I left Wuhan in June, and in the month and a half since I left, a lot has happened there. One friend got married (these things can happen quickly). The Wuda campus was flooded with water. See below for pictures, via Eric, who since I left has started a company to connect people to teaching and business opportunities in China (a good person to talk to if you want to teach in Wuhan).

The most shocking piece of news was one that I discovered via the Washington Post. The director of the Women’s Health Center in Wuhan, which I wrote about a few months ago (here and here), was arrested, and according to the Washington Post, is currently in detention — I’m hoping to hear how she’s doing soon.

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The focus of the Women’s Health Center’s work in the past few years

Originally posted on 3 February, 2010

In the past year, our main work has consisted of raising awareness on HIV/AIDS prevention through outreach; reducing fear; raising awareness of safety and protection; and providing free women’s health checks, as well as free HIV and drug tests.

This year we will continue with last year’s work. Wuhan city stretches out over a wide area, and there are still some low-end districts that we have not yet covered. This year we have to completely cover all of Wuhan’s low-end entertainment districts. I hope that when our colleague Chen Haiyan returns to us, her first promise will be: “Ms Liu, I promise that this year we will cover all of the low-end districts, to the point where our outreach work will have a coverage rate of 100 percent!” OK, that’s the first task for Chen Haiyan when she returns back to work.

As for our student volunteer, Lan Xin, this year the OB/GYN nurse’s office will be your focus! I hope you will be able to direct this office well. I can only provide social power and financial support. The questions of medical expertise and enlisting the support of gynaecologists to conduct exams are entirely your responsibility. Whatever plans you think are best, after we’ve discussed them together, don’t delay in turning them into reality.

There’s one student volunteer I haven’t yet mentioned: you will serve as the marshal for our main tasks, with responsibility for implementation of our activities.

And as for me, I’ll be responsible for maintaining the network and contacts we have built with the girls, for our contacts with others, and for managing our overall work.

Our areas of focus for this year are: reproductive health, treatment of sexually-transmitted diseases, and HIV testing.

Our plan for 2011 is: founding subgroups among sex workers for the prevention of AIDS, the activities centre for the girls, and study of work safety (it’s only with two to three years of foundation-building that we begin work on these projects, since only with the necessary conditions in place can success be possible).

Our plan for 2012 is: to spread and support existing sex worker’s groups for the prevention of AIDS (with the goal of helping them to exist independently and to grow healthily)

In 2013, if everything goes smoothly, we will lay down a new plan of action.

Speeding to Wuhan at 349 km/h

It was also my only choice — Spring Festival travel madness has begun, and tickets for regular trains are only available one day in advance at the train station (or at higher prices from illegal ticket scalpers). When I got to the station, the only tickets available for the 12 hour train ride to Wuhan on regular trains were standing tickets. Even the Harmony Express, which has a separate booking system, was already sold out between the 5th and 11th — but luckily same-day tickets were still available when I finally reached the ticket-counter, after more than an hour in line in the crowded train station.

The train has only been running for a little over a month, but they’ve clearly put a lot of effort into making the ride a first-class experience. There were free water bottles at the train station, the train staff marched onto the platform in a perfect straight line, and everyone at the over-staffed train station was very friendly. When the train I was scheduled to take was delayed, the staff was thrown off script and put us on another train, which caused problems at the next stop when the passengers who had paid for tickets with the seat numbers we had been assigned boarded the train. But after 20 minutes or so of angry passengers fighting over the seats (and a few gallant passengers giving up their seats for others), the issue was finally worked out, and I got to ride in first class for the rest of the trip home (which, to anyone considering paying more for a first class ticket, wasn’t very different from second class).

A harmonious march to the platform

As for the name of the train, the phrase “harmonious society” is the catchphrase of the Hu Jintao administration, and can be seen everywhere, from advertisements in magazines to slogans painted on the walls in the city urging us to “build a harmonious society”. When controversial content is blocked or taken off major websites under government pressure, people say that it’s been “harmonized” (or “river crabbed”, which has a similar pronunciation). So for me, the word “harmony” has lost its positive ring. But I guess for a train that aims to be fast, comfortable and connect the country, I can live with having the word “harmony” tacked on in one more place.

In the taxi home from the train station, I asked the taxi driver how much the project had cost. More than 10 billion yuan just for the Wuhan station, he told me. I assumed I was translating the numbers wrong in my head, and checked it online: just the Wuhan station alone reportedly cost 14 billion yuan. A lot of money — but maybe as good a way as any to pump stimulus money into the economy (although there’s disagreement on whether or not the investment is sound), and definitely responding to a demand for more transportation infrastructure, especially at time like Spring Festival when the whole country is in motion. Although again, it’s hard to say if the Wuhan-Guangzhou route needed this the most — there were probably big kickbacks for whoever approved this project. But definitely a big plus for those of us who live in Wuhan, who through this and the new high-speed train to Shanghai can enjoy our new-found connectedness to the rest of China.

