Just got back from a two day trip to Wuhan. Before my trip, I probably would have disparaged the city by saying that a two day trip is already two days too many. After driving around the downtown and riverfront area, however, I’m definitely impressed with how it’s shaped up since the last time I was here, which was…let’s see…about eleven years ago.
Eleven years ago, I was working on my senior year in high school and went with my dad on one of his business trips to the mainland. We started off in Beijing, then took the train down to Changsha and Wuhan, before ending up in Shanghai. I have four very vivid recollections from that trip:
1) The snow drifting down in Beijing was peppered with black soot. One of my dad’s acquaintances had the fantastic job of babysitting me while he was in one of his meetings, and the ash like snow was falling onto my lip as he escorted me to a large, crowded restaurant house for Lanzhou noodles. I remember that the bowl of piping hot noodles in soup was the best I had ever had, and remembered being told that our two gigantic bowls combined amounted to about 25 cents USD. Oh, the halcyon days of a developing dragon.
2) At Changsha i stuffed myself on the breakfast buffet at the hotel (as I so often do at buffets of any kind), specifically the whitish sausages. A few hours later, I had a case of intestinal chaos the likes of which my delicate, California-bred stomach had never seen before. I remember leaning against the window on the train, trying to conjure up a huge cork in case I had to crawl back towards the very unpleasant train bathroom. Sitting across from me and my dad was a very concerned middle-aged woman, who first taught me the idiom “水土不服.” She was from the countryside and was on her way to the big city to see if she could round up some investors for a new technology that somehow had fallen into her lap. She excitedly dug into her bag and produced said innovation: two AA batteries. She was hoping that she and her husband could move into the battery production business. I was too sick to even smile as my dad tried to gently tell her that this wasn’t breakthrough stuff. I forget how she reacted.
3) At that same Changsha hotel I saw a beaming white woman in classes cradling a Chinese newborn at breakfast. I don’t remember if there was another man there, I was only focused on her and the baby. Her overjoyed face remains to this day as one of the warmest memories I still have in my beer ravaged brain.
4) We had dinner with one of my dad’s old schoolmates in Wuhan. He had opened his own restaurant and business wasn’t doing too well; at least, that was what I gathered given the pained expression on his face and his very empty establishment. We sat in the VIP room with at least three wait staff patiently standing by the door. Every few minutes a kid who looked to be my age would walk in and pour us tea from a teapot with a very elongated snout. Even then I could tell right away he was from the countryside; he had the flushed, windblown cheeks and dark, leathery skin. He was stoic and unflinching, even as I rudely stared at him. Here we were, two kids the same age, living our lives thousands of miles apart. It might as well have been trillions. His thick, unkempt hair gripped his forehead and I remember thinking that if had grown up with me in southern California, he would have been quite a hit with all the suburban ABC girls. Instead, he was pouring tea and probably not even making enough to treat himself to a bowl of Lanzhou noodles.
That is what I remember about Wuhan. That kid is near 30 years old now. I hope he’s happy and married, maybe with a son of his own. Maybe he made a killing in the stock market and drives a nice Japanese made car. Whatever he’s doing, I hope the only tea that he’s pouring is for himself when he’s thirsty.
