My Journey to Wuhan

One of my Chinese classmates, Li, invited me to her home town of Wuhan before heading to Atlanta for an internship. Wuhan is located in Hubei province, just north and a little west of Guangdong province where Guangzhou is located. One of my workmates is from there, and told me it is very beautiful and older than both Shanghai and Beijing. I'm always up for an adventure, so I book spot on my first bullet train; the trip will 4 hours each way. Because I booked my tickets online, I paid some service fees, making my trip $150 total. I was willing to pay that on my first time because of the convenience. It was even better because I was very unfamiliar with the process and was unsure how many English speakers, or even English signage, would be available. The station is far south of Guangzhou city center, and the further from the center you go, the less English is used and spoken. Despite plans for the group -me and my 3 classmates- falling through, I looked forward to seeing and old friend, in a new city with a new adventure ahead of me!

I got up extra early to make sure that I could travel to the train station, wait in line to pick up my tickets and find my way to the train platform. My ride on the metro was much of the same- a lot of shameless staring- but there were more children on board so their parents had to pay more attention to them running and screaming than they could to me. One child was very entertaining as he Karate kicked his way down the train.

Ok so Now I'm going to digress a bit to tell you about my Little Friend Lena through the conversation we had at the departure terminal. She was like a kindred spirit and kept me entertain for and hour and a half! She was 9 years old and her English was very good and she very smart and slightly mischievous- basically me at age 9! I will gloss over the conversation now, and save the many funny things we went over for another post. To date (July 6th) this was one of my best memories in China (May 24).

My Little Friend Lena:

A little girls sat next to me at the train station. She was very cute with very short hair and cute white dress with polka dots- pink and green of course! She was very quite and unsure when she first sat down, but her mother spoke to me in English, asking me where I was from. Many Africans live in Guangzhou, so anyone who leaves the "village" areas on the outskirts will be less shocked at seeing a black person. I believe she is well traveled, but was very surprised to find that I was from America. It was very nice of her to speak, as most people simply stare and try to avoid touching me or being to close to me. I think her English was very limited, so our conversation did not last very long.

A few moments later, the little asked, "What is your name?"We the talked for the next hour and a half! We went from my name to, "Why is your skin darker"? and "Why is you hair not straight like mine"? It was nice! I appreciate her asking me about the things she did not understand, as apposed to treating me like a unicorn, so to speak. Needless to say, we were buddies! We eventually parted ways as we headed towards our train platforms.

Seated, ready to take off!

Leaving the station

My travel schnacks: Wasabi Shrimp flavored Lays, Vanilla Coke, and swiss rolls

China is the most peculiar place; one can go from extreme density/chaos to lush, green hills and mountains just 30 minutes outside of the city. I really enjoy the rural landscape with its winding rivers, unique agriculture patterns due the rice paddies, and villages dotting the countryside; China is the Yin Yang concept realized.

Several images take from inside bullet train

While having the top economy globally, living conditions and standards are somewhat low. It has larger natural resource capital, but very heavily industrialized. It's funny though. I find that, untouched, this country is amazing, but its manufacturing has made it an amazing place. I could not stop looking, filming, and taking pictures during most of the 4 hour ride. I can't wait to see what Wuhan has in store!