My hometown Wuhan, apart from Covid..
“Which part of China are you from?” I was doing volunteer work with an old lady in Melbourne, Australia. Even those nightmares have gone over one year, I still cautious to answer this extremely simple question.
“Err, I am from Wuhan,” I said.
She was astonished and said: “Oh, the home of Covid!”
The old lady’s reaction was as I expected because I knew these white people more or less still hold the bias and stereotype on Asians especially since the outbreak of the Covid.
But what made me feel really uncomfortable and disappointing was that Covid seems the only impression that western people had of my hometown, Wuhan. That’s very unfair to this dynamic city with a long history and amazing community spirit.
I contained my emotion and told the lady my hometown was back to normal since April 2020. All my family there is well. I was in Wuhan visiting my family during the Covid outbreak and lockdown, if you want to know the truth of how the community contained the Covid, here is a story that I published before:
But in this article, I want to tell you a bit more about Wuhan. I hope you can get rid of the Covid impression and take a fresh eye to this wonderful city.
2 Rivers, and many lakes
Wuhan locates in the central part of China, has around 11 million population, and it is the capital of Hubei Province. Wuhan is called “River City” as it locates where the Yangtze River and Hanjiang River meet. Yangtze River is the longest river in China that flows easterly direction. Many big cities are built along this “Mother River” such as Chongqing, Nanjing, and Shanghai( Shanghai is at the end of the river).
If you look at the map of Wuhan, you can see a lot of blue areas, the whole city was surrounded by waters. The beautiful rivers and lakes definitely give a romantic feel to this city. Lots of poets in history used to write poems at the riverbank, go boating on the lakes and play music on the hills.
Unlike Beijing and Xi’an, where the city was carefully planned and built as a capital, everything strictly followed the authorities’ order, Wuhan was far from the capital in northern China. So you can see on the map many streets were randomly built along the rivers and lakes. This sort of freestyle shapes the city’s character:
It’s emotional rather than rational;
It believes in freedom rather than hierarchy;
It’s like a flow rather than a fixed status;
I grew up in a suburb called Qingshan ( Literally it means green mountain)near the south-north bank of the Yangtze River. When I was a teenager, I like riding my bike along the old long bund near the river. When I felt confused about life, I usually just went to the riverbank to sit for a while, watched the sunset, looked at the water level, enjoyed the breeze, and had a nice stroll in a dated park. It was very silent near the river sometimes, it was my secret spot to have some alone time.
While the lakes’ memories were all about school excursions and family gatherings. East lake is the most famous one in Wuhan. As the name implies, it locates in the east part of the city. There were just so many things to see and to do for the kids. The boat, fishing, birds zoo, hiking trails, bike path, picnic, parks…
And there was another small lake called “Fruit Lake” near East Lake. The funny name is not just for the lake, it also represents the area where the provincial government locates. One of my father’s uncles used to live there. In my childhood memory, we always had family dinner at his place on weekend, with a gorgeous lake view in his apartment. When I was a kid, I used to ask my mum why there was no fruit in the lake, my mum didn’t know the answer, unfortunately.
Today’s rivers and lakes have evolved so much. The local government worked so hard to leverage the water views and transformed the old facilities into modern leisure centers for citizens. Around the river and lakes, there are parks, cherry gardens, sports facilities, playgrounds, amusement parks, walking tracks, sculpture, outdoor cinema, cruise, and light shows, etc. When I was a kid, there were just two bridges over the Yangtze River in Wuhan, now there are 10 bridges ( some with railways) and two river tunnels. When the city keeps expand and evolve, one thing doesn’t change is that the water is still the key element to connecting people and community here.
3 Towns, and many centers
The two rivers divided the city into three towns, Wuchang in the south, Hankou in the northeast, and Hanyang in the west. There was a joke about Wuhan’s taxi driver. One day a guy got a taxi in Wuchang and he told the driver he wanted to go somewhere in Hankou, then the taxi driver directly rejected this guy as he didn’t know how to navigate in Hankou, he only drove around in Wuchang! It’s a true story, now you should know how big this city is.
