We arrived at the “new” Wuchang train station, which, besides being a lot bigger and having a Dicos greeting me as I exited the platform, is still pretty crappy. Apparently 800 million RMB was not enough to provide more than a dim light in the main hall or unclod the drains that prevent the taxi stand from being submerged under a giant puddle of water.

There’s a bigger shopping area inside the station, though most of the shops were for Zhou Hei Ya and or one of the many copycat brands attempting to pass itself off as Zhou Hei Ya. Surely duck’s neck is number one gift for visitors on their way home.

In the taxi over to Hankou I noticed that the flagfall has jumped from 3 to 6 RMB. Still a lot cheaper than most other cities, though. First stop was the unnamed alley between Zhongshan Dadao and Tongyi Lu for my preferred reganmian and mianwo. Then walked through a misty Wuhan rain to our normal hotel on Jianghan Lu. The entire southwest corner of Zhongshan Dadao and Jianghan Lu has been wiped out to make way for a stop on the the Number 2 metro line, due to open sometime in 2012.

This spot is already jam packed with people on most days; a subway line right in the middle is going to make it easier for thousands more to come in. Should be fun.

The headlines in all the papers were about Hu Jintao, who had just passed through the day before to stare intently at dry dirt with groups of old men. This ritual, which I think is approximately 5000 years old and invented by China, was all it took to bring the months-long drought to an end. The heavy rains started the night before, and though we only felt light rain during our two days here, it was the beginning of several weeks of major floods in and around Wuhan. On the bright side, we were spared Wuhan’s normally oppressive June heat.

Most of the afternoon was spent walking around and enjoying some of our favorite snacks, such as the spicy chicken wings at BT Wings and the bubble teas at Di Kou Le. We also went to a more recent find, Chen’s Zhajiangmian.

I hesitated the first time we passed this place, thinking that zhajiangmian was a Beijing specialty that I never really liked. But this place was packed, and the signature dish was way better than anything I’d ever eaten in Beijing. Highly recommended.

Will save the evening’s adventures for my next post.

Li Na lost in three sets to Kim Klijsters in the Australian Open Finals yesterday, and at least part of the blame goes to her own Chinese supporters:

MELBOURNE -Li Na told her coach and husband she would love him “forever” after she lost the Australian Open final Saturday, but she had little love for the “amateur coaches” in the stands who broke her rhythm against Kim Clijsters.

Fed up with boisterous shouts from Chinese fans during the tense second set, ninth seed Li marched to the chair umpire after being broken at 3-3 and asked her: “Can you tell the Chinese, don’t teach me how to play tennis?”

“There were a lot of people coaching me,” she told reporters. “It was really loud and it wasn’t just one direction, it was from all sides.

“I think Chinese people watching tennis can’t be polite … (saying) ‘Take her out!’ and other things.

When they were calling out things it was during returns, so I felt” — and here she inhaled sharply — “so tired!”

The outburst was reminiscent of her moment during her semifinal against Dinara Safina at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, when she told the local crowd to “shut up.”

Flustered by the frenetic atmosphere at Rod Laver Arena, the 28-year-old from the Yangtze river port of Wuhan demanded British umpire Alison Lang order fans to quiet down and railed at flashing cameras as the third set slipped from her fingers.

Unfortunately I didn’t see the match and can’t confirm what exactly the crowd was doing or saying, but still… Obnoxious Chinese fans? Distracting camera flashes? An argumentative Wuhaner? Nothing out of the ordinary there.

Despite her loss, Li’s ranking will rise to a new Chinese record of seven and she is guaranteed a hero’s reception when she returns home, where hundreds of millions tuned in to watch the match live.

I wouldn’t say guaranteed, now that she has made Chinese fans lose face on an internationally televised event. All internet flamers aside, it will be interesting to see the official reaction here. It could be an opportunity to scold Chinese audiences into being more “civilized”, similar to what Beijingers endured in the years preceding the 2008 Olympics. Less likely but still possible is a Wang Zhizhi Situation, in which Li is deemed a “traitor” by the motherland and forced to make a groveling public apology.

