Real vs. Fake

There comes a time in a person’s life when they will have to determine what is real from what is fake.  Here are a few examples.

Real pearls, when crushed and ground will become a fine white powder regardless of the color on the outside.  This is because, while other minerals give pearls their color, they are still primarily made up of calcium.

Real silk will smell like burning hair when you light it on fire.  And like real hair, real silk should be washed with shampoo.  I have tried this and it is true, but I don’t recommend setting all your silk clothes, or anyone elses, on fire.  If you are going to try this at home do so in a safe location.

Lastly, real taxis have to be found.  They can be found by employing one or more of the following methods; waving, shouting, jumping, standing in the street or standing in a line at the airport.  Real taxi drivers will not get out of their car to come find you.  If someone approaches you claiming to be a taxi driver consider your options carefully before you get into a car with them.  Additionally, in China real taxi license plates start with the letter B.

No Tickets Necessary

I am in this hotel in Beijing, good price, great location, and not far from a central subway line. Behind the hotel is a field, not just an open field but a highly active sports field. At 7:30 in the morning, after my neighbor’s cacophony of “suffering” and heaving from the previous night’s baijiu fueled adventures finally stops, the games begin. Music, dancing, marching and cheering it’s like there is some sort of junior Olympics preliminaries. One day there was some sort of opening ceremony, which involved lots of music and something to the tune of the Super Mario Brothers theme song. On the second day there was a shorter ceremony and a track meet. The announcer was literally maybe 50 feet away from the front door of my room and by 11:30 in the morning it was all over and the field was empty.

In the afternoon there is often soccer and sometimes flag football. When selecting this hotel I had no idea that a prime view for watching sports was complimentary.

Small Victories

It is important to count the small victories when traveling. Some days have more of them than others.

I had the opportunity to take the Maglev (which stands for magnetic levitation) train to the airport, it is the only one of its type, in the world, and it is located in Shanghai. It travels about 300km/hr and can get you to the PuDong airport in about 7 minutes.

Allow me to take a moment to stress the importance of going to the correct airport to catch ones flight. Having found myself at the wrong airport in Shanghai the practical option was to go to the correct airport and try to get a different flight. At this point I was very grateful to have someone who spoke Chinese with me to navigate this situation. Without it I am sure there would have been a lot of panic and a crying episode in the middle of the airport, which, from what I have seen, doesn’t seem to be uncommon while at the airport. Everything worked out nicely though, as I was easily booked for a flight later that morning. My slightly overweight (depending upon whose scale you use) luggage was checked with no problem and to top it all off I the airline served a full meal on a 2 hour flight and it was decent. This is unheard of and I was pleasantly surprised.

Having made it to the correct city, finding the correct train, and taking the correct subway to the right stop to go to my hotel I only had a very minor meltdown when I temporarily couldn’t find my hotel right away.

With this all behind me my favorite small victory of the day was ordering my dinner entirely in Chinese (without any help) and getting exactly what I wanted. So a toast, to small victories!

Sister Su Zhou

This gallery contains 7 photos.

The sky has heaven and the earth has Su Zhou the Venice of the East or the phrase goes something like that. There are 4 distinct and unique things that Su Zhou is known for: gardens, waterways, pearls and silk. Our tour guide said it is a city for the ladies and in Su Zhou […]

On the Road Again

Should you ever find yourself in a place that has massage therapy offered by strictly blind practitioners I suggest you get yourself a massage. I have heard many of the reviews from my travel companions on the reflexology and tuina here in Nanjing ranging from great, to not very relaxing to therapeutic (meaning somewhat painful at times but good). I confess to be pretty picky about my massage but when I found the blind massage center, curiosity overrode picky, and on my last night here in Nanjing I got a massage from a blind guy. In many places massage and acupuncture are typical careers for the blind and I can assure you after today that they are very well suited for their work. One thing to note, pointing at something to ask for it has limited usefulness when asking someone who is blind. However, the women at the front desk, was able to help us, with limited struggle, and I vowed for the 800th time to improve my Chinese. Within minutes we were face down with visually acute hands on our necks. Just like we wanted. Within the hour every joint was massaged, stretched and adjusted in some way. I agree, that it could have been more relaxing as I went with one of my travel companions and our massage therapists chatted back and forth with each other (this is not atypical in China). As long as someone is rubbing my neck I don’t care.

Having made it through four weeks of internship in China we have expanded our experience and greatly increased our patient contacts. Having the opportunity to see Chinese Medicine exclusively and in combination with other modalities. I think we are all very grateful to observe such experienced, kind, caring and thoughtful practitioners.

Tomorrow we depart from our hotel away from home in Nanjing and head to Su Zhou which is famous for urban gardens, waterways and silk. Then we are off to Shanghai where the school part of the trip comes to an end and I head up to Beijing.

Same Day Service

One thing that continues to impress me on a near daily basis is the access that seemingly regular people have to medical imaging and labs. Any given day the doctor will interview a patient and prior to dispensing anything will send them down to go get a chest x-ray, abdominal ultrasound, brain scan or blood work and return to the very same doctor, on the same day, (or the next day if it is the evening) to finish the appointment. Just this morning the doctor sent a man for a brain scan and about 2 hours later him and his wife returned pictures and report in hand. I tried to explain to the interpreter the jaw dropping awe that overcomes us foreign interns when we see a person return, the same day, with their imaging and reports. All she had to say was; yes, it is very quick here.

