It is 2:30 a.m. and I was jolted awake in our hotel room 30 minutes ago by the harsh and strident ringing of our telephone. When I answered, I was greeted by what seemed to be an angry Chinese man. Not understanding a word he was saying, I loudly stated, “I DON”T SPEAK CHINESE”, and then hung up. For some reason he was not satisfied with my answer, however - perhaps he understood me as much as I understood him? - and has called back twice.

After leaving tropical Guangzhou, we excitedly hopped on a plane yesterday to Wuhan where we will meet our son. We knew it would be colder here and so we donned jackets, but we arrived to a cold, dark and grey city where it was 3 degrees centigrade and drizzling rain. I hoped this was not foreshadowing of events to come but the phone calls tonight only seemed to match the mood of the darkness outside.

In the desire to save a few pennies while traveling with 6 people, I had decided to stay at a 3 star hotel in Wuhan, reasoning that it looked fine from the photos and trip reviews on the internet. After all, if we had just left a 4 star hotel which was beautiful, wouldn’t a 3 star suffice but just be a little less grand?

Upon arrival, however, we found that virtually no one spoke more than 2 words of English, the lobby was suffocating with cigarette smoke, and they had no adjoining rooms. When we asked for non-smoking rooms, the reply was, “All of our rooms are of superior quality.” Was that a face saving reply of “We cannot meet your needs so we will not answer your request directly?”

Our guide, Sasha, went far beyond the second mile as she argued with the front desk in an attempt to satisfy our requests. When they insisted there were no adjoining rooms, she reached across the counter and grabbed the flat-screen monitor, turning it to where she could view the available rooms herself. Although her English is nowhere near as fluent as our guide’s was in Guangzhou, her desire to go to bat for us in giving us the best service she could offer was apparent. Thanks to her efforts, we did receive at least one room upgrade to a triple room that is twice the size of the second room we were given. It is more of a suite with a computer included as part of the room, but it was rather brisk inside since they had not yet turned on the heat.

Continued...