Civil War, which he developed the world's first mobile blood bank for the troops fighting for the government and against the fascists (who eventually won with help from Hitler and Mussolini.) In China, he travelled to the remote northern area where the communist army led by Mao Ze Dong was fighting the Japanese. Here he developed the world's first mobile hospital. Unfortunately, due to a lack of medicines, he contracted an infection, while performing a surgery, and died soon after. He also wrote a famous poem which, I believe, is called, "Who causes the wounds?"

There is a big monumnet to Dr. Norman Bethune up north, marking his final resting place. Mao wrote an essay about him. Every Chinese school kid still learns about him. And, in Gravenhurst, Ontario, the Chinese government partially financed the restoration of his family home as a museum and tribute to the good doctor.

Shortly, we arrive at the Pathfinder entrrance. Li says goodbye. I give him a baseball cap with the logo of the City of Hamilton it. He seems grateful because it keeps the rain off. We thank him profusely.

He replies and I quote his (almost) exact words, "It is an honour to help people from Canada, the land from which Dr. Bethune came to help China."

The Pathfinder, like the previous two hostels, is suitably set back from the street in an alleyway away from the noise and traffic of the main street. It is in a very large building with trees, a terrace, a courtyard, a restaurant with internet, with ambience and a fairly helpful staff who can speak English. But here you have to pay extra for towels and toilet paper. Fortunately, we have both - useful at last! Standards of cleanliness are a litle lower here. And we will have to make do with a squatting toilet rather than a commode. Oh, well.

Siobhan and I are starving. We could eat at the hostel but elect instead to find somewhere else to eat. Right in front of the hostel on the main drag is a pedestrian bridge over to the other side. It's a lot of steps (Boy, do they love steps in this country!) but it beats trying to cross the street on foot.

They say that it's not really an adventure unless there is danger of death. Well, every single day in China is an adventure, because you could be killed at any moment crossing or even walking down the street on the sidewalk. Chase's knee was grazed by a taxi in Nanjing while we crossed with the green light at an intersection. He says there are lots of security guards everywhere but few cops on the street to enforce the rules of the road. I witnessed a fire truck with lights flashing and sirens wailing trying to cross a main interesection in front of the China Post office in downtown Shanghai. The stream of cars and trucks would not let it pass voluntarily. It had to edge its way through. Everywhere we go, Siobhan is suddenly dragging me out of the way of something or I'm doing the same for her. It's really hairy and unpleasant. And the stench of diesel exhaust is thick.

So, despite the steps (in Shanghai, we saw a few intersections with pedestrian bridges equipped with escalators), we are glad to use the bridge.

The restauarnt is large and modern and the prices within our budget. But nobody speaks English. That's alright because the menu has an accompanying photo of each and every dish and a price. We are seated by the waitress in the front window so that one and all outside on the street can see that this restaurant is good enough to be frequented by westerners.

Siobhan suggests one meat dish, one veggie dish, one rice dish, some dumplings, plus the local Tsingtao beer. We are served white tea as a matter of course while we ponder the menu. Dishes and bowl come wrapped in plastic because this place contracts out its dishwashing.

Siobhan and I now insist on writing out our orders ourselves because of bad experiences where the waitress brings everything we look at on the menu. When our order is written, we go over it with the waitress and compute the total on Siobhan's iphone which has a caculator app.

Siobhan has also downloaded a Chinese-English dictionary to her iphone which we use frequently when shopping, travelling, and ordering meals. I feel so stupid that I brought along two dictionaries which I have lugged over half of China and never even opened once. And then there is the camera option. When Siobhan doesn't see her favourite local veggie dish in garlic butter, she whips out her camera and shows the waitress. Not one waitress or proprietress yet has seemed the least bit daunted by this modern way of ordering food.

The first dish turns out not to be rice at all but an egg dish. It's delicious and so we gobble it up using our chopsticks at which I am getting dextrous enough to pick up a single kernel of corn and deliver it successfully to my open mouth. The unnameed veggie dish in garlic butter is also good. The beer is fine. By the time the last two dishes arrive, we are almost full. The meat dish does not turn out to be a meat dish at all. It is a plate of breaded fish cakes, we think. Siobhan digs into the dumpling and I get the fish cakes. But we can't finish. So we ask for doggie bags.

No problem, the waitress brings plastic tubs and fills them up. Total price: about 60 yuan for dinner (and also breakfast.) Or $10 Cdn.

I am so full I can hardly get over the pedestrian bridge.

The next day, we head for Wuhan's pride and joy, the Yellow Crane Tower. It is a Chinese pagoda about seven stories tall at the top of a hill in central Wuchang (one of the three old cities facing across the Yangzi that make up the modern city of Wuhan, population: 10 million). The hill is forested and terraced into a park with walks, sculptures, pagodas and souvenir shops. Entrance fee: 40 yuan (?) and no discount for Siobhan's International Student Card or my senior status.

We start at the souvenir shops. Here they are selling all kinds of little sculptures of the tower in glass and wood, tassles, earrings, spinning rabbit bracelets, and also Mao pendants that I can hang from the rear view mirror of my car. I note that I am the only person from amongst the dozens of tour groups buying the Mao pendant. (Kay, I hope you don't mind...) On a video screen, they have a video, which they are selling (but I didn't see anyone buying) of Chairman Mao speaking to a huge crowd in Beijing on the occasion of the declaration of the People's Republic in 1949, Chairman Mao opening big bridges, Chairman Mao swimming in the Yangzi River at age 90. It's in Chinese, so I don't buy it.