These three towns play different roles in Wuhan’s urban development. Since the westernization movement in the late Qing Dynasty(1861–1895), Hanyang became an industrial center in central China. Hanyang’s Arsenals and steel factories played a very important role in China's military industry. Today Han Yang is a significant automobile manufacturing center in China.
Hankou has a natural advantage to build harbors. The harbor brings ships, businessmen, and tremendous opportunities. With many local businesses evolved, the shops, markets, entertainment centers expanded fast since the late 1800s. It used to be one of the most developed cities during the republican period (1912–1949).
As the concession of a couple of European countries, such as France, the UK, German, Hankou opened its eyes to absorb new ideas and new lifestyles. In today’s Hankou, you can still find many splendid European architectures. Some of them have been transformed into cafes, museums and shopping malls, which added another layer of style to this city.
Although in recent years, the harbors along the Yangtze River are less important than it was in history, Hankou still inherits the commercial gene and becomes the business center of Wuhan.
Wuchang in the south tells a different story. You can guess apart from the industry, commerce, what essentials left for a city? Yes, it’s the education, politic, and culture.
Wuhan has one million university students, yes, one million, and most of the universities are in Wuchang. Wuhan University, one of the top 10 universities in China sits next to East Lake, famous for its cherry flowers and law major.
Wuhan is a city of Punk music. A couple of rock bands started in nightclubs in Wuchang and then became iconic brands in China such as SMZB and Dada. The heatwaves in summer, the passionate young students, and the artistic gene back from history are all reflected in their music.
My favorite song of Dada is Nanfang (South), which is a song about Wuhan. The lyrics talked about the band left Wuhan and went to Beijing to further develop their music career. On a rainy night, they suddenly thought about their hometown. It always makes me cry when I feel homesick:
“It’s always wet there
It’s always soft there
It always has many trivial matters,
It’s always red and blue there”
— — Nanfang, Dada
1 City, and many stories
Although the taxi driver couldn’t navigate on the other side of the city, when the crisis comes, the city has always united as one team.
The rivers and lakes are not only just beautiful water views, every summer the heavy rains and heat bring the flood to this city. While the winter storms also threaten people’s homeland. But every time this city made through these tough challenges.
In 1911, a revolution for ending the feudal dynasty was secretly prepared by a group of pioneers from the Nationalist Party. The flashpoint of the Revolution of 1911 was the Wuchang uprising, which was an armed rebellion that happened in Wuchang on 10 Oct 1911. Led by New Army. The uprising launched an assault on the residence of the Viceroy of Huguang and quickly controlled the city. Following the Wuchang uprising, similar revolts broke out across the country and successfully overthrew China’s last imperial dynasty, the Qing dynasty. It’s an incredible achievement not only for the New Army but also for the wider community in Wuhan who was so brave, so open-minded, and willing to take the risk to support this uprising.
In 2020, when the Covid hit the city, I have seen how tough and strong this city was to combat this deadly virus. From healthcare workers to volunteers, from community officers to local businesses, from police officers to neighbors, everyone worked together, took the initiative, and did the right thing. That’s how this city with 11 million people, over 50,000 cases, and has an extremely high density of population only took 76 days lockdown to contain this pandemic.
Zhang Dingyu, who is the president of Wuhan Jinyintan Hospital, and is also having amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). He is progressively losing muscle strength but he worked day and night during the pandemic even when his wife has diagnosed with Covid. He led his colleagues to treat and save more than 2,800 Covid patients. Mr.Zhang said: “For me, ALS is like a sword hanging in the air. I want to make a contribution with the limited time I have been left. I try to outrun death, save time, and save more patients.”
These sorts of incredible stories happened every day in this city. The war, the flood, the storm, now the virus tried to destroy this city so many times, but the amazing community always stay strong and survived.
I wish the western world should know more about Wuhan before they make any judgment on my hometown. This city, these people, these stories undoubtedly worth the respect from the rest of the world.
Next time when somebody asked me where am I from, I should be very proud to say: “I am from Wuhan, a wonderful city.”
