Halfway through my month-long stay in Wuhan, China…far too many experiences, impressions and photographs to post. Here are some recent images…
A couple of days ago I met up with two journalism students from Wuhan University, and we went on a nine-hour marathon street photography/sightseeing tour of the city. We visited some of the funkier and artsy commercial districts, and the site of the original capital building of Republic of China (now a museum). We crossed the Yangtze River by ferry, where we took a walk though the oldest, “colonial” part of the city. There were many things that caught my attention, to many to mention, but more than anything the sheer multitude of people walking everywhere, and the thriving economy, is very impressive. Wuhan is a city that most in the West have never heard of, and don’t think of it as a major Chinese city, yet in sheer geographic size and population it is at least as big as New York City.
This post is a mixture of photographs taken with the Nikon DSLR and an iPhone 6S… I’m really enjoying walking the streets of Wuhan, especially the back alleys where the little markets and shops are. I needed a button replaced on one of the few dress shirts I brought with me, so I wandered into a tiny little dress shop with a manual sewing machine in the door. The tailor, a woman who was watching a movie or something on a PC laptop, happily sewed a new button while I waited… I pushed myself to make a little more interpersonal contact, something I wish came easier but I don’t have anything more than the most perfunctory Chinese vocabulary, and as I was told would be the case, outside of the universities not many people have any reason to bother with English. So there is a lot of smiling, nodding, non-verbal communication, and for the most part it’s working out pretty well so far….
