Post #4 Wuhan, China

Tuesday, March 25, i2014

We just got back from a “street supper” and it was good food! First we stopped around the corner from our hotel where a man with a wok, a propane tank and gas jets to heat the wok was warming up noodles (you could pick the kind and shape you wanted) and adding bok choy, mushrooms, bean sprouts, chicken, oil and a bunch of spices. For 10 yuan, or $1.50, we got a bowl big enough to feed us both. Though we could have told him what ingredients to add, I just pointed to what the customer before us was getting and signaled “the same thing”. Behind his cooking space were a few tables, so we sat and watched him cook more while we ate.

At the next little alcove a woman was rolling out bread dough and making round bread, either sweet or savory, by fixing the dough to the inside of a metal barrel with a charcoal fire in the bottom of it. The bread is about six inches in diameter and half an inch high, slightly smoky in flavor, and the herbs really flavored it. We shared one. Cost? 1 ½ yuan, or 25 cents.

Then we strolled down the street to a cookie stall I remembered from our visit last year (mainly because we bought some wonderful coffee at a nearby shop) and bought a sampler of confections made from sesame seeds, honey, pumpkins seeds and other stuff we couldn’t decipher. They were crisp, crunchy, nutty but not too sweet. Delicious!

The street our hotel is on is fascinating. It seems to be the tailoring center. (Our previous hotel, about 8 blocks away, was surrounded by shops selling shoes and purses.) Our hotel starts on the third floor of a building of which the bottom two floors are many stalls of fabric sellers. I bet there are 100 different merchants selling their own specialties from lace, to buttons, to linen, to brocade, to wool, to fine silk. All of them seem prepared to have your garment sewn for you, because I have seen many people trying incomplete clothing on for fittings. The variety puts JoAnne Fabrics to shame! I haven’t looked carefully at any of the booths or found out the prices for tailor made clothing but I will. 

I spent most of the day with Joy, who is a pastor at the Thanksgiving Church of Wuhan, where we went Sunday, who wants to learn more and better English, especially pronunciation. For two hours this morning, and two more this afternoon, we talked and did speaking exercises, I helped her with some grammar and spelling and an email which she wanted to write in English. I learned that in Chinese, or Mandarin, there is no concept of uppercase or lowercase letters, and that punctuation is entirely different. She said English spelling is really difficult for her. I also learned that she is almost 40 years old, that she and her husband have one 11 year old son, that they both have two siblings, each with two children. She said she was just at the age of cutoff for having more than one child, though now that policy is being lifted. Her brother, younger than she, had a second child and they came to his house and said he would lose his job. But he works in farming, and apparently that is regarded as vital, so instead they said they would destroy his house. They came with heavy equipment, but only took apart one small part of it, she said. She introduced me to a little girl four years old who was sweet and unafraid of me. The little girl asked if I would like to see her dance, and she sang me a song and danced to it, then counted to ten in English. I took an iPad video of her and she was thrilled to watch it.

We had a marvelous lunch at the seminary. I will send a photo showing the wide variety of dishes, including octopus, pork with turnips and potatoes, cucumbers, fresh roasted peanuts, soup, rice, green beans and peppers, a chicken dish and several others I have forgotten. We met the Vice President of the seminary, who had studied in Washington DC for a couple of years and spoke very good English. She was charming.

So it was a day of learning and trying new things. What a privilege!