On the way up the hill, we come upon the large statue of Penglu (?), a local military hero of a dynasty long past, behind which is a long bas relief showing the local hero defeating his enemies. Nearby, this is a little photographer's shop renting costumes in which you can dress up in warrior's armour, or as a concubine, or a scholar, and be photographed in front of Penglu. While we are there, a middle-aged man with his wife or girlfriend pays to rent the warrior costume. He suits up in the red and yellow uniform and does a very good set of flourishes with the sword for all the tourists' cameras.

On the way up to the Yellow Crane Tower is a smaller pagoda of two or three stories. It is windy and cool up here above the small, urban forest of trees in this park. Down below, we can see and hear the "Millenium Bell", on its own low red tower, and the Yellow Crane Tower further along the terrace in a north-south axis.

We check out the Millenium Bell which you can ring three times for 10 yuan ($1.50 Cdn.) Right now, a group of German tourists is having a go. You merely rock the big hammer backwards and forwards in its sling to bang against the big bell for the chime.

In the lobby of the Tower itself is a plaque explaining that this site has been a delight for the Chinese and the subject of many poems for about 2000 years. Between dynasties, the tower generally falls into ruins. So, it's up to the following dynasty to restore or rebuild the structure(s). The latest reconstruction was by the People's Republic, continuing a long tradition in Chinese history. The lobby also boasts an enormous woodcut screen depicting

the Tower, beside which a plaque claims it is the largest woodcut screen in China.

The view of the city from above is impressive. And it is cool and windy, unlike the strrets below, which are hot and humid.

Our next stop is the equally impressive Hubei Provincial Museum which covers a huge square with several buildings, all with matching, sloped, dark blue rooves. We are here to see its most famous exhibit, the treasures unearthed in 1978 nearby from the tomb of the Marquis Yi of Zeng, an absolute monarch some 2500 years. For his pleasure in the afterlife, the Marquis had commissioned one of the world's largest instruments, a set of bells from tiny to very large on a small tower, altogether weighing a total of five tonnes. The bells were placed in one chamber of his tomb. In the second chamber was placed the sarcophagus of the Marquis (a set of three stone boxes, one inside the other) plus a number of other classical musical instruments, twenty-two coffins containing the remains of young women in their early twenties, and one dog. And it all stayed there undisturbed in the tomb for 2500 years.

So, Kathryn Rosaleen Basham, you are wrong. You can take it with you!

The next day, we decide to visit the University of Wuhan which sits on a lake we never did get to see. But we did come across students holding a big red banner. Naturally, we go over to investigate. It turns out that the stuents are holding a collection for two of their schoolmates who are stricken by cancer. Siobhan makes a small donation which so pleases the students that two of them are dispatched to give us a tour of the campus of 50000 full-time students, home to not one, not two, but three (count 'em) medical schools.

After the tour, we ride the bus back downtown to go for a swim. It is difficult to figure out where we have landed downtown (I find out later) because the hostel's little tourist maps are printed upside down, with north at the bottom. Several cabbies refuse our fare because apparently they don't know where the simming pool is. Finally, we get a cab to the downtown sports complex and find the pool.

Admission is not cheap: 40 yuan ($6 Cdn.) with no discounts, but you can swim for ten

hours at that price. Sanitary rules seem strict: you must shower, you must have a tight fitting bathing suit (I have to buy a new one for 60 yuan!), you must wear a shower cap and slippers, and you have to walk through an antiseptic foot bath on your way to the pool.

The pool is huge, with a smaller recreational pool and a big pool about 100 metres long for lengths. The place is fairly crowded with swimers, many of them old farts like me. These seniors swim well (faster than me) but at the end of each lap, they wind up horking up a big wad of phlegm and spitting it into the drain near the pool edge. Not very appetizing, the results of smoking all your life...

So much for sanitation!

But they are nice, friendly folks and are very impressed with Siobhan's swimming abilities for which they gave her a thumb's up.

When we leave the pool, a well-dressed middle-aged man, speaking very good English, asks where we are going. We tell him Hubu Alley and ask which bus to take. He suggest taking a cab beause the bus will be too difficult. We exit the building. He stops us and offers to give us a ride.

It turns out he is a former surgeon who gave up the practice some years ago because the pay was so low. He now owns a company selling medical equipment, after first working for several foreign firms, and he drives a big luxurious gray Peugeot, made in China. He is married with his wife working as a nurse in a local hospital and a fifteen-year-old daughter at boarding school in the US. He is sorry now he quit surgery. Suregons make a lot more today in China but it is difficult to get back in.

Hubu Alley is Snack Street in Wuhan. It's in a trendy area downtown where wealthier Chinese and foreign tourists stroll by the shops and stalls for a nibble of the many and varied shishkabobs, sausages, fruits, dumplings, pastries, etc. The snacks are relatively cheap and filling but some almost burn off my mouth.

After a few unsuccessful tries, we find a cabbie who recognizes the address and takes us back to the hostel.

As I told you earlier in this blog entry, there is nothing to see or do in Wuhan.

ps. The photo accompanying this blog entry is a website library photo. When we overcome the the technical difficulties involved in uploading our photos, we will post a photo of the Yellow Crane Tower.