by Steve Reiss (Dalmdad Landscape Photography - www.dalmdad.com and https://www.facebook.com/Dalmdad.)
April 1, 2012: Wuhan, China: After dinner, Sandy and her husband, known as “Squirrel”,
for reasons I have never been told, wanted to show Raymond and me Wuhan University. Not only had S&S met there, but at this
time of year cherry blossom trees were blooming around campus. I could have taken or left this side trip,
but going was a sign of respect; and, really… I had no choice.
We took a cab from S&S’s apartment across Wuhan, even though you
may recall that I mentioned how S&S had a car. Well, I was later told, Squirrel has a
license, etc., but just did not feel comfortable enough to drive. Most Chinese have less than five years
experience driving cars.
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| One of The Bridges Crossing the Yangtze River (as seen from the cab) |
When the taxi dropped us off at WU, the sun was setting. The
campus is set on Luojia Hill and we walked up and down the rolling hills making
up the campus with Squirrel pointing out the various buildings. By the time we reached the cherry blossom
grove, it had become pretty much completely dark out. So getting any view of the cherry blossoms or
taking pictures of them was a non-starter.
Despite the darkness, there were still hundreds of college-age girls and
guys taking flash photos under and in front of the trees in the complete dark. Many of the girls were wearing cherry blossom
tiaras/crowns.
There was also a lot of public displays of affection going
on. I have noticed that in the big Chinese cities (ok, I have not been to any
small villages), public displays of friendship are very common. You are more likely to see two girls holding
hands as friends walking down the street than you would ever see in even large US
cities, where such girls holding hands would be whispered about. Boy-girl kissing is also very common on city sidewalks. I am told these PDA’s are a reaction to the
freedom Chine kids feel when they are away from their rigid, more traditional, country
(rural) home lives.
**
The cherry blossom grove had been a pretty far walk from
where the taxi dropped us off. Being
lazy and not exactly in the best of physical conditioning, I asked if we had to
walk back the same way we came. The
answer was no; but that was not as good as it sounded.
It was around this time that we were in the area of the old
library with its traditional pagoda-style architecture and view of the hills on
which campus was built.
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| Pagoda Style Architecture at Wuhan University |
The campus hills were still there, but now there were steep
sets of old concrete stairs, some cracked and generally lacking hand
railings. So, there was plenty of
opportunity for me to potentially embarrass myself in two ways; falling up or
down the steps (i.e., klutz) or passing out by not being able to handle all the
steps (i.e., way out of shape). But,
alas, I uneventfully made it to the street level and we then started the long
walk to find a bus to take us to the Wuhan Night Market.
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