Wind: friend or foe?

Exam room 401 is not what you would call large. And considering that two desks, two treatment carts, two cabinets, six patient beds, six roasting lamps, six moxabustion machines and countless other treatment apparatuses are placed about the room, there's not a whole lot of room for the two doctors, three visitings docs, four rotating students, and three foreign misfits to stand while we rush patients in and out for treatment.

On a seemingly unrelated note, deoderant is quite difficult to find here in Beijing. I've only had success in foreign import stores located near the embassies.

Now, add the first two paragraphs together, and you will understand my pain as the temperatures in Beijing continue to rise. I genuinely fear the upcoming summer. The natural answer to this problem would be to open a window - simple, cost-effective, easy, right?

You would never guess that the same breeze that cuts the staleness and odors of a room also brings diseases such as stroke and facial paralysis. To "受风" is to be

什么？ oops, uh, say again?

As our school's International Department is quite large, it's not uncommon to hear four or more languages being spoken in a hallway or even a single exam room at the hospital. However, this week probably tops them all with the arrival of visiting docs from Italy who speak extremely limited English at best. To deal with the communication difficulties caused by the aforementioned situation, I and fellow student from Mexico have been solicited to translate for the doctors because Spanish and Italian are similar.

Similar, yes; the same, no. We speak Spanish to them (well, I mumble through forgotten Spanish with Chinese words slipped in) and they speak Italian back to us. Here's a verbatim excerpt from today's conversations:

Francesca: ...........

(a long Italian/Spanish/English sentence after which I finally gather that she is asking me what are ashi points)

Me: 好好, los puntos de 阿是son muy importantes. Para usar los, 首先, oops sorry chinese, primero es necessario applicar la presion, 压力, pressure, presione? sure, por la area donde el paciente tiene dolor. 然后, uh uh, then....

And you get the point. I search around in my tiny head for fragments of a past medical Spanish class and attempt to banish my Chinese responses and sentence connectors. Hopefully we'll be able to help these docs figure out exactly what they're learning. The docs are sweet as can be, and I actually look forward to this language madness in the clinic.

So whether you speak Chinese, Japanese, Indonesian, Korean, Tagolog, English, Spanish, or now even Italian, you're welcome to our clinic and are even guaranteed a translator for your language needs. Pretty impressive I'd say, and highly entertaining.

Celebrating Good Public Order

On the eleventh of every month, something very magical happens in Beijing. Order descends upon the city for this blessed twenty-four hour time period of National Queue Day. Men stop fiercely elbowing their way to buy subway tickets, and it's actually possible to exit a subway car without having to battle the incoming onslaught of new passengers. Don't believe me? - believe NY Times:

"Last week, the city [Beijing] commemorated “Queuing Day,” an event held on the 11th of every month because the date symbolizes an orderly line. Volunteers wearing satin Queuing Day sashes shooed rush-hour commuters into lines at busy subway stations, while hospital administrators and a few city officials handed out long-stemmed roses to patients who stood in line to pay their bills or pick up medicines. Local news media swarmed the event."

Yes, this really does happen. It's a day to celebrate proper queueing techniques and it's a day that's been long overdue for quite sometime here. I can't even begin to recount the supermarkets "lines," airport "lines," and ticket "lines" I've been in where I had to endure pushes, shoves, blatant line jumping, elbows, and breathing on the back of my neck as impatient fellow patrons attempted to edge their way forward.

For any Miss Manners enthusiasts, I'll include the link below as the rest of the article discusses a few more Beijing manners problems, all of which are quite interesting and by all means very true.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/17/world/asia/17manners.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&ei=5087%0A&em&en=d9b58e74515ea703&ex=1176955200

I hesitate to include the entire article as it makes the city sound like an awful, dirty, spit-lined, disorganized place. We "china enthusiasts" try to see these things as charming bits of Chinese character rather than repulsive habits. After you visit, I'll invite you to make your own judgement.

The Morning Grind

And....they're coming across the line, black's pulling out first but blue is close behind. They're peddling furiously folks, with the pack following close behind. Rows two and three are splitting and coming around the outside - better squeeze in on the left there, bus #13 will be turning right soon. Oh no, a pedestrian unit is entering the street, looks like they're going to go for it - they're walking steady and the swerving begins.

This, and much much more, is my life every morning at7:34 AM when I pull out of my apartment complex into the bike lane in Beijing. In those previous minutes preceding 8:00, everyone is on a mission and in a hurry, including me. We pass and swerve, ring our bells and avoid small children, all in the name of arriving to work on time. I have managed to avoid any major accidents thus far, though I recently had my first scare of a side swipe from a swerving moto (no worries, no permanent injuries). I'm seriously thinking of rigging some kind of rear view mirror for my bike, though a helmet might be a more practical realistic purchase.

Okay, check mirrors and pull out, increase speed and watch for pedestrians. Lunch break is over, and I've got to brave the streets to make it to my conference on time.

express yourself, or not

In America, we say that the squeaky wheel gets the grease. In China, they say that the tallest nail is the first one to be hammered down.

Let's just say that I've been feeling that hammer a bit more than usual this week. I've tried to fall into line and "do as the romans do" - I even carry a teal "aul Frank" bag to school - but it seems that I'll always be a bit of a stand out around here.

Under the weather?

As part of my Traditional Chinese Medical education, I've begun rotations every morning in the acupuncture ward of the Sino-Japanese Friendship Hospital in Beijing. Though I've never done rotations in America, I can hardly imagine that they're anything like what I see day to day here. Here are a few snapshots of the day to day highlights: