Just Past the Horizon

From time to time it becomes necessary to go shopping. I'll run out of laundry detergent, or need some supplies for class..... or whatever. There are several options for getting the essentials, but the easiest place to go is what the foreign teachers have dubbed JK. The Chinese character for the shopping mall resembles those two letters. We're a clever lot.

Just outside of the campus there are these golf cart looking things, little shuttle buses that run off nearly silent electric motors. The various carts run to different places in the nearby city, taking the back roads to avoid any real traffic, considering the cart can do maybe 15-20 miles per hour. I usually will take one to get to JK. On the way the cart passes through a poorer section of town, and it's when you're here that you get a look at what China is really like.

The first stop on the way to the mall is a huge open air food market that none of the Lao Wai are brave enough to shop at. I've stopped and looked around a few times, but I've never bought anything. Stretching though an open building that roughly resembles a giant hanger are vendors selling all types of food from meat, to fruits and vegetables. And they're fresh. Like really really fresh. The fish are still flopping around in a tank when you buy them. What's sorta creepy (yet admittedly fascinating in that eight year old boy sort of way) is watching the vendors gut an clean the fish after you've selected one. One of my favorite China moments so far came when I heard a chicken squawking in the distance in rising frenzy only to have the squawks suddenly cut off by a loud *KuThuck*.

What's really interesting is the various tidbits of land that line the road on the way to the mall. I kid you not, you know that two foot wide section of grass that lines the edge of the road in a lot of cities? Well, the industrious people of Wuhan have turned those little chunks of land into crop fields. Stretching through most of the back roads are fields of various types of vegetables, some of which, will no doubt go to be sold at the previously mentioned market.

I've seen a lot of things that have reminded me of how good I've got it. I drove through one section of Wuhan in a taxi, and during the drive we passed by a massive lumbar yard. What was amazing is about one of every three buildings looked like it housed a family on the lumber yard, rather than housing work space. Cloths hung out on lines and children ran and played amongst the lumber.

I could go on.

What's really interesting is that these parts of the city seem to me to be almost deliberately hidden from the eyes of people who travel through the city. The major throughways of the city always look "nice", but stray off the main roads too far... and its like walking into a whole 'nother city.

I think that's all for now. It's a nice Sunday night and my lesson plans are done. I recently got my xbox repaired, and I've discovered a source of nearly unlimited games to play. This may have had something to do with my recent absence. I've just finished the Best Short Stories of Issac Asimov, and I'll be going back to finish off Light soon. Catch you later.

Derek