Art School

During my first week in China, before I was brave enough to take a bus by myself, before I knew how to say the name of my school, I made it my mission to find somewhere I could take art classes. I emailed the foreign affairs department at Wuhan University. They replied immediately and in broken English told me to check out the Hubei Arts Institute. Easy as pie. Or so I thought! There was still one major problem...I don't speak Chinese!
Going places on my own, without a Chinese friend or someone who has a solid grip on the language is always a little exciting and difficult. IT can be frustrating. I admit, my ambition drained when I thought about figuring out how to get to this art school....let alone ask about classes! Sometimes communicating with other people is seamless. Other times I end up questioning why I try to do what I'm not capable of/leave the house at all! In the end, because I don't know much of the language, the majority of my encounters are about trust. I'm not always sure exactly what is going on. Luckily though, there are a lot of friendly people out there. A month passed. With the support of an accomplice, Lillis, I got someone to circle the name of the school on a map. It wasn't until still a month after this that Lillis and I worked up enough courage to hail a cab map in hand. Neither of us had a plan of what to do once we arrived. Luckily we didn't need one
When we were looking around the art supply store attached to the school, a woman grabbed my arm smiled and said "Hello!". Her name was Julia. Turns out that she is a student at the school. We told her that we were interested in classes and before we knew it she was on her cell phone making calls while simultaneously leading us past buildings into the university. She took us to the art building, which we NEVER would have found without her. We met with her teacher, signed up for drawing classes, and agreed to return the following week. No sweat.
Thanks to her bold helpfulness (and her ability to speak some English/her patience with our Chinese), Lillis and I are now signed up for drawing and painting classes once a week for the next ten weeks.