The latter is unlikely, as Wang’s was a much more serious offense involving breaking his contract, and it was made against the People’s Liberation Army. For Li, the best case scenario is that they do nothing and just let her play:

Spent at least half an hour in the taxi from the train station to Jianghan Lu, by far the longest that trip has ever taken. Total cost: 21 RMB.

Cheap taxi fare was the third sign I was back in Wuhan. The first was getting into the taxi, revealing to the driver that I was American, and listening to him go on and on about war, North Korea, Jews, American Indians, and the NBA. (Yes, his favorite team is the Rockets.) The second was watching two separate shouting/shoving matches between pedestrians and police during. The driver explained that in hot climates, people have hot tempers. Even in December, when its comfortably cool.

I checked into the hotel, cleaned up, and headed straight to my favorite hot and dry noodle shop, which is in an alley behind the People’s Paradise shopping center on Zhongshan Dadao. Excellent as always, as were the mianwo.

After that we walked back toward the Wanda shopping center. At one point a pigeon crapped from a ledge several floors above, missing me by inches and a fraction of a second. I thought how lucky I had been, but I would have happily endured a pigeon attack instead of what I saw next. Inside the Wanda area we noticed a few people standing around and staring at one of the shops. It was obvious something interesting had just happened. We walked closer and saw this:

It appeared that a man had raised himself up to the the glass plates, perhaps to wash them, and then fallen through. You can see a glimpse of him holding his head. The glass is well supported from below and don’t look like they’d just fall on their own accord. What appears to be a hydraulic lift is just to his left.

Here you can see part of the shattered glass that hasn’t yet fallen. (Also, the woman in front, with her skin-tight jeans, leather everything else, and thousand yard stare as she walks through the disaster area, was sign number four that I was back in Wuhan.)

This shows the that the injured man, and whoever is attending to him, are directly below the remaining section of glass. The man wasn’t exactly young, either — he looked to be in his fifties. And even though he was bleeding a bit (note the small red spot just in front of the coil of rope to his left), his most serious injuries likely came from the fall itself (during which he lost a shoe) rather than from the broken glass. He seemed dazed but somewhat conscious.

We gawked a bit with the others and were starting to walk away when we shouting. We ran back just in time to see a huge chunk of shattered glass fall down, right where he had been less than a minute earlier. The hunk of glass was probably three feet long and fell pointed side down, like a giant icicle.

This set off a panic, as the Wanda attendants realized how dangerous the situation was, and how close they had come to a real disaster. Several groups of reinforcements ran up and cordon off the danger zone and get control of the situation. Meanwhile short woman with the white hair was retelling others how she had kept telling the mall attendants to move the injured man out from under the glass.

All this before 10:30 in the morning!

BEIJING, Nov 17 (Reuters) – Central and eastern Chinese provinces faced the worst natural gas shortage in years as supplies were diverted to snowstorm-hit northern China, while producers lacked incentives to expand output because of poor margins, a state broadcaster said on Tuesday.

Gas supplies for taxis in Wuhan, capital of the central province of Hubei, were halted from Monday while 11 industrial companies in Hanzhou, capital of eastern Zhejiang province, were shut as a result of gas shortages, China National Radio said.

The gas shortage in Wuhan reached 600,000 cubic metres per day and pressure in the gas pipeline was at only half the usual level, it said….

Wuhan is one of the ten largest cities in China and a key transportation hub. One would think the city would have a bit more fuel in its reserves.

Things are bad in nearby cities as well:

The supply deficit in Nanjing, capital of eastern Jiangsu province, had reached 400,000 cubic metres per day, 40 percent of its planned consumption volume, according to C1 Energy, an industry information provider.

Emergency measures to curb consumption had also been taken in other cities including Chongqing, Rizhao, Xi’an, Yichang and Yangzhou, but demand was set to rise further because of expected colder weather, C1 Energy said….

