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Beijing - take one
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I went to Beijing on Sunday night (November 11). Ostensibly because there is an election coming up in Australia and it is compulsory to vote (although not for people who have good excuses like living in the middle of China and thus a very long way from a polling station). But mostly because I wanted an excuse to go to Beijing which I have never been to before.
At our company all the teachers work weekends, I finished class and headed straight for the train station. I had a ticket for a hard sleeper. The words "hard sleeper" had conjured images of wooden planks but actually a hard sleeper is an extremely civilised affair, with a mattress softer than my bed in Wuhan and nice clean sheets. I was less impressed with the people sitting on it. I had the bottom bunk which tends to get sat on by others until it is time to sleep (some are on the 3rd storey bunk, so you can understand why they prefer to sit a little lower while possible... I tend to drink a lot of water, so it would be possibly fatal for me to sleep on the top bunk, as I would certainly break my neck trying to clamber down in the middle of the night for a trip to the loo).
Despite the relative comfort I didn't really sleep very much. Perhaps due to lack of sleep, or inherent bimboness, I got lost on the way to the Australian embassy. Once i got to the embassy I was directed to a room for a conference on real estate prices! Blah! The only good thing about this was I managed to scam a cup of hot water for the Chinese medicine I've been taking for my cold before scampering out to vote.
I made it to the hotel I'd booked and then after a quick nap (the result of a moment of weakness at the sight of a bed) I went to Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. Both were kind of boring to tell the truth. I mean, the Forbidden City is impressive and everything. But after wandering around several Korean palaces, I would have to say it was just more of the same (although I know Chinese influence is probably the reason for the similarity...blahblahblah and the Forbidden City is huge and imposing and all that) and I was underwhelmed. Admittedly the most impressive structures were covered in scaffolding as they are being prepared for the Olympics.
After being harrassed by hawkers and overly friendly people wanting to practice their English which made me grumpy and feel a lot like I was at work while sightseeing, I met up with Charlotte's brother Anders to have dinner. He has been studying at Beijing University, so it was interesting to talk to him about China and Chinese. We wandered around some hutongs for a while until settling down for dinner and beer. That was great until I needed to go to the toilet (which invariably happens after one has had some beer). This is when I had my first very public public toilet experience.
The hutongs generally have communal toilets. Saves the trouble of having a toilet in your own itty bitty house or something I guess. Anyway, after having to go to the dunny in a couple of public schools, I was starting to get used to the nastiness of using squat toilets sans doors. But hutong toilets don't even have cubicles, they are just a room with a whole lot of squatters all in a row. Daunting. Fortunately there was nobody in there when I went.
The next day I went to a drum tower and a bell tower in an old district, met Anders again for lunch near Beida, then headed off to the Summer Palace. If the Forbidden City was underwhelming, the Summer Palace was the complete opposite. It was gorgeous. I loved it. I probably changed my entire opinion of Beijing. I liked Beijing well enough before I went there. Extremely smoggy (the first day, I thought it was mist that has sprung up from the rain that greeted me when I got off the train, until I blew my nose and the contents was pitch black, yuck!) and kind of nice with bland food (after living in Hubei I suspect most food would be bland...not enough chilli). Not really a place I'd like to live. It doesn't have the grimy charm of Wuhan. Just a great big city. But after wandering around the Summer Palace for hours I grudging started to think that perhaps a stint in Beijing would be quite nice (if it didn't result in lung cancer!!!).
The taxi driver who took me back to the train station taught me how to distinguish fake notes, after I tried to pay him with a counterfeit 100RMB note. I got that bill at the money exchange place in Hong Kong airport!!! Tsk tsk. It was interesting talking to him. It convinced me that my Chinese is good enough to deal with most accents, even that of a Beijinger and also that taxi drivers in China and Taiwan are very much alike. How much do you make a month? Are you married? How old are you? Would you like to marry my brother?...etc. The taxi driver who took me to the train station in Wuhan was much the same, except that I had a really hard time trying to understand him sometimes. When I got out of the cab he told me he was impressed that I could understand Anhui dialect!?! Apparently it is very very close to Mandarin... I didn't know I could understand Anhui dialect either! Sometimes I can understand some Wuhanese too, probably about 60 or 70 percent, but it makes my head hurt even trying.
Waiting for the train back to Wuhan was a trying experience. In the waiting room for the train, I was almost spat on, shoved about several times, the toilets were disgusting and people kept cutting in front of me either to get to the toilet or the train. Made me get in a big stink about the lack of manners of some of the people here. Two things made me laugh though. Firstly that one older guy refused to sit next to me on a bench, giving me a look spoke volumes (ie, stinky dirty scary yucky foreigner). I found it quite amusing that a mainland Chinese, people who not always, but often spit like camels, blow their noses into their hands, allow their children to shit in public garbage cans by the side of the street, or piss on public buses, never flush toilets, never wash their hands after going to the toilet, never cover their mouths when they cough and are compulsive litterers... what was I going to say before this bitch session started? Oh right, I found it highly amusing that this guy looked at me in disgust like I was the one who might have personal hygene issues. Chuh! Silly man. The other was a kid stacking it in the middle of the waiting hall. A foreigner. Felt sorry for him because we already get stared at enough as it is in this country, but it was pretty funny.
I had more people on my bed when i got on the train, this time men. An old granny came into the compartment and they all started talking about me which put me in one of those awkward situations where I had to decide whether or not I should tell them I understood and if so how? After the ice was broken I ended up talking with a woman from Hubei province for a couple of hours. In the middle of the night when I went to the toilet, the granny asked if I'd get her a cup of water. The tap didn't work, so I offered her some from my bottle. This obviously put me in her good books because the next morning, she asked me to keep an eye on her bags for her when she went to the toilet. Also, after an obnoxious guy kept asking me a bunch of rude questions (what brand are your jeans, how much do they cost, how much was your watch, how much do you earn a month, how much did your bag cost, is your jade bangle real...etc) the granny started staring at him quite sternly. When he wasn't looking she leaned over and told me he was not a trustworthy person and to keep well away from him. I was touched! I helped her with her bag getting off the train until she found her daughter who was on the platform to pick her up.
Arrived in Wuhan feeling completely trashed. Didn't sleep much because the obnoxious guy who was obsessed with my possessions snored very loudly all the way from Beijing to Wuhan. Wretched man. Maybe that's why the granny wasn't overly fond of him. Mind you, she snored a fair bit too!
Anyway, that was Beijing.
Have been hard pressed to write anything about Wuhan. I feel like a lifetime has passed since I got here. I've been busy and also just overwhelmed. I've settled down a bit now, but I still feel a bit like I got on a merry-go-round that is going just a little bit too fast. The main point is, although I was pretty sick last week (bad cold), I have been happy pretty much non stop. Work is going well and I have met some very nice people here.
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