Reading Manhole Covers

By Luc Pauwels[BE]

Reading Manhole Covers

By Luc Pauwels[BE]

Luc Pauwels is an educator,international school principal and founder of the Wuhan Hidden Talents Writers’Platform

N othing is better than walking if you want to discover the city,as it is fairly easy to move around,stop anywhere,and observe anything your eyes catch.

I felt the urge to leaf through my Cambridge International Dictionary of English for a description of the verb‘walk’—“to move along by putting one foot in front of the other,allowing each foot to touch the ground before lifting the next.”

So,during walking,how many of us look at our feet while moving along, putting one foot in front of the other?And how many of us actually take our time to observe the ground each time we touch it before lifting the next(foot)?

Not many,unless I tell you to actually focus on it,or perhaps if you find yourself in a depressive mood. Back in May 2013,I was going through such a depressive mood, called‘existential depression,’and had decided to walk the streets to divert my mind.

So there I was walking the streets of Wuhan with my head down.It was then that I stumbled onto manhole covers and had begun to develop an interest in their designs.Within days,I had turned my negative energy into a positive vibe,searching the city for manhole covers.Atop the next page are two pictures from the Jiefang Park area in Hankou and examples of the urban heritage treasures hiding right beneath our feet.

Amused by the design and dates on the manhole covers,I frantically began exploring more neighborhoods in Hankou and Wuchang,discovering loads of interesting covers.

After some time my collection included a long list of years,starting from 1966,with most manhole cov-er dates marked in Arabic numerals, although some in Chinese numerals.

For each of these years I assumed that there were plenty of stories, events,anecdotes,and scandals to be uncovered.

So,what was 1966 like?

I enthusiastically searched the internet for events that occurred in 1966.

“1966 was a common year starting on a Saturday of the Gregorian calendar,”Wikipedia informs me.

My curiosity told me to read on:

“January 4:The prime ministers of India and Pakistan meet in Moscow; February 1:West Germany procures some 2,600 political prisoners from East Germany;

March 1:The Ba’ath Party takes power in Syria;

March 29:The 23rd Communist Party Conference is held in the Soviet Union;Leonid Brezhnev announces that Chinese-Soviet relations are not satisfactory;

May 12:Radio Peking claims that U.S.planes have shot down a Chinese plane over Yunnan(the U.S. denies the story the next day);

May 16:The Communist Party of China issues the May 16 Notice, marking the beginning of the Cultural Revolution;

June 17:An Air France personnel strike begins;

July 11:The 1966 FIFA World Cup begins in England;

July 22:The Chinese government declares Dutch delegate G.J.Jongejans persona non grata,but tells him not to leave the country before a group of Chinese engineers has left the Netherlands;

August 22:The Asian Development Bank(ADB)is established;

October 7:The Soviet Union declares that all Chinese students must leave the country before the end of October;

November 24:The Beatles begin recording sessions for their Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band L.P.;

December 15:Walt Disney dies while producing The Jungle Book.”

“What a year,”I thought,“but where are those events and stories of Wuhan in 1966?”

I continued my search on the internet and stumbled onto the Wuhan Municipal Government’s English Website.“The International Yangtze River Crossing Festival became a Wuhan tradition on July 16, 1966,when 73-year-old Chairman Mao swam across the Yangtze River.”

Other website searches on Wuhan-Anno-1966 produced less relevant data,such as“the 2800-mm plate rolling mill was put in operation in 1966 at Wuhan Iron and Steel Group”and“on July 31, 2012 the mid-afternoon temperature for the city of Wuhan was 37.5 degrees,a new record high for this year.The last time this phenomenon was seen was in 1966,46 years ago.”

I realized that English language resources on Wuhan-Anno-1966 are a rarity and decided to call a friend who worked in the media.He was a publisher,an addict of ancient cultures,and a self-declared urban heritage expert.I recounted to him the case of London in the early 19th century,a time when the River Thames was an open sewer with disastrous consequences for public health.I added that towards the end of the 19th century the modern London Sewage System,including the water infrastructure,was being developed,and that it had quickly become a model for modern sewage systems elsewhere in the world.

“What about Wuhan?”I asked him with a grin.“Was the 1966 manhole cover the first round manhole cover ever to be used in Wuhan?”

My friend stood up without replying and disappeared into the adjoining room.Ninety seconds later,he returned.“Here,here,here,”he said loudly as he put one of the big volumes he was carrying on the coffee table in front of me.The front cover read:“A Library of Doctoral Dissertations in Social Sciences in China.”

“Page 241,”my friend started, slowly and well-pronounced,while opening the book to the page where he had put his toothpick as marker. He continued swiftly:“Sixth,the Management of Sanitation and Hygiene.In 1927,the Wuhan municipal government has published the regulations and rules for keeping the city clean.The inspectors will have the responsibility of maintaining public hygiene...The inspectors should supervise on a daily basis commercial as well as residential spaces assuring that booth owners, fruit,and nut sellers put out a bin or basket to collect the garbage.Offenders shall be punished.”

“A clear-cut policy on hygiene and sanitation,”I commented dryly.

“Indeed,”my friend replied.“The city of Wuhan,first termed as such in 1927,was created through a merger of Wuchang,Hankou,and Hanyang.And remember that in that period Wuhan was the national capital of the leftist Kuomintang (KMT)led by Wang Jingwei in opposition to Chiang Kai-shek.It was in Wuhan that Wang closely worked together with the communists, declaring Wuhan the capital of the Republic.”

The Republic,however,was a failure,mainly due to the opposition of Chiang Kai-Shek.

I felt the urge to interrupt my friend.“My manholes!What about my 1966 manhole cover?”

My friend,undisturbed,continued narrating facts and figures on the early years of Wuhan’s urban sanitation management(1927-1929)as well as on the construction of an urban sewage system from 1931 till 1935.

As I looked through the pages, it suddenly got dark in front of my eyes;as I was absorbing too much relevant data and pictures,all in Chinese—academic Chinese.I faintly smiled at my media friend and asked,“Can I take pictures of these pages?”He gave me a simple nod of agreement.

Minutes later and feeling a bit dizzy,I excused myself and left his office.I needed time to digest all this research data,and a friend who can translate the pages into proper English.

A week passed and I had not come to understand all the research I went through.Little or nothing had been written on sewage systems and manholes from the period after 1935.Furthermore,talking to my trusted and erudite friends had not yielded any more valuable data.

In my opinion,China had been too occupied battling the Japanese and Kuomintang till 1949.In the following 15 years,China had kept itself busy by building up the Communist system.Then around 1965 the Chinese government began feeling the urge to modernize the country and to start competing with the West.In my eyes,the round manhole cover of 1966 was just one sign of that development.

Last year,the 1966 manhole cover—a relic—had already been removed,as well as a 1967 manhole cover.They were all replaced by nondescript manhole covers.

In our minds,the 1966 manhole cover relic will continue to survive and to exist,I told myself.