Since it’s only mid November, it seems reasonable to expect colder weather in the weeks and months ahead.

The reason for all this chaos, of course, is the recent snows in northern China:

Unseasonably early and heavy snow in northern China had caused 38 deaths as of last Friday and a surge in energy demand.

The power load on the Northern China electricity grid surged to a high of 127.5 gigawatts this month, 26 percent higher than a year earlier. On the Beijing-Tianjin-Tangshan grid networks, the load increased 24.7 percent from a year earlier late last week.

So far I haven’t seen any acknowledgment of a problem up here in Beijing. My apartment has had heat for a couple of weeks now and is warm day and night. At the office it’s downright hot, and we have to keep the windows cracked just to get some relief. The heat is oppressive even when we turn the adjustable-flow radiators — the first I have seen in China — to the lowest setting.

So let’s sum up:

• The government either induces or tries to take credit for snowstorms in northern China in order to counter an ongoing drought.
• In part because the government neglected to sufficient warn citizens of its intent, daily life is disrupted, transportation grinds to a halt, and dozens of people die.
• Tens or possibly hundreds of millions are affected by fuel restrictions in central China, while Beijingers lounge around in their toasty apartments and offices.
• Indoor heating is still not required in buildings in those same cities, which can get every bit as cold as Beijing.
• We’re about two weeks into a 4-5 month period of weather this bad and, at times, much worse.

Now it’s the ladies’ turn, or rather the girls’ turn. A post-match fight erupted after China beat Australia in the U-19 women’s football tournament match in Wuhan. China’s Titan Sports has the best coverage; curiously, its video link to the footage of the violence isn’t working, but another article has a few photos.

I watched a few minutes of the match last night before going to bed. Seemed like a pretty boring match, or at least not one that would lead to a fight.

ESPN provides a few details on the incident:

However following the final whistle, an Australia player fell to the ground while remonstrating with the Chinese, prompting captain Tameka Butt to charge across the pitch and grab the perceived offender.

That sparked a mass brawl as both sets of players and backroom staff charged onto the pitch, with punches thrown.

Shocking enough, but it gets worse:

Once order was restored, several plastic water bottles were thrown from the crowd in the direction of the Australian team – whose ages range from 15 to 19 – as they made their way down the tunnel with local police imploring fans to stop the behaviour.

Soccer players fighting in China? Women arguing in Wuhan? Fans throwing bottles at teenage girls? The reporter unwittingly gets it right: “Order was restored”, at least in China’s soccer universe.

Now Wuhan’s chengguan are taking it a step further and deputizing a foreigner to put help save Wuhan from utter chaos by forcing shopkeepers to move boxes of bottled water off the sidewalk:

They promised end of 2008 and sure enough, with a few days to spare, the Wuhan Yangtze Tunnel is finally open.  Started in 2004, this massive project is, in fact, the first tunnel under the Yangtze River and cost RMB1.7-2.0 billion (about USD250-300 million) depending on your sources.  Though this tunnel is the first, it won’t be the last as other sous-Yangtze tunnels are in process in both Shanghai and Nanjing.

I remain skeptical that this four-lane marvel (pictures make it look like two) will truly relieve the traffic burden in Wuhan.  One article claims travel time is reduced from 30 to 7 minutes.  It’s a neat engineering feat, but I’m not convinved that Wuhan couldn’t use the cash for other more pressing projects.  Like the horseracing track.

There is a follow-up post which examines the possibility that the bus driver insulted the girls in the video:

Last week, video footage from Wuhan bus line 519 showed two Northeastern men from Heilongjiang Province ruthlessly beating and kicking the female bus driver. Chinese across the country were outraged, many calling Northeastern Chinese violent animals. But, some Chinese wondered if the video showed the whole truth, noticing that parts of the video recording was cut out.

Soon, other posters claiming to have been on the bus when the beating happened told a different story about what really happened that day between the Wuhan bus driver, the two Northeastern girls, and the two Northeastern young men who eventually beat her.

