We began our regular work days in Hubei with a breakfast, and then off to room 301 of the International Studies building for out first (of three) Chinese history classes. This class was conducted by Ms. Gu Ya. The interesting thing about the history classes is that Ms. Gu Ya taught them all in Mandarin Chinese...to a room full of English speaking Americans. What a great experience...thanks to her interpreter "Alex" (each Chinese person chooses an English name for themselves...after they have been studying English) and our leader Dr. Kung.
The interpretation "drag" took some getting use to, and Alex was a little rough around the edges with his English, but over all it was a good experience. I still managed to take several pages of notes. It was interesting the way in which Ms. Guy Yu presented the information. There was a Power Point slide on the screen behind her (in English) with somewhat of an outline of the topic she was covering...but instead of it introducing what she was covering right then...it was something she would build up to toward the end of a particular section. Somewhat reversed. There was also some chronology skips in the presentation, and they were consistent so I think it was the style of teaching she uses on a regular basis that we are not use to in the West. Again all of this adding to a great experience first hand. It was without a doubt interesting to hear a Chinese history teacher sharing her history with us from her point of view...and giving us information that I've yet to see in any of the many books I've read on China. For example...most everyone knows about the Chinese Dynasties and how the father would hand down the position of emperor to his son upon his death....but I've never heard of (and neither had any of the other teachers with our group) the "Demised System" which came before the Dynasty System...where the next BROTHER in the family would inherit the position of emperor from the older brother instead of just going from father to son. The Dynasty System began with the Xia Dynasty...around 2070BC replacing the Demised System.
So a big history geek like myself was loving the history study...especially the Ancient history.
After lunch we had our first Chinese language class conducted by Ms. Wang Ruoxuan.
She did an EXCELLENT job of jumping right in and teaching us the sounds of the Ping Ying (English phonetic writing of the Chinese language) and tones. She had a great POWER POINT that showed the way the TONES work, and the markings on words for the tones. It was really fascinating. We learned a huge amount in a small time frame with her. She was very patient with us.
After our second class, I walked around the campus a little bit on my way back to our room and took some pictures of the campus. Students were studying for examinations and a few stopped me along the way to practice their English conversation. Walking around the streets of Wuhan is somewhat like being a celebrity back in the United States, almost EVERYONE stares as you walk by...and are a little taken back when you smile and speak to them. They are very sweet when you say Ni hao! and usually will respond in English with "hello!"
After dinner John, Deb, Sharon, and I (some of my buddies from the group...that laugh and act as goofy as I do) decided to have an adventure and walk to Wal-Mart. It was a great walk and we had another chance to get out into the REAL China and experience the people and everyday life. Seeing mothers bathing their babies in small tubs on the sidewalk, men playing pool outside on canopy covered tables to just the people themselves enjoying the evening after a hard day's work. 
I made video and will have to post some of that here when I return home because I don't have the correct cables with me for that...but it was unreal! First of all the place is ENORMOUS! It is FULL of people everywhere...the produce section and the checkout lines are just...a mass of people all pushing (but not in an offensive way really) to get their position in line. Controlled Chaos is the best way to describe it I guess. We were trying to find something in the store called "White Cloud" and couldn't figure out which box it was in (they all looked the same and were all written in Chinese) so I started trying to explain to the girls who worked there what we were looking for...of course they didn't speak English...and they were trying their hardest to help. I finally began a game of "Pictionary" drawing clouds on a piece of paper...they still weren't sure what to make of it...so I started point at the drawing and then pointing up...still no good....I said "sky" "up" "cloud"...then I moved from the "Pictionary" round to the Charades part of the night...haha. Needless to say it didn't take long for a crowd to gather, some 30 to 50 people all around the area we were in...to watch the "Crazy Americans" or waiguoren (foreigners) and they all began trying to understand and guess what I was doing. Finally a kid around 6 years old sitting in the front basket of his mother's cart got "sky" and yelled "SKY!" When I kept pointing to the sky and then my drawing of a cloud and then pointed at the worker's white shirt for "white"- he got it and told everyone what I was saying in Chinese..."Sky" and then they understood the drawing of the cloud and the white shirt...and took us straight to the correct box. (and being the ultimate sales people...they tried to get me to buy the 188 yuan box instead of the 15.8 yuan box...that I ended up buying) They were so helpful and everyone was so warm. Checkout was a crazy experience...and we finally made it out.
We then decided to catch the bus back to the campus, and played another game of "Frogger" to get across the street...without getting SQUASHED. (Not an easy task...crazy crazy stuff crossing streets in China) We made it on the bus (1.2 yuan for an un-air conditioned bus, and 2 yuan for an air-conditioned bus) we were going to take whatever showed up first...and it was the 1.2 yuan bus. We were packed in there standing the whole way...but it was still not considered a FULL bus by any stretch of the imagination. We laughed all the way back home...and then went to the room of my fellow Nashvillians for a birthday "celebration" as it was Ashley's 29th birthday. She had already been given a birthday party and cake by the university at supper and now we had a small celebration back in their room...sitting around and talking about all the craziness of the trip so far.
What an excellent day.
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