We stopped in Wuhan just for three hours at night, to visit the Lute Platform, and listen to traditional Chinese music. But the city is famous for other reasons, see here and here. Besides, it has a great cuisine of its own, which we did not sample.
On our way back to the boat I saw, but could not photograph, flying lanterns: a paper bag is set above a candle, the burning candle fills it with hot air, and the whole contraption rises luminously in the night. Truly beautiful; how come nobody worries about accidentally setting the city on fire?
| | The statue celebrates "understanding music" : the musician and his friend, who could recognize any mood that inspired the music. When the friend died, the musician broke his lute, because nobody could really understand what he played anymore. |
| Playing the guzheng, a large zither. It should induce a peaceful, dreamy feeling – it so happens that I sometimes listen to this music on a disc at home. Not in this case: besides photographing and recording, there was a second tourist group in the same room, listening to a loud explanation about some other instrument. |  |
 | A red lacquered guzheng. |
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Playing the guqin, the simplest zither. The word "gu" in guqin and guzheng means "ancient"; these are traditional instruments, used for
2500 years at least (mentioned by Confucius in 500BC) I should have watched his fingers more carefully: Wikipedia says that the guqin technique is incredibly complicated, with 91 common harmonics, plus... |  |
 | A recreation of the ancients playing the zheng (was not yet gu) |
| People dancing in the street. Most of them were our age, when young they could not dance because of the Cultural Revolution. |  |
We spent three days on board, doing nothing in particular, between Wuhan and the dams. There were some talks, art exhibitions and sales, even a Chinese lesson, but there was no casino, so beloved wife really wilted. One evening, however, there was a show of folk dances of the various minorities of China (there are fifty five, inluding Miao and Yao, which are Hmong). The dancers were our waiters, maids and general members of the crew, but some of them were talented, the costumes fascinating, and the show was a big success.
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| The girl in these scenes is the waitress at our table. She was particularly graceful as a dancer, and a very sweet person altogether. On a completely different subject: can you trust the camera? or the various snapshot manipulation programs? She and her partner obviously wore the same clothes for that dance, but here they show very different colors – and looking reasonably natural, in both photos. | 
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