By dint of Chinese Web searches, I ended up finding the address of one of the associations of Wuhan Chinese spinning top players; an information that I keep with me on my new trip in the capital of Hubei province and that I intend to check.
Through Baidu (Chinese Google) I locate the place without problem; moreover the place seems to be reachable by metro, I start without hesitation. I do not know if this address is still valid, or if there will be someone on the spot but with my practice of the Chinese who remains rudimentary I prefer to try the head to head rather than a phone call which I may not understand the essential. I can already imagine a small room in a building from suburbs, with a secretary killing time strumming on his smartphone… And of course, the reality has nothing to do.
As a precaution, I printed out the name and address of the association and lets go. When you are foreigner and does not read Chinese, taking the metro in China is much less complicated than taking the bus; in Beijing, Guangzhou, Wuhan or elsewhere, the names of the stations are transcribed in English and trains ads are made in Chinese and English. Then, if you know the name of the station where you must stop, it is no problem.
Therefore, after taking the metro to Dazhe Lu, I find myself half an hour later Wuhan Dadao, in the western suburb of Wuhan. From there, as I saw on the map, I must take the avenue on the right leaving the metro to join Dongwu Dadao, where is located the headquarters of the association. The neighborhood looks like thousand others, with smartphones shops, restaurants and a new shopping center that prepares its opening and if I had no plan in mind, I wouldn’t be able to tell where I am. But Baidu plan does not lie and after 10 minutes of walking I fall on Dongwu Dadao, an avenue in which I undertake search number 948.
948 Dongwu Dadao
948 Avenue Dongwu is a pathway leading to a group of worn buildings inside the block. At the entrance of the yard, a kind of lean-to is the grocery-snack bar and in front of it a middle-aged woman sits at a rickety table. It is without doubt ‘supervisor of the place’, an informal function inherited from the revolution still found in some old districts. I show her the name of the association on the paper sheet that I have printed and ask her if it is here. She nods and shows me a two storey building at the end of the passage. It looks like indeed to a community local with a large wood painted sign which I can’t decrypt the inscription. I push a first door to enter in an empty room, then a second through which I can see a few people gathered around a table. They are actually a dozen and playing Mah-Jongg, a typical Chinese game that has nothing to do with the games of the chopsticks known in France.
“Ni zidao zhege difang ma? ” Do you know this place? I ask the question showing my sheet of paper. The nearest man to me released unfold his glasses and decrypts the printed address. He answers me that Yes and invites me to follow him outside the room. He stops at the entrance of a building and asks me to wait for him here.
Three minutes later, I see coming from the back of the yard a guy that hails me: ‘ what do you want? ” It is a stocky man, in his 60s, wearing an old sweater and a used jacket. This is Zhang FuTang, the association’s president (Finally, I imagine). I told him that I came to Wuhan to play Chinese spinning top and I’m looking for information. In a rough Chinese, I asked him if he knows in which areas people play spinning top, if there are specialized shops in Wuhan and I explain that I would like to ses a spinning top competition. After this speech, one of the longest I ever held in Chinese, the man nods, he seems to have understood. I follow him in his office located above the room where I met Mah-jong players.
As I felt since my arrival, I was wrong down the line; no secretary spending time strumming on his smartphone, but a workshop with a nice mess: steel gryos stored in bulk, sticks of 2 meters hanging from a rack and bench littered with mechanical parts. Zhang Fu Tang asks me: ‘ you want to buy a spinning top? He takes from a canvas bag a big top in better condition than those lying on the floor. I Ask him the weight. «10 kg.» It is too heavy for me. Shows me a smaller. «And this one?». « 8 kg ». Still too heavy. He then shows me a 6 kg woodden spinning top which has already lived. Finally, fearing to forget the main purpose of my visit, I talk again about tops competitions. “Come tomorrow here at 7 o’clock. ” It takes me a while to understand firstly that it is not 7 o’clock in the evening but 7 o’clock in the morning, then that it is not a competition but a training session. I declined his offer; the next day at this hour, I’ll be at Yanjiang Park and as it is my last day in Wuhan, I can’t miss this appointment.
I give him my business card with my QQ number and ask for his phone number. Apparently, he doesn’t know it by heart and we come back to the grocery-snack bar at the entrance to the yard to retrieve this information. He notes it on a piece of paper and I also ask him to write his name. Meanwhile, the news that a “waiguo ren” (stranger) is there toured the yard and half a dozen women crowded around us. I am asked where I come from; I show some photos and then take a picture of Zhang Fu Tang religiously holding my business card as if it were a relic. I repeat him once again: “you call me when there is a Chinese spinning top competition!” and I leave. On the way back, I realize that I forgot to ask him half of what I had planned. But now that I know the address and get his phone number, I can always call back later.