A year in China

With the doors slammed shut we were off, our driver navigating the way from the sprawling metropolis of Shanghai through a myriad of raised highways which would eventually lead us to our new home town of Wuxi. Sitting back I tried to take in my surroundings, to get a sense of this new country and how it worked. In every direction was movement, from the lanes of speeding traffic to the narrow alleys and streets below. Raised up on either side of the highway was row upon row of apartment buildings, seemingly reaching into the smog and through to the sky. In between buildings, on any available patch of land, were compact fields tended to by lone farmers, their tranquillity at odds with the movement surrounding them. Construction was everywhere, with piles of rubble gathered at the edges of the streets. On first glance the sheer volume of China threatened to overwhelm, leaving me to wonder whether we would ever find a moment of peace in this country.

The trip would take close to three hours, in which time we passed the same scenes as though on repeat. Endless buildings and people, that all looked identical to our foreign eyes. Asking the driver what town we were driving through, his response surprised me - “We are still in Shanghai!” - even though we had been driving at a solid pace for more than an hour. We had expected the suburbs to slowly decrease, leaving in their wake peaceful greenery and fields, images so well known as the Chinese countryside. But there was no difference, no end, from one place to the next, just more of the same. Eventually our driver turned back to us and announced “Now we are in Wuxi”. My heart sank as we pulled off the highway and passed through the streets. Wuxi was the exact replica of all that had come before it, industrial looking and with a heavy layer of smog obscuring most of the environment.

Night was falling as we drove further from the highway and deeper into the local suburb. From the car we glimpsed our first signs of daily life; small food carts at intersections selling noodles, scooters transporting whole families, school children making their way home. Men chatted on the street, their breath visible in the winter air. In every direction were the sights that would slowly become everyday reference points, I wondered how many of these people we’d interact with as the weeks turned into months. The chaos of the highway continued on the streets, with vehicles deftly veering from lane to lane, narrowly avoiding each other and leaving us to grip our seats in a perpetual state of fear. As if sensing our arrival, fireworks exploded in vivid colours against the dark sky, distracting us from the end of our journey. Before we felt properly prepared, the car arrived at the imposing gates of the school.

Our year in the Land of Red was about to begin.