mulan lake

***This is Duffy writing, not Kate***

The weekend before Kate and I went to Phoenix, our students told us, on Sunday night, that there were no classes Tuesday and wondered if we could go with them on a spring outing to Mulan Lake, which is about 2 hours from Wuhan. After confirming that this was a school event and not just a way to play hookey, we agree and Tuesday morning, instead of preparing to teach for 8 hours, we were both getting on a bus at 730 am.

Mulan Lake is near Mulan Mountain, both of which are in Hubei, near Mulan’s hometown. For those of you who haven’t seen the Disney movie, Mulan is the story of a girl who steals her father’s armor and pretends to be him after the emperor drafts one man from each family into the army. The girl’s parents don’t discover the truth until it is too late, and Mulan serves bravely for 10 years in the army, without it being discovered that she is a woman. She rises to the rank of general, and as a reward for her service, the emperor says he will give her anything she wants. She chooses to go home to Hubei, where she takes off her armor and returns to the life of a traditional Chinese woman. Later, her comrades are shocked to discover that their hero is a woman.

The first thing we saw when we got to Mulan Lake was . . . rain. It had started to rain about 5 minutes before we got there and would continue to rain off and on all day. Somehow, it seemed we were the only ones who didn’t bring a disposable poncho. It took us about ten minutes to locate the man who was selling them and we bought 2 for 4 RMB each. About 10 seconds later, one of the students came running over and asked how much we had paid. We told him, and he quickly turned and demanded that the salesman give us back 2 RMB, since we had apparently been taken for all of 25 cents. However, the salesman quickly agreed and, despite our objections, refunded us 2 RMB. It was nice that the students protected us, but a little embarrassing.

Immediately after entering the park, there is a large pond at the bottom of a hill with a statue of the famous cross-dressing general. Right behind this pond is a series of trails, bridges, paths and small waterfalls that go up into the hills. There is a path to the top that follows a small river that flows over large rocks most of the way. It was really fun to be there on a rainy day. The mist added a kind of mystery to the place. The weather made the landscape seem very much like a set from a medieval movie. Much like in Phoenix, it was nice to see the beautiful, natural scenery that you see so much in Chinese artwork.

There was also a distinctly manmade feel to the area. The paths were laid out, the wilderness looked trimmed and well kept, there were steps carved into the rocks, and even the thorns on the plants had been dulled. The influence of people became most apparent at the top of the hill. There was a reservoir at the top of the trails that was held in place by an earthen damn. There was a food court, walking paths, pavilions, a newly constructed but not yet flooded riverbed, boats for rent, and a zip line. The students had warned us not to take a boat ride because we would be taken to the other side of the lake and forced to buy an expensive lunch there before we were brought back, so Kate and I decided to explore the dry riverbed and rest on a pavilion near the end of the zip line while some of the students went to get in line to go across the lake on it. The riverbed was fascinating. It was at least 20 feet wide and about 7 feet deep and was made of stone tiles. There was a worker putting up a net, so I guess there must have been fish in the lake that they wanted to keep there. This reservoir was not very large, and it looked like the river would drain it relatively quickly, so maybe Mulan Lake is about to become Mulan Puddle. Yet another item on the list of things that don’t make sense here. The students had a lot of fun on the zip line. They went for about 100 yards over the water before being caught by a workman at the other end. There was only one minor injury, a boy hit his shin on one of the poles holding the end of the line, but he was kicking and showing off, so he kind of earned it.

The walk to the top of the mountain took about 3 hours, and the hike down took about half an hour, so you can imagine how steep it was. The steps were about half as wide as my foot was long, so it was a little tense, especially since it was literally a half-hour-long walk down a staircase. I don’t know if you’ve ever gone down stairs that long, but it is tough.

Once we were down the hill and back on the bus, we thought we would be back pretty quickly. Until our bus ran into a 1 hour and 30 minute, dead-stop traffic jam. There were about 80 dump trucks that had all stopped at this toll booth for some reason and they were not moving and no one but foot traffic and three-wheel carts could get through. Finally the police came and cleared some lanes and we were back on our way to Wuhan to end a cold, wet day with a nice warm meal of hot pot.