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“This wasn’t a strange place. It was a new one.” The Shepherd from The Alchemist.
Saturday, Alan, Ivon, two of their friends, and I, we went to Yellow Crane Tower.
Yellow Crane Tower is one of Wuhan’s most well-known sights. While not in the same league as The Great Wall or the Terra Cotta Warriors, the tower remains nevertheless an impressive piece of Chinese architecture and an important relic of ancient Chinese history.
I met Alan Thursday afternoon in the canteen (cafeteria). Because my classes are so full of students, I rarely recognize any unless they speak to me first, so when he sat down and introduced himself, I knew he was a student.
I just didn’t know which class. For all intents and purposes, I’d never seen him before in my life.
We talked about subjects that interested him. No matter the subject, if he brought it up, I found something to say about it. Anything. As long as it was English, I knew hearing it from a native speaker would benefit him.
He showed me around the campus across the street. The much nicer campus, with the huge track and soccer field, the bigger buildings, the gym that’s only open from 6 am to 8 am on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and the lake it borders, the lovely East Lake.
We talked some more near East Lake, and he snapped a photo with his phone. Then, he offered to take me to the new campus. The Sunshine Campus.
WUSE, Wuhan University of Science and Engineering, is divided into three campuses. Old, New, and East Lake. My campus is called the Old Campus. The New Campus is called the Sunshine Campus.
We bordered a free bus. As a teacher, I went to the head of the line, and as the teacher’s impromptu guide, he joined me. On the bus, he offered me a moon cake in honor of the Mid-Autumn Festival, or Moon Cake Day.
That’s not all. He offered me a piece of gum. I ate the mooncake and chewed on the gum as the bus jerked between cars, nearly killed a few people (fairly common, really) on a twenty minute drive to the Sunshine Campus.
Although it was dusk when we arrived, the name remained fitting.
Every building, brand new. Each tree, shorter than I am. A favorite place for the sun to shine.
We got there and Alan called someone. Seven girls arrived, all of them introduced themselves to me and I returned the favor. Very interested to meet a foreigner, Alan went to see someone while the girls showed me around the place.
I can say that although I was exhausted, I felt great and comfortable. Even as they bombarded me with questions, I took each one and answered it, not letting my fatigue crack and ooze through.
What questions? A wide variety. I asked them questions too. I found out they share their dorm rooms with four other people. Not a ‘Andy Holt Apartments’ situation, but rather, a room of bunks. One to each bunk.
They also had a curfew at 11 pm, something no self-respecting UT student could handle without hitting a psychotic episode or two. Good-bye leaving Hodge’s at 6 am. Hello lights out before midnight.
Near the end, they bought me a drink with no prompting from me, and we set up plans to see the Yellow Crane Tower on Saturday.
Despite getting to bed at 4:00 am the night before (I did no drinking), I got up and joined them at the front gate. Alan paid for the bus, and although it advertised air conditioning, it actually had small airplane-style fans. It duped me.
We got off and paid admission to Yellow Crane Tower. We took lots of pictures, and I learned some things about Chinese history I had never known before. This country has a rich culture and a long history stretching back thousands of years. Thousands. There is plenty I don’t know.
The five floors of the tower itself, while containing artifacts, mostly left the artifacts as a sideshow to concentrate on the main attraction: shops.
Small elephant tusks for 1280 RMB. Bargain or not, I don’t know, but poachers got to eat somehow. They don’t eat what they kill…unless it doesn’t sell. Then maybe. Just maybe they do. I’ll ask one and get back to you.
Some of the Chinese painters used to use special blocks to inscribe their character name onto their works. For a price that ranged from 10 to 45 RMB, you can have your name and your Chinese character name cut into a block that you can then use to stamp on whatever you like.
There is a bell at Yellow Crane Tower. Your throw a quarter beneath it, then you pay a fee and ring the bell. Me, I saved the money and just rang the bell. It seemed a little more fiscally responsible.
You ring the bell and wish for something. What did I wish for? If I say, it won’t come true, but I can tell you what I did not wish for.
Happiness and comfort.
I don’t have to.
