The Wuhan way

Jul 26 2008 by Hilarie Stelfox, Huddersfield Daily Examiner

FIRSTBORN will, hopefully, be back in the fold by the time the Beijing Olympics begin on the 8th of the 8th.

He’s currently in Shanghai, sampling the delights of this most Westernised of Chinese cities.

On Wednesday he’ll pass briefly through Beijing on his way home, but isn’t planning to stay there because hotels have hiked their prices up in anticipation of being able to fleece the Olympic tourists.

Shanghai, he said in an email this week, “could be London, except the streets are wider’’. His favourite place so far is Wuhan; a city of some 9m-plus people (more than Greater London) and the most heavily populated conurbation in China. I’m ashamed to say that I’d only vaguely heard of it before Firstborn made it one of his destinations.

Since he left for China three weeks ago I’ve been collecting his emails with the notion that I might put them together as a memento of his travels. It’s the sort of thing that mothers do.

The first missive, from Xi’an, was a most entertaining read about his two favourite holiday pastimes, haggling and eating.

Haggling is an art form that can be fully explored in China, where so many Western goods are made – and copied. Firstborn says there are what he calls ‘fake’ markets and shops where people can buy everything from Rolex watches and iPods to Versace shirts and Converse shoes, although the shoes he brought back last year had Conoversra written on them. Needless to say they were threadbare and through in the soles within a month.

On his first trip to China, at the age of 15, The Boy was instructed by a friendly Chinese tour guide in how to strike a bargain. He took to it like a duck to hoisin sauce and, since then, has polished up his Mandarin to give him the edge over fellow Westerners.

He has also learned how not to take the haggling too far. One street trader on a previous visit was clearly so insulted by his refusal to buy at her prices that she slapped him.

It’s an anecdote that he is strangely proud to recount.

Exactly why he enjoys the cut and thrust of bargaining is something of a mystery as I can’t believe it’s really worth the trouble to spend 20 minutes haggling over 10 yuan, which works out at less than £1. But that’s teenagers for you.

The eating is less of a mystery as Firstborn has always been fond of his food. When he was a few months old – and looked like he’d been puffed up with a bicycle pump – our GP said he would have a weight problem when he grew up.

He’d become so chubby that he’d dropped off the top end of the chart that was logging his growth. In fact, he’s now 6ft tall and as lean as a chopstick.

But he could eat for England and, in fact, is currently doing just that. From Beijing hotpot and Lamb Pao Mo in Xi’an to chilli paste with everything in Chengdu his has been a culinary tour of China.

The food in Sichuan province, which had been much anticipated, turned out to be too hot, even for him. In fact, two of their party, including a Beijing native, wound up with chilli-induced intestinal problems.

But the food in Wuhan exceeded all expectations.

His journey of discovery has been shared with those of us at home through the wonders of the internet. If we had to rely on letters and postcards we’d still be waiting for the first.