First week - First impression !

Hi guyyyyys!

Here starts the report of my first experience in China , in Wuhan to be more exact, a “medium” city which “only” has 10 millions of inhabitants ;)

I’ll do it in English because I realized that the most part of the people I want to keep updated about this Chinese experience are mostly no French and so on, can’t speak French. It will be full of mistakes but I really really don’t want to lose my English so writing here every day will help me to focus on that ! If you see something really unbearable don’t hesitate and leave a comment with the correction in it, I would be more than grateful for that J Still learniiiing! ^^ I will explain all the things I will see here, in only one day I have already soooo many things to share with you guys!! China is so different, about everything! So have a drink, seat down comfortably and have a rest reading this blog. 

Leeeeeet’s start with Wuhan!  It is suuuuch a big city !! And not a beautiful one. Everything here is practical, you have construction sites and buildings everywhere, buildings dilapidating with crumbling walls and roofs and surrounded by orange scaffolding without any exception! You have hung clothes on balcony and lots of people sealing everything on the street until late at night. 

When I arrived at the house where I will stay for a while I was really tired and so a bit sensitive. During one hour we passed all these buildings and I was wondering where the outstanding China I heard so much about was. Indeed, I was a bit chocked by all these miserable buildings when we arrived at mine, in the cul de sac of a dark and small street. Gloups…

 I looked at it and started to wonder “how come have I decided to come here?!”, the guy who came to the airport to pick me  up shown me the building, a bit scary at first and said “7^th floor, the last one”. So I climbed up the stairs (yes I insist, I did climb up :p ) and finally we arrived, I confess I was a bit anxious apart myself when he opened the door and….wouah ! New! Everything is new and big inheres! Bathrooms, bedrooms, living room, laundry (yes we do have our own laundry ^^ ), kitchen, etc.  Visibly they don’t care about the appearance of their building but inside it’s really cool ! Welcome to my new house :)

My flatmates :)

It’s really modern, at least where I am living, with all the furniture I am used to have except that this time, my flat mates are neither English nor French but Chinese! Yes I live with 4 Chinese,  3 guys and a girl and so far they had been really lovely with me!! They have shown me around, and the brother of my best Chinese friend called Yuan is looking after me too. He is a friend of them and he showed me everything nearby our flat, he invited me for the lunch, so manyyy things to eat! I quickly learnt to say “I am full” in Chinese! For those who would be interested in this language, it’s “bao le” (written in pinyin). Well he invited me and one of my flat mates, the girl came to my work office with me because I did not know how to go, we took the taxi and Yuan’s brother paid again. He left us at Alliance Française because he had a test at his university and he came back one and a half hour later to continue to show me the city with my flat mate. He paid again loads of things, not always really big but still everything I wanted or showed an interested for he came back and bought it. Cannot believe it.. I told him to stop and that I could pay but he smiled and said “my sister’s friends are my friends and this is Chinese hospitality, I have to look after you, about everything”. How nice J

Second day.

Alliance France of Wuhan, that’s where I will be working the all summer. I came there today and it’s really impressive. Normally, Alliances Françaises are associations and so on are not really well equipped with books, computers, and teaching furniture but this one.. New, loads of computers, teacher’s room, a big library with books, dvds, comics, games, many class rooms, well it looks like a real school in fact, there is everything you can find in a French school and it’s in China, in an Alliance Française. But somehow it makes me feel good because I feel at home when I am there.

For two days I am in a totally different word. I don’t know how to explain; even when I have been to Korea two years ago I did not feel the same at all. It’s so exciting to be here, really, but everything is so different that I could feel lost really quickly. People, the way they behave, the way they dress, all these shops open on the streets where you can buy everything, all these people, playing cards, mah jong sitting down at a table in the middle of the street, betting sometimes. Streets full of people and so  so so many taxies and buses which are really cheap. 

The whole ambiance is a bit crazy, out of reason (?) I don’t know how to say that. And EVERYBODY is staring at me as I was a dinosaur passing through the street. They are really cute actually, the way they look at me without hiding them, full of curiosity. Apparently Wuhan is not used to have many foreigners, at least not European and I can definitely feel it with all these people looking at me and mumbling when I walk on the street.  What a weird thing, I who don’t like being the center of the attention, I am and just because I look different. It’s an interesting thing to live I think, we all should experience it once. And my flat mates are introducing me lots of people, apparently I am the curiosity of the week, like when people have a new pet or a new house, they want to show it to everybody ^^ This is cute J  I can understand and to be honest I am sure I have done the same myself with some of my foreign friends so I cannot blame them J Especially because they are so kind with me, so patient and so caring. This evening, my flatmate’s colleague invited us to dinner because he wanted to get to know me, “to make friendship” as he said himself. That was nice of him, the dinner was delicious ;) But this is a good example of what I am living here, everybody wants to get to know me because I am European and especially “faguoren” (French).  I am wondering how long it will last ^^

Btw! They hope to learn English from me! Yes, let me say it again, slowly. They want me to teach them English. Got it? ^^ How ironic isn’t it?! Ahahahaha ^^ And that’s what I do each time I am with them, they try to speak English and I correct them, if they are looking for a work they ask me and if they hesitate for the pronunciation they check with me. At least they try. Gosh, they want me to correct their pronunciation, for the moment I managed to avoid it efficiently but I don’t know if I can do it during two whole months. I tried to tell them that my accent is…French ^^ But they don’t care because I speak English “very well” (according to them) and so on, they think I am modest. Gosh I feel a bit guilty, I agree to correct them for the grammar because it’s a really basic one and same for the vocabulary but the pronunciation… They gonna have a Chinese French accent, OMG! Do I really want to thank them like that? Don’t think so :p Anyway their English make me laugh nicely because it reminds me of mine when I came to England the first time, so I never make fun of them even if they do it between them, I know how difficult it is to communicate when you begin. Thanks to my flat mates and my friends in Exeter who never got pissed off and who helped me so efficiently and with such patience. J So I am a French teacher at my work in Alliance Française and I am an English teacher when I go home! Fortunately I am passionate of teaching and I can’t get enough of that ,otherwise… :p

Yesterday we went to the supermarket to buy food for me! They have soooo many fruits!! And different type of rice, white rice, plain rice, cereals rice (can I say that???), beans rice (well beans and rice mixed), red rice!! I will try everything! And people are cooking in the supermarket itself, you can try and if you like it you buy! And the white rice! You have a massive wood box which can contains 100 kgs I would say and inthere you have the plain rice! You take a plastic bag besides and you div your hands in the rice and you put it in the bag! Well about hygiene I don’t know but it’s really cool to see lots of people having their hands in this huge box of rice and fulfilling their bag with it ! And it’s even more cool when you do it yourself !!! ^^ And about vegetables! So manyyy differents type of vegetables, I bought the funny ones and I'm gonna take pictures later!


Third day.

This morning I left my house at 7:15 am and I arrived at my work at 11:15am. No I don’t live so far away from my work, I just got lost. Twice in the same morning, well done Blandine ^^  Fortunately taxis exist so I could finally reach my destination with 3 hours late but at least I arrived. I took the wrong bus at first and I realized that 1:20 hours later when everybody got off the bus. I called a taxi and I asked him to drive me back home. Then I took another bus (the good one this time) but I did not see the station, I don’t know how because yesterday I had no problem but this morning I just missed it and I stayed into the bus until his final destination, again… This city is really really big, I couldn’t believe it. I was late and lost in a huge city where I can’t speak the language, how fun! ^^ I tried to communicate though, smiling at people and reading my globetrotter Chinese book but it did not work well ^^  While I was visiting the city in these two buses (2:30 hours in the bus, even better than a touristic bus tour :p ) , I started to freak out, always standing up and unable to arrive to Alliance Française where I should have start my first day of teaching observation, at 8:30 am..

