Wuhu Tiehua 芜湖铁画 Wuhu Iron Painting

        So it’s been a couple days since I last posted. I think my exhaustion has finally caught up with me so by the time 8 PM rolls around I am very ready for bed!

Last thing I mentioned was about Xi’an. Since then we have travelled via plane to Wuhu, China. The plane ride was about 2 hours long, which compared to the 14-hour flight, felt like by the time we took off we were already landing! I also found that my suitcase was overweight. At this airport the charged something like $5 per 2 kilograms, so no big deal, but I need to get the weight down for the flight home!

So we landed in Nanjing and took a bus to Wuhu. We are staying an Anhui Normal University in a university owned hotel. The room is very nice! Almost like a very high-end dorm. The first evening here we had a cultural exchange with some students from the business school at the university. They were SO excited to meet us. We walked in the room and were greeted with many smiles and applause. We introduced ourselves and heard a bit about the university from one of the professors. We then paired up and discussed American vs. Chinese education… however the conversations quickly turned to other topics.

The girl I was speaking to asked me very quickly if I had a boyfriend. She then asked me if he was strong, haha. She is very tall and said the boys in China are either too short or if they are tall, they are too skinny. So I showed her pictures of home and my family and McDaniel. She is eager to study abroad but in China the students must take some sort of test to be able to apply for studying abroad. But she is so bright and passionate, I wish the best for her in her studies and hope she gets the chance to come to the U.S. I told her she would love it.

The next day, Tuesday June 2nd, we woke up to pouring rain. Our original schedule was to tour the city of Wuhu but with the rain, our plans changed. We did stop and see Misty-Mountain Lake briefly but then headed back to the hotel for lunch. In the afternoon we had our discussion about our research of Wuhu’s Tiehua industry to prepare for the next day’s interviews. Discussion went well. Was nice to talk about economics again and get a better idea of our project now that we are here.

Wednesday our first stop was at the mall to get my camera charger. Of all the things to forget at home, I had forgotten my camera charger! Luckily I was able to get a cheap, if temporary, one yesterday. We then stopped at the bank because some people needed to exchange their money. This seemed to take an unusually long time. Since we’ve started the research portion of the trip, things have seemed to slow down a bit.

Yesterday afternoon we visited our first their factory, Chu’s Tiehua. This is a private owned firm. The owner is master Chu, a woman who used to work at Wuhu Tiehua (the state-owned firm) and now owns her own company. The studio was beautiful and the artwork is indescribable. The interview went well but is timely because we ask the questions in English, Dr Fang translates to Chinese, master Chu responds in Chinese, and Dr Fang translates back to English. All in all we had a very healthy discussion and this story about Wuhu Tiehua is very interesting. The history is complicated and what makes it even more interesting is that it is this ancient art form and a large part of the Chinese culture.

This morning we had another discussion and formulated questions for today’s interview. I think everyone is a getting tired and a bit faded. I know I am! But when we visited Wuhu Tiehua this afternoon, the interview really sparked my interest. It almost feels like a mystery that we are uncovering. I was also realized today that this is such an amazing opportunity to do research in a foreign country and write about this topic that has never been written about! I am looking forward to what sort of final project we will put together.

I was thinking today also that I miss the Great Wall. That was one of the most incredible experiences of my life. I would like to just sit at the top of the wall and spend the day staring out over the world. That is an experience that will stick with my forever. I never really had any intentions of visiting China and no intentions of ever coming back. But I don’t think the Great Wall is something that I will be able to visit only once. I’ll be back….sometime.

Tomorrow we get to actually work on our own Tiehua piece! And tomorrow afternoon we have a tea ceremony and presentation with the Anhui Normal University students. Busy day tomorrow so I am headed to bed! Goodnight for Wuhu (Wooooohooooo!)