Today QQ news ran a story on “ant people” in Wuhan (“江蚁” — Sogou doesn’t list that one as a word yet). According to the article, Wuhan has the largest number of university graduates of any Chinese city, with the total number of graduates in 2009 reaching somewhere around 250 000. Although no one knows for sure how many of these young people end up in low-income jobs, according to estimates there could be anywhere from around 50 000 to 100 000 “ant people” in Wuhan.

One of the “ant people” interviewed for the article works in a photo studio, with a salary of 1000 yuan per month. She shares a room with two others in a similar situation, and her share of the rent is 260 yuan per month. They don’t have a kitchen, so for breakfast she has 热干面, (hot and dry noodles, a Wuhan specialty) or 素粉 (plain noodles), for lunch it’s 盒饭 (a boxed lunch with rice and one or a few pre-prepared dishes) for less than 5 yuan, and then something simple for dinner, for a total of less than 10 yuan per day. To help cover monthly expenses, some people take on monthly jobs, and others roll out blankets or set up small stalls to sell things on the street after work.

The author of the article points out that although the “ant people” phenomenon, with its own specific characteristics, is new, the 80s and 90s saw the unemployed youth (待业青年) and the “north and south drifters” (南漂北漂). In each generation, young people lead difficult lives. What particularly defines the difficulties facing the generation born in the 80s is the growing gap between rich and poor and the lack of a social safety net to protect those who fall behind. The issue certainly seems to have struck a chord with young people all over China — even many whose lives aren’t as difficult as those of the “ant people” can still relate to the struggles of finding a job and saving up for a house, and share the dream of a safe and stable future.

Fish drying in the sun

It started a couple of weeks ago, with fish. On a sunny day, there they were, hanging in a tidy row on a stick by the side of the street. A few days later, someone had hung up some pieces of meat to dry. Now it’s everywhere — fish, chickens, beef, pork, sausages, all marinated and hung up in rows on railings, balconies, and by the sidewalk, drying in the sun. Even my neighbors have gotten in on the act.

I asked my students this afternoon what was up with all of the meat hung out to dry, and they confirmed what I suspected — Spring Festival preparations are underway. Apparently people traditionally marinate different kinds of meat for Spring Festival, and then hang it to dry wherever they can find space. In the case of my neighbors, that means pushing their laundry to the side to make room for meat on their balconies.

Meat hanging to dry on my neighbor's balcony

“Ten reasons for liking Wuhan — can you even list one?” So the incredulous have asked. Wuhan gets a bad rap, and even the locals seem to have learned to stay quiet when people from other provinces complain about the sweltering summers / freezing winters in unheated buildings / traffic nightmare / hot-tempered inhabitants. I have to admit, it is a little bit annoying to have to import my cocoa from Shanghai. But the city has its charms, and many of us have come here for what was originally supposed to be six months, or a year, and have ended up staying for longer.

Counting down from 10, here are a few of my favorite things about this sprawling industrial city in the heart of China:

10. Central location. Wuhan bills itself as the transportation hub of China — it’s a convenient overnight train ride away from Beijing to the north, Shanghai to the east, Chengdu to the west and Guangzhou to the south. With the new high speed train to Shanghai and ultra-high speed train to Guangzhou, those distances feel even shorter. To be fair, distances in China are so huge that even with a central location, it still takes forever to get anywhere, which is why this reason barely makes my list… but Wuhan is nonetheless a relatively convenient base for exploring other parts of China, and deserves a point for that.

9. Bus network. The traffic situation on the whole would have to be a minus for Wuhan — it takes hours to get from one side of the city to the other, and you generally have to budget twice as long as you should need to get anywhere that might be affected by a sudden surprise traffic jam — but the reach of the bus network is actually pretty good. It’s very extensive, easy to use (especially if you use googlemaps to plan your trip), and if you get on the bus at the beginning of the bus route and get a seat, it’s relatively comfortable. Plus, it’s cool to be able to take a bus across the Yangtze River. Now all they need to do is get rid of some of the cars and put in more buses, to get rid of that packed-like-sardines in a traffic jam quality the bus rides so often take on…

8. Springtime in Wuhan. It may only last for two weeks, but for that short, wonderful period when you’re not shivering in the freezing cold or melting away in the blistering heat, Wuhan is beautifully covered in a sea of cherry blossom trees and photo ops.