A couple things from the translated user comments struck me. First, they reveal the strong regional attitudes and stereotypes (Wuhanese as rude; Northeastern girls in other cities as prostitutes) that rarely are reported in English language news about China. Second, many of the users quoted seem to think that, if the bus driver did insult the girls, then it was either acceptable or at least understandable that she was repeatedly and viciously kicked in the head.

Finally, some commenters argued that the attacked must have been justified because no one else stepped in to stop it:

If it was really like how it was reported, that the female bus driver was completely justified and in the weaker position, that the young men attacked her, why did none of the many people on the bus come out and prevent/stop it? Not even anyone to say a word? The answer is obvious, that although the driver was weaker, she was unreasonable, and even her words and performance made the other passengers on the bus feel dissatisfied, such as being tough or viciously cursing people. Of course, it also possible the other passengers were just different and wanted to avoid causing trouble for themselves.

Personally, I think the final sentence is closer to the truth. In eight years of observing fights in China, I have seen crowds gather to watch even the hint of a fight, but I have never seen anyone step in and try to break up a seriously violent fight.

The ride from the airport to the university completely blew my mind. I guess I was expecting Wuhan to be similar to Beijing or Xi’an but it isn’t at all. I can’t say I’ve ever been to a more third world city before – everything looks like it’s falling apart. Even entering campus was a shock. I was feeling completely out of place and slightly regretful; however, life can change after a good night’s sleep and a shower. Wuhan seemed better but still not what I was expecting. The girl who picked me up from the airport came by my room to show me around campus and by accident we found out I had to go get an medical examination done with the rest of the new international kids. For everyone’s information, NO ONE wants to get a medical examination in China EVER. It was probably one of the most frustrating events in my life. Total I had to get a chest x-ray, eye test, ECG exam, sonogram, blood drawn, vaccination, and some sort of test to see if you’ve ever had surgery before. There were probably 200 people there for the same things and about 9 doctors total. This entire process took 7 hours. As you may know, there are no such things as lines in China. Things got dramatic every once in a while. While waiting in the epic ECG line about 10 Chinese men cut this Chinese woman and I. She yelled and yelled at them in Chinese and it got pretty out of hand. They ended up shoving her and her daughter around and pushed passed her. I was shocked. To make the hospital experience even more frustrating is the fact that no one in Wuhan except for a small population knows English. Doctors were yelling orders to me all day and I couldn’t understand a single one. I feel lucky that my exam even got finished. I know my parents probably don’t want to hear this but I wonder if any of that equipment was even sterile (save the needles). The hospital was pretty gross. There were cigarettes all over the floor.

Everything at this university is completely unorganized and frustrating. I feel that no one knows what’s going on and if they do they don’t know when and if they have an idea of when it’s only a rumor. I’m sure once classes start everything will fall into place.

Be sure to check out the pictures as well.

This article about Ghanaians in China popped up in my Google news alert yesterday. It contains some letters from Ghanians currently stuck in China, including this one from someone currently in Wuhan:

There are a lot of Ghanaians who are stranded here in China.

Most of them have no food to eat let alone job to do. Especially in Guangzhou many Ghanaians are behind bars for overstaying their visas. . . .

Most of the people here cannot even locate their passport, the reason being either they have been cheated by agents who promise to renew it and could not, so making away with the passport and the money or giving out to a friend to use and could not locate the friend again. . . .

I am writing from Wuhan a province in China. My passport has expired for a year now and I want to go home but I cannot. There is no work for me to do too, I have been hiding here for almost three months without a job.

I have posted before about the experiences of an American black man in China, but I rarely see much about Africans here. The girls at Pizza Buffet! did a podcast about Guangzhou earlier this year, and that was the first time I had heard about the large number of Africans living in Guangzhou, many illegally.

A few weeks ago SHTig and I were discussing immigration to and from China–for the last couple hundred years, there has been a lot of the latter but almost none of the former. Aside from North Korean refugees, the only other people coming to China in search of a better life are the Africans.