Hitting Close to Home: Brother of Stone Harbor Mayor Teaches at Wuhan U.
Chris Davies is surrounded by his students on Dec. 26, the last time the class met before winter break.
For Avalon native Chris Davies, this is the year of the long shot, and maybe one for the ages.
What were the odds that the brother of Stone Harbor mayor Judith Davies-Dunhour would become immersed in the world’s biggest story, unfolding daily in Wuhan, China this winter? What was the likelihood that his plight would connect to the epicenter of the coronavirus origin, roughly 7,600 miles from the 2139 Ocean Drive home where he grew up?
And what was the chance that a random, unrelated decision in January would pull him away from his current home in Wuhan, just before the virus went mainstream and brought the world’s focus there?
This is a long shot, multiplied by a long shot.
At press time, Davies was in Haikou in the Hainan Province, referred to as China’s Hawaii, several hours from Wuhan. It was there, where he has been since Jan. 8, that Davies spoke to the Seven Mile Times by phone. He expected a May 9
return to the Wuhan University of Science and Technology City College, where he teaches the English language. Davies began teaching classes remotely from Haikou in April.
Even if all went as planned, Davies would have spent four months away from Wuhan, not just one as he’d hoped.
Davies has been in the ironic position of trying to get back into a city in which people were not allowed to leave for more than two months.
How did this happen?
“Every university in China has a long winter break,” he says. “It’s one reason many foreign teachers would rate university jobs as the best here even though they don’t pay nearly the highest salaries.
“My school’s fall semester ended for me on Dec. 29, when I finished giving final exams. I had nothing until Feb. 17, when the spring semester was scheduled to begin.”
A friend invited Davies to spend a month in Haikou. He booked a flight there from Wuhan on Jan. 8 with a return of Feb. 11.
And then came the chaos.
Wuhan was locked down on Jan. 22 because of the virus. Davies was not allowed to get back there and could not rent an apartment for short-term use in Haikou because he was viewed as a Wuhan resident. Even inside of China, Wuhan carried a stigma.
But it was inside Wuhan, just before he left, that Davies played a hunch he values now.
“On Jan. 8, I made what very well might have been a fateful decision,” he says. “I hired a Didi to get to the Wuhan airport. Didi is China’s Uber. At that time, the virus was a murmur kicking around the Internet, but the story had yet to reach China’s mainstream media.
“One of my friends had mentioned it to me at least a week before. He – as it turns out, accurately – predicted it would become a big deal, but I’ll admit to not paying much attention to it at the time.
“About a mile from my school there’s a subway station. At first, I thought I’d take the subway to the airport. It’s a roughly hour-and-a-half ride. And almost always packed with people.
“In China, ‘packed’ means ‘you can barely turn around comfortably’ packed, especially with a bag on your back and another in your hand. So, I got a Didi. Who knows how many of those folks I’d have been pressed up against in the subway were carrying the virus?
“That decision may have saved my life. If I had ridden that subway, I am almost certain I would have contracted the virus.”
Davies instead viewed the Wuhan saga remotely. He communicated with his students trapped in the lockdown, receiving first-hand accounts of their reality.
“Mind-numbing boredom,” he says. “That’s what they told me they were going through. My students complained about that, as the government really enforced this. The government was very, very strict. There were no exceptions, not even to get out and exercise. You don’t leave your buildings.
“The Chinese are remarkable in that they are very good at quickly organizing things in big groups,” he adds. “They put together a system in which certain delivery people were deputized. They were given permission to bring stuff to your building.
“The building’s residents would order [groceries, etc.] collectively. There was one truck, and people would give the delivery person all of their orders. The person would get that, come back and leave it outside the door for you to go and get it.
“People outside of China are suspicious of reported virus numbers that are so low, but this is why. China did not play around. They told people to stay home and the people did.”
Davies says Wuhan was shut down 76 days and warns against a premature reopening here, even while sympathizing with business owners.
Davies’ recent experience is unusual, but his China presence is not. He’s had three stints there – from 2001-04, 2006-14, and April 2018 until now. Davies said he has lived in perhaps 10 Chinese cities, mostly in Guangdong Province.
Davies loves China so much he might never return here. He needs yearly residency permit renewals to remain in the country.
These are some of his observations about China: Professors like himself don’t talk politics. People don’t insult President Xi Jinping.
“You just don’t joke about the president, not at all,” he says. “The people here are horrified that we would say the things we do about our president. The Chinese people just have a respect for authority that Americans are not raised to have.”
Wuhan’s population of 11 million is more than New York City’s, but it’s not even one of the biggest cities in China, which has roughly 1.4 billion people.
Wuhan is mispronounced on nightly television broadcasts throughout the world, he contends. The “W” is not pronounced.
The pronunciation is closer to Oo-han. “So, it sounds like the ‘oo’ in fool and tool,” Davies says.
There really are no suburbs around big cities he’s seen. One can bicycle from high-rise apartment buildings to a rural area in minutes, a good scenario for bringing home fresh vegetables.
Davies says there are 100 cities with more than 1 million people, and perhaps 100 Chinese languages. Most are local.
Another note about size: There is a primary school, 400 yards from where he is staying in Haikou, that is seven stories tall.
People in China love the NBA and its late legend, Kobe Bryant.
Davies nearly did not reach China the first time. He flew there on Sept. 9, 2001. Two days later came 9-11, which he witnessed on Chinese television. Had Davies planned a later visit to China, he might have reconsidered or not been allowed to go.
Davies, who turns 60 on May 31, has enjoyed a diverse life. “Check my resume,” he says with a laugh. “It’s a mess.”
It’s the map of a traveler. Taught at South Brunswick and Pleasantville high schools. Worked for the New Jersey Department of Corrections. Managed a Wawa and a Burger King. Worked for three years in the Atlantic City casino industry. Worked in several American states. He also had a teaching position in Avalon.
The best job, hands down? Working for the Avalon Beach Patrol in the mid-1980s.
Throughout his life, Davies gets the urge to move and just does it. Perhaps that springs from the “restless soul” personality he says one South Brunswick student used to describe him.
Davies has cavorted throughout China but says he was back here to witness his sister becoming the Stone Harbor mayor in 2017. He has journeyed thousands of miles and at times been more comfortable in China than in Lincoln, Neb.
He has scoured the globe for years, looking to find his life story.
And, ironically, the biggest one in the world found him this year.
“Maybe it’s destiny,” he laughs. “My uncle had read a magazine story in 1960 saying that one in every four newborns was going to be Chinese. I was the fourth child [of seven] in my family. On the day I was born, my uncle told my mother that I was Chinese.”
Maybe he knew something.
