Goodbye Wuhu

My last post from Wuhu. Tonight I will be on the train to Chengdu. For more than 30 hours! I’m really looking forward to travel again, but ouch, thirty hours. Two nights, and one day, in a train. Guess I’m going to get back on a lot of missed hours of sleep… Apart from sleeping and reading, I really have no idea how I’m going to pass the time. Let’s hope there will be nice people in my cabin.

Today I’m also exactly 4 months in China. Which makes the perfect day for a new adventure. Wuhu was a nice city to live in for the past 3 and half month. It was an easy city to live in because it’s quite small, but still feels like a city and has most conveniences of a city. It has also been a great place to save money, cause live is so cheap here. Finally it has also been a very good introduction to China. I saw the fast economic development, the big contrast between the few dirty rich and the rest, fake copied Western brands, of which the best one has the slogan “Anything is Possible”, and of course the strangest kind of food. My Chinese improved drastically as well, mainly cause there are no people who speak English, except the other foreigners. I experienced the hospitality of the Chinese, some welcomed me to their home and offered me their food, for little in exchange. Dutch people could learn from their hospitality and hopefully I did. On the other side I also experienced their strong hierarchical society, which is in my opinion the biggest difference with my country, and something I will (hopefully) never get used to. Because it leads to very rude behavior towards people with a lower social position, and sometimes that's just not the right way to thread other people. In this aspect the Chinese can still learn a lot from the Dutch equalitarian society. Ironically the country is still lead by Communists.

Although I mostly enjoyed my life in Wuhu, it’s the first city I lived in which I wouldn’t recommend for a visit. This is simply because, despite Wuhu being an good place to live, it is an ugly city compared to places like Amsterdam, Enkhuizen and London. Of course this comparison is a bit unfair since Wuhu is a poor city without any places of interest, and there’s simply a lot more to see in the rest of China.

Evan, (the new American teacher) who is replacing me, turned out to be a really good guy, it’s too bad he didn’t came earlier. Although of course if he had come earlier, my point of being in Wuhu would have been gone. His situation is almost frightening the same as mine three and half month ago. Same apartment, same job, same misunderstandings with Chinese people, the same lack of a schedule, and finally as good as the same motivation of going to China. What’s not the same however is the salary. He’s going to do the same work for a thousand Yuan less! Ridiculous since he’s the native speaker with the real American accent, which is the kind of English all the Chinese want to learn, and which is why foreign American teachers are usually paid more. He’s also not promised a raise, and this suddenly makes me understand my boss, her decision of ending my contract completely. If she continued my contract she needed to pay me a thousand more each month, which would be two thousand Yuan more than what she’s now paying to Evan. I would have done the same in her situation, it’s crazy to pay so much more for a non-native teacher, if you can also get a native for less.

So tonight I’ll start my big trip, with a long train ride to Chengdu. Where I plan to stay for a couple of days. After I plan to go even more west, to a Tibetan town (Litang) outside of Tibet, but at more than 4000 meters above sea level, (according to my Rough guide it’s even 300 meter’s higher than Lhasa) so it will be very similar to Tibet. After this I’ll move on to the South, to see the Tiger leaping gorge, Kunming, and on to Guilin to take the river cruise on the Li river to Yangshuo. After that it will be about time to move onto Hong Kong to get a new Chinese visa, it expires the 2nd of July, so I really need to arrive there the 1st of July, which is coincidentally the day that the UK gave Hong Kong back to China. Hong Kong should be an amazing metropolis, even more so now that I arrive there after traveling for 2 weeks through the undeveloped, more isolated wild West and South west of China. In Hong Kong I will have a break for about two weeks, and after that I’ll continue my travels with a convenient only three hour flight to Beijing. Not sure if I’ll be able to update my blog every week from now on, but be assured that I’ll try my best.