Anyway, somehow I am glad I did it because I saw many interesting things in these two buses, a bit disgusting and surprising, I did not expect anybody to do that on this earth but anyway I could assist at these events and somehow it was interesting to see people reaction, well lack of reaction would be more exact.

There was a little boy in this bus, with his parents; he was about one and a half years old. I was looking at him playing with his dad during some time (how cute!) when he looked a bit disturbed. He started to move faster and faster and to cry until his mum understood and opened his pant. Surprised I was wondering what was going on when I saw the mum holding his kid far from her feet and encouraging him to…pie. What he did, with an obvious relief. Yes, in the bus. So I was in the bus, they were in the bus and there was this little boy pieing on the floor, the pie coolant toward the back of the bus and people around us looking at this with indifference, like it was the only thing to do in that case...

No. I am not kidding ^^

Another fact. Chinese people spit. Obviously they like it because whatever they do, whoever they are,  they are always spiting everywhere, on the floor, in bins, in taxis, even at the restaurant in some recipients. But what surprised me this morning was a woman about 40 years old in the bus who was carrying a plastic bag which looked very disgusting at first sight. Maybe it’s her garbage I thought and I didn’t pay attention anymore for a while until I heard someone spiting very loudly, I looked up in front of me and I saw this woman spiting another time in this plastic bag. But you have to realize, when they spit it’s not something like saliva you need to let out after running for example, it’s the thing you need to eruct form your throat, more white and heavy. Well I am not going to describe it anymore but seeing this woman spiting in this bag like that, eructing again and again was quite…interesting... Especially at 8am the morning, when you just woke up 40 mn ago ;) The only utility of this bag was to welcome her spit, honestly I would have never guess that.

I met my director today for the first time and we talked about Wuhan and I told him about the little boy story and he was not surprised, he replied “I love Wuhan and I am not going to move out without any regrets but yes when I arrived I had to stand back on all my French Hygiene habits and I am used to do not examine too much what I am eating and where it comes from”. Ahahaha, this is exactly what I am going to do, don’t look at the food Blandine and just enjoy the flavor.
Well and he told me that if I stay during the winter I have to be prepared because even if Chinese people usually don’t eat dogs anymore, there is a period after the 15^th of November when they do. And he said to me that all the free dogs living in the street disappear at this period and he advised me to do not take the bus at this moment because they carry dead dogs in bags in the bus and it stinks a lot even if you close your eyes to do not see it.

on the national road

 Maybe what I am writing looks a bit bitter but I just want to be objective and to explain in details what I am living. I think it’s interesting and if one of you is wondering what’s going on for me, here comes the answer J  Wuhan is an ugly and dirty city with some beautiful old monuments this is true  and hygiene is not the main preoccupation of Chinese people obviously, at least not of everybody but I really enjoy to be here J It’s just that everything is so different, as I said yesterday to my mum, Wuhan looks a bit like I imagine a city rebuilding itself after a war, in the 1950’s. Everywhere you have  construction site, dirty streets and people trying to survive. Here beauty contrasts with ugliness, richness with poverty and sexiness with casualty. You will have buildings inspired of America and old old buildings in ruins but where you still see people living in there. I did not expect that! I think Beijing and Shanghai must be different! Maybe it’s because Wuhan is a provincial city! Anyway it doesn’t matter because people are really really nice here and so touching! In fact, they are so simple, so straight that everything else doesn’t matter.

Fourth day.

