Some magazines are put at a corner of the coffee house for reading

(english.cnhubei.com) Li Wei is a junior student from Wuhan University of Technology in central China’s Hubei Province. Every Tuesday and Thursday, she goes to Mr. Mai’s coffee house, not for relaxing only but for practicing English.

“I can find many foreigners here, most of who are teachers in nearby universities. They practice English with me from which I gained a lot”, Li said.

Mr. Mai’s coffee house and Foreign Language Club, opened on September 18, 2003, is located opposite to Wuhan University of Technology and surrounded by 17 universities.

The cafe provides typical American food, coffee, milk tea, cookies, etc. and waiters speak English to customers. 

The owner of the coffee house, David Mcnabb, is an American who came to Wuhan in 1999 and speaks quite good Chinese now. David worked for a charity in Hong Kong for three years before he came to Wuhan. Hubei was hit by a big flood in 1998 and David came for assistance. Attracted by Wuhan, the provincial capital, he decided to settle down.

“When I firstly arrived in Wuhan, I planned to open a training center. Later I found out that there are too many training centers in the city, but people here still can not speak out English. Then I decided, instead of opening a training center, to open a language environment,” David told us when talking out the reason he opened a café for local people to practice English.

The original customers of the café were mainly students, but government officials, business people also make a large proportion of customers.

Barry, David’s friend and partner, told us that the café didn’t earn profits at present. “But I have confidence that it will earn money in two years’ time.” David said.

He plans that if one day he starts to earn profit, he will use the money to help poor people to improve their life.

“I earned much when I was in US, but I want to do something meaningful and make my life more valuable”, he added.

David has a son who is now studying in a University in America and a daughter now in Wuhan. His family supports him and his café.