Letter from Lucretia Meece in China
May 2007
Nanchang
Nanchang has the world's largest Ferris wheel, which is as tall as a 50-story building.
A teacher friend from Xinyu, Andrew, came up on Monday. We have holidays for Golden Week—sort of like a week to celebrate Labor Day. We made our way to the largest Ferris wheel in the world. It holds 480 people, 8 per car, 60 cars, and takes 30 minutes to make a revolution.
That day it was broken, but would be open from 8:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. on the following day, May 1, the big national labor day kick off to Golden Week. There were public buses lined up as far as you could see, for the perhaps thousand primary school children at the park on April 30. They all practiced their “hello” as they passed us in twos, holding hands, with their red neck scarves.
We planned to return there by 8:30 the next morning, before the big crowds go there. Transportation getting there was interesting: far more people than buses, transfers, wrong information, taxis, etc. It took two hours, but there was no wait for the Ferris wheel. We finally got there around 9:30.
You can sure see a bunch in the 30 minutes it takes. It never actually stops, but is slow enough for the previous passengers to get out, then the car is swept, you board, they lock the door and off you go. The ticket takers, sweepers, and door closers all wished us a good trip, in English.
Lucretia Meese is an English teacher in China serving with the Amity Foundation.
From the tallest point (160 meters) you can see up and down the Gan River, watch the barges, look over the pockets of farm land and farm houses left on the edge of the city (most are being bulldozed for developing), see bridges, skyscrapers, the ancient Teng Wang Pavilion (from 700 AD), the IMAX theater globe, etc. There was a guy on a powered hang glider advertising something; it was fun to see him circling the Ferris wheel, heading to the water, and swooping back to land nearby. As we wandered around the rest of the amusements (carrying-ball races for children, stuffing balls under your shirt and riding a bike to dump the balls out for older kids, rock climbing for whoever, rent-a-bicycle, take an electric tram down the boardwalk), we ran into the lady whose family had been helpful in giving us directions on the bus. Her two kids (9 and 6) were on the Ferris wheel. I had given them some stamps from the United States that I carry for such an occasion. It was fun to actually see someone you know when on an outing.
From the bus we counted the construction cranes in that area as we traveled. There were nine on a two-block stretch and at least a dozen more on the street. Newsweek International called Nanchang the sixth most dynamic city in the world. I don’t know about that, but we are growing fast.
For lunch we found a great pizza place, with Western decor, forks, and knives. When I asked to use the WC, they told me they didn’t have one for customers and two of them proceeded to take me next door to the shopping mall, up the escalators and to the restroom. Such service. And great pizza. They also gave us a VIP card and 12 percent discount.
Hou Tien
Next we found bus 117 to Hou Tien and our Jiangxi desert, an area of sand dunes which they’ve turned into an amusement and tourism area beside rice paddies and a lake. Seems it is a confluence from ancient days of three rivers where sand was deposited. Pretty weird. Camel rides and swimming in the same view. The bus we were told to take gets you to the pick-up up place for the cabbies. Then you negotiate.
Andrew got us a good price for the 30-kilometer trip out and back. We shared the “out” ride with seven others, jammed in a mini-van-type vehicle running on washboard roads. Guess he just couldn’t slow down. Nice enough driver, but he beat the stew out of his car with speed and bad roads. The price we paid included the two tolls involved on the ride. I couldn’t help but wonder who would have paid those if the foreigners hadn’t been along. The other passengers seem to pay five RMB each to Hou Tien, while our negotiated price was 150 RMB for his car and four hours. It was money well spent.
While I was still wondering if his axles would hold, we arrived at the main gate. The driver gestured for us to pay our admissions. We paid and started to walk in. He paid admission for his car and gestured for us to get back in the car. He drove us to the actual park part, another three or four kilometers through scrub pine, sand, more pine. Lots of cars and buses. Turns out that city bus 121 goes there, too, but that number is not on any of the schedules, so you don’t know where to catch it.