Today I had my first day of teaching observing, I was with a French Teacher living in Wuhan for 3 years now and it was really interesting to talk to him because he knows a lot about this city. He told me that Wuhan is a new city which changes every month trying to become more and more modern and finally it’s done in a wrong way because mentalities don’t have enough time to get used to. That’s why richness and poverty are so omnipresent because the old Wuhan is next to the new one and so on I can see very civilized and cultivated people (as my flatmates) and very simple and poor people without “education” as understand European people at least. I told him about the little boy pissing in the bus and he did not even react just commenting with a simple “you’re lucky he just peed” and he changed the topic because for him there was nothing really extraordinary, he is used to see that and he told me I will be myself after some time. Sounds promising ;)

But really, I insist, people here are really really nice. Example, yesterday I did some shopping and at one point, I entered into a shop where there were 2 women and 2 children about 10 years old. It was a really really small clothes shop and as I was trying some dresses, I suddenly heard the kids betting about something. Even for someone who doesn’t speak Chinese it was obvious that they were talking about money and it became really interesting when I realized, listening to them that they were betting..on me! ^^ Yes yes! About my nationality to be more exact! I did one year of Chinese last year, it was useless because today I am unable to speak but I still have some vocabulary, the nationalities for example. They were wondering if I was American (meiguoren), English (Yingguoren) or French (Faguoren) and it was really funny to listen to them and to hear their “bu shi bu shii, ta shi faguojen !” (no no! she is French) , “bu shi ! Yingguo, Yingguoren ! Ta shi Yingguoren” (no! England, English, she is English). Finally I went out the “changing room” and said with a big smile “bu shi, wo shi faguoren” (No, I am French) and their reaction was really cute! The two boys opened their mouth and they looked at me with big eyes, surprised that I could understand something and starting to laugh! And finally the youngest was so proud because he was the one who thought I am French and very proudly…he took the money from his mum and his brother! Smiling at me and sticking his tongue out  ^^ How cute J J J

As I said before, my flatmates are really looking after me. Maybe too much? Something interesting happened to me today! At the end of the day, the teacher with who I spent the day invited me to dinner to get to know each other better and I was wondering if I should accept (because I knew my flatmates would wait for me) when the phone at the reception rang. No kidding, it was for me. One of them was calling me because it was “already” 6PM (yes 6PM ^^ ) and I was not at home so they were worried and wondering where I could be, indeed the days before I went back home earlier in the afternoon. I was so shocked honestly. I think even my mum never dared to call me to know where I could be at 6pm, at least not since I am a grown up. Ahahaha soo funny! ^^ I told the story to my colleague and I finally refused his invitation because I did not want to worry them too much and when I wondered why they were so stressed about leaving me alone in the city he replied that I am only 22 which is really young according to them, especially because I am a girl and they are 3 guys and another girl, all 25/26 years old. Well… For the moment I really want to respect their hospitality, the way they look after me so I behave as they expect me to do and go back home whenever they want but it’s not going to last long. You know me, I am free and I don’t like when I have obligations to go back home at some time, if I want to walk in the street, to visit places, to eat in a restaurant with my colleagues or to hang out at night, I am not going to ask for permission. I am a bit worried about this because I guess they won’t understand and in a certain way they may think I am impolite? I don’t know, anyway I did not go to China to go back home every day at 6pm. But it’s a cultural aspect that I find really interesting and I cannot blame them to care about me, it’s really kind of them J It’s just that I cannot bear anymore to be under someone’s control. Let’s see what’s happening later!

Fifth day.


Today I watched another teacher which was really interesting again but what I wanna talk about is  my way back home. Indeed, I took the taxi and I don't know why we passed by the eastern lake, the weather was absolutely splendid and the taxi decided to show me around so he drove a lot around the lake (he stopped the money counting :) ). Obviously, we couldn't communicate but he was really willing to so he just called his daughter who speaks English and she had to translate everything during 20 minuts, omg. Such a nice girl and such a lovely old man who is really proud of his city :) I changed a bit my mind about Wuhan at this moment because what he has shown me was really beautiful and typical. And because this old man's love for his city was so strong that you couldn't stay indifferent! At the end, he gave me the number of his daughter and told me that if I need any-thing I had to call her and she would be happy to help me. Obviously she did not really have the choice :p But it was really kind of him somehow and I am grateful for his guide tour !

the Eastern lake