For the Birds

This gallery contains 5 photos.

It appears that the people of Nanjing love their pets. The most popular dog seems to be the small brown poodle although there are many types of fluffy dogs too. The dogs are typically very well behaved and off leash unless they are very young or excessively energetic. Dogs seem to enjoy their freedoms and […]

No Wonder Your Waiter Hates You

This is a gross one folks. Consider yourself warned.

I have definitely been guilty of complaining about my various jobs waiting tables. Yet nothing prepared me for what I have seen here. People who wait tables don’t get tipped and will even look at you funny if you leave too much money. Now there are some exceptions to this but they usually involve a service charge added into the price and you don’t know who actually receives the money. You get what you pay for and when the waiter doesn’t take tips they effectively reserve the right to attend to you at their leisure, disappear, ignore you, and any number of other things (I also slightly envy their ability to do this). Generally speaking, if you show up with friends a number of times this type of situation can sometimes improve.

So we are at this jazz bar listening to an actual jazz band doing a mix of songs some of which were familiar. They were great, it was busy, and people are eating and drinking and having a good time. The band finishes up and a few tables clear out. Apparently the custom when eating chicken wings, or duck wings, or whatever bird they are is to serve them on skewers and throw the skewers and bones on the floor or leave them on the table. Not on the plate, on the table. Now I don’t think this applies to every place but it seems to be consistent with certain types of places. My inner food server trembles with horror on a fairly consistent basis.

So we are watching this waiter, who doesn’t get tipped, clean up the table and floor of the people that left. This isn’t just a couple of things. There were all kinds of stuff, skewers, bones, cigarettes, straws, napkins etc. It is a medium sized garbage can full of grossness. No wonder you have to flag someone, sometimes 2-3 times to take your order, bring the check, and do any number of things like refill beverages or bring napkins. You are just a mess to clean up after.

On the way out, we made the questionable decision to use the bathroom. I should point out that I have been joking that someone will land in the toilet if they aren’t careful because the floor is always wet. This bathroom was no exception but with one addition as it was Friday night and a little bit late it looked as if someone had already had too much and made a poor estimation of how close they were to the toilet. Remember that this is a squatting toilet and imbedded into the floor. Of course this would be the time that my foot slips and my hand touches the ground. At this point I am eternally grateful that my clothes, bag and everything else was spared. Nothing else touched the ground and I count it as a small victory.

So I take my contaminated hand to the sink, which by the way is not with the rest of the bathroom but out the door. To make matters worse there is someone gagging over the sink, which I so desperately need to use. This seems unreal. Fortunately, he realizes that the (one and only) bathroom is now available but now I am terrified of using the sink. The same floor-cleaning waiter appears out of nowhere, runs some water in the sink and the sink is now usable and has SOAP. Feeling like it is my lucky day because my clothes were spared and my hands are clean. Order in my strange little world has been restored. We disembark and I explain the turn of events over the past 3 minutes and wonder if using bleach on my hand would be appropriate.

Take Two of These and… Get Out of Here

Wednesday is the day we have afternoon lectures. The lecture this week was on classical formulas and the constitution types of people they treat. This was fascinating. During the break one of my colleagues asked the doctor what would be an appropriate formula for her. He felt her pulse looked at her tongue and poked her in the stomach a couple of times and told her. I inadvertently became the next unsuspecting volunteer for this particular diagnosis. After the same analysis and a strong prod in what I believe to be my dismayed gallbladder, he told me my formula. Additionally, he told me, I should travel more, drink jasmine and rose tea with lemon and listen to soft music. This was great news I am totally on board with this advice. Perhaps I can get a doctors note and a prescription for travel. I can handle some soft music and some flower teas. That night I even tried to follow my new prescription and settled with some rose tea, instead of soft music I watched men’s gymnastics in my hotel room.

Huang Shan Revisited

My original intention was to write a lovely post with pictures about the chaotic, magical, treacherous and beautiful Yellow Mountain.  However, on Saturday night I found myself unable to log into my blog or view anyone else’s blog.  Sometimes the internet behaves funny here but it has been several days and I feel personally censored. I have been told that this sometimes happens and I should keep checking back because these things can change.  So you will have to wait for pictures of Yellow Mountain or anything else until I reach a different internet climate.

The group and I fell into somewhat of a collective slump after our adventures on the mountain.  Some of us found ourselves eating potato chips, ice cream and chocolate and drinking coca cola to ease our internet woes and language barriers.  After a few familiar flavors we seem to be back on track.

We are in the first week of our second clinic rotation, which is a mix of writing herbs down at lightning speed and answering slightly awkward questions about learning Chinese Medicine without being fluent in Chinese and the significant differences in the educational process and the healthcare process.

With that said my Chinese comprehension is improving.  So much of the language is context based and there are so many sounds and dialects that I probably won’t be able to eves drop on any conversations in the near future.  It might be why, when people want to hear what you are saying here they will just stand next to you and listen.