We wandered the dunes, climbed a tower and oohed and ahed, while the local kids on the tower practiced their use of the expression “OK.” Andrew ran some dunes, I think. I watched horseback riding up close and camel riding from a distance. I was thinking Lawrence of Arabia, and the music playing on the loud speaker was “The Impossible Dream” and “Lonely Boy.” It was pretty surreal in the middle of a desert.
Then Andrew went to do the roll-down-the-hill in the plastic ball thing, but it was broken, so he did the bouncing-in-a-harness thing, getting way up there. I sheltered in the shade of a building watching the driver, while the driver watched Andrew. It was hot.
We were through after about two hours and the driver said Nanchang? Yep! And we were off, back to the washboard roads. He stopped at several bus stops and knots of people along the road, but found no takers for the return trip. Apparently the axles held just fine.
That night we ate at “33,” my favorite hole-in the wall restaurant. I got excellent chicken, peanuts, tofu and rice while Andrew ordered the eggplant something. Of course you share the dishes so we got the best of both.
Walking back to the Foreign Experts building, we happened upon the opening of a bakery. Andrew got a peach croissant-something and I tried a strawberry-something pastry. Surprisingly, neither was sweet, but both were very good. Too bad it’s so close to campus. They also had a fruit and beans thing in a cup over ice shavings and syrup that I saw people getting. I will try that another time. We wrapped up the day with movie on DVD.
Those two adventures had been on my list to see, so I’m feeling happy and like I accomplished something momentous.
On May 2, another Amity teacher from Andrew’s school, Eli, joined us and we began the search for the museums in Nanchang. One was closed for remodeling for six months. Another had no street number in the guidebook, and we couldn’t find it. We finally asked a group of students about the next museum on our list, and got five or six answers from as many students. One finally wrote down “Please take me to the Provencial Museum” in Chinese and we were off to find a taxi.
Jackpot! It seems that some museums have been combined under one roof, near the river: Natural History Museum, Porcelain Museum, Revolution Museum. It was nice, but not much in English. Oh well. We spent about two and a half hours there and headed for a taxi to go to the Western buffet at a hotel. Got there at 2:00 p.m. Lunch ends at 2:00 p.m. Taxi back to McDonald’s and home on the bus. Pooped.
We headed to our various rooms and after a couple hours sleep, we set off to the laser, fireworks, music, and dancing-fountains show at Qui Shui Square. After a taxi ride there, we enjoyed the high-tech display. There are two shows a night along the river. Lights across the way made us think of Hong Kong and Shanghai with their laser shows. Our Western faces provided as much entertainment as the fountains for some of the eight or ten thousand folks there (our guess). There are 159 waterspouts, with the highest shooting up 128 meters. The square’s layout is like a new moon, with the length of the park running five or six kilometers south to the Ferris wheel and north to Bayi Bridge. Impressive.
We waited for a while trying to catch a taxi and finally spotted one letting out his passengers. I hailed him. He did a u-turn and pulled up. A young woman grabbed the handle of the door and blocked me as her group got in. I said, “No, that is our cab.” She said, in English, “Why?” I said, “Because we asked the driver to turn around and come here.” Finally I shook my head and walked away. Then Andrew and Eli said, “The cab is ours.” The driver told the other group that it was ours and asked them to get out. They did. Somehow, it felt right.
Eli and I did a little shopping the next day, and we tried the buffet again, this time accompanied by a fourth teacher. It was as good as I remembered and well worth the delay. Back via a shopping stop at Metro for Dijon mustard, brownie mix, cheese, all things foreigners need. I think we each dropped about 100-200 yuan per trip. Again, money well spent.
I said our address in my best Chinese, but had to show the taxi driver the paper. Drat. Thought my Chinese was getting better. Back to “33” for dinner and our last DVD movie night.
I think we’re all pooped, but had fun in this Golden Week exploring Jiangxi Province and Nanchang. Now it’s time to work on lesson plans and reexamine the course schedule; there are only six weeks left, plus exam week. Classes resume on the May 8.
Stay well.
God’s Peace to you from Nanchang.
Lucretia
The 2007 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 244
