Yichang Fast Facts

And for those of you who don't know...  (heck, I hadn't even heard of the place before I got a job here) , this is Yichang! It's in Hubei province, which is about 700 miles directly inland from Shanghai. Lindsey and I took a bullet train here after orientation and it took 8 hours, which was a super fun way to travel/see the countryside/nurse our 'Shang'-overs from Zapatas the night before.

Yichang  is a small city by China standards, with an urban population of 1,300,000 and area population of about 4,000,000. That's according to the Wiki article though and I've heard a spattering of different figures from people here in Yichang. What they can't seem to stop talking about here is how fast this city is developing. Wuhan is currently the capital city of Hubei, but apparently the government's plan is to make Yichang more of an urban , metro capital city that is more progressive and internationally focused, and Wuhan will turn into more of the industrial capital of Hubei. 

What strikes me the most about this place is the dramatic and sudden contrast between old and new here. They're right up against each other, and often tangled up with each other. And yeah, yeah this is all we read about in our textbooks and nat geo articles and so on, but it's totally true!! I'll post some pictures later of the area around my school, and you will see. It's like a mountain village in which someone just decided to plop a bunch of big apartment buildings right down in the middle. Yes, my apartment and high school are on a mountain. At least that's what they call it here: "Ship Mountain". I honestly thought Daisy (my main coordinator here) said "Shit Mountain" the first time I heard it. That made for some good laughs, and a good first impression. Well done, Kirsten.