7. Autumn in Wuhan. Like its springtime counterpart, autumn in Wuhan is short but wonderful (this year it seemed like it was a little bit longer than the spring, so I’m putting it one step up on the list). The characteristic flower for autumn is the sweet osmanthus (桂花, of 桂林 — Guilin — fame), and although it’s visually much less striking than the cherry blossom, I highly recommend walking around the Wuda campus to smell its fragrance while it’s in bloom.

6. Modern city. While it’s not a particularly international city, Wuhan is still a very big, modern city, and has all of the conveniences that usually come with a modern city — including Starbucks, McDonalds, and some (relatively basic) import foods. It’s no Shanghai, but in terms of facilities and products available, it’s still a comfortable place to live.

5. Lack of foreigners. Although it’s a huge, modern city, Wuhan has relatively few foreigners. Maybe the climate scares people away. The small expat population has its drawbacks — like an accompanying lack of things that foreigners like, like foreign food — but it also comes with advantages. The biggest, in my opinion, is opportunities for language learning (see below) — since there aren’t that many of us, people haven’t gotten tired of talking to us yet. There are also lots of part-time and full-time teaching jobs available for the foreigners who do make their way here, and not having restaurants, shops and a sketchy expat scene to burn our money in can be a good thing when trying to stay on a budget.

4. Food. As a foreigner who hasn’t yet learned to distinguish between the subtle differences in the cuisines of each province in China, I think Wuhan food is absolutely delicious — it seems like the perfect mix of all of the different regional foods. It’s spicy (influenced by Sichuan and Hunan cuisines), but not too spicy. There’s sweet food, but it’s not too sweet. Wuhan is also a big city with food from all over the country. The few attempts at Western food are generally heavily adapted for Chinese tastes and best avoided, and Western ingredients can be hard to find, but there’s lots of delicious Chinese food from all over the country, and restaurants are generally cheap and plentiful.

3. Cost of living. Obviously more expensive than the countryside, but much cheaper than Beijing and Shanghai. Ideal for those who are spending savings from abroad, or for anyone on a fixed-sum scholarship. Money goes a long way here, which is not to be underestimated.

2. Language learning. The local language, Wuhanese, supposedly belongs to the same language family as Mandarin, but it’s pretty different from standard Mandarin pronunciation and vocabulary. Nonetheless, Wuhan is a great place to study Mandarin. So great, in fact, that I put this at number of 2 on my list of why Wuhan is amazing. There are tons of universities, so there are lots of Mandarin-speaking students from all over the country, and since it’s a transportation hub and lots of people from all over China pass through for short or long stays, pretty much everyone speaks relatively good Mandarin. At the same time, it’s not a very international city, and English-speakers are few and far between, so not only are there opportunities to practice Mandarin, it’s more or less essential for getting around the city. Taking Chinese classes is relatively affordable, and most importantly, the people who live here are incredibly friendly and helpful to language learners.

1. The people. Cheesy as it may be, number 1 on a Wuhan top ten list has to be the people here. Whether it’s Wuhan locals or people from other provinces, once people have gotten over their initial surprise that you would want to live in Wuhan, everyone is incredibly friendly and welcoming. One friend said that Wuhan is sort of like the Midwest of China — just like in the American Midwest, people are friendly and down-to-earth. They smile patiently as you stumble over your first attempts to communicate in Chinese, they walk you to the building you’re looking for when you’re lost (whether or not they actually know which building it is), and they open their homes to you and teach you about Chinese culture. Basically, they make you feel at home. That’s my Wuhan number 1.

Happy New Year!

The building of the dam has been pretty controversial – the rising water levels that come with a dam of that size have displaced 1.24 million people, flooded countless cultural heritage sights (of which Peter Hessler gives some excellent examples in his book River Town), and seriously disrupted the ecosystem in and around the river. Critics argued that the same amount of electricity could have been generated through a series of smaller dams, without having as much of an impact on life in and around the river, and without gathering together so much risk in one place (I’ve been told that foreigners aren’t allowed on, or to pass over, the dam, just in case our backpacks and Nalgene bottles aren’t as innocent as they look — and the dam is apparently near a seismic fault line).

But there are also benefits — most importantly, the huge amounts of electricity generated, which, despite the environmental impact of a dam of that size, is much cleaner than coal. Taming the Yangtze has also made it possible to control flooding downstream.

The Three Gorges Dam, seen from above

Wuhan is just a few hours downstream from this wall of water — I very much hope Chinese engineers know what they’re doing. I’ve been told that if something did happen and the dam burst, there are contingency plans to sacrifice a smaller city (rumor has it Jingzhou would have to go) in order to save the 9-or-so million inhabitants of Wuhan. I have my doubts that diverting the rushing flood waters would even be possible… I’ll just keep my fingers crossed that the massive amounts of concrete and steel will be enough to hold the Yangtze at bay.

Some fishermen try their luck downstream from the dam