This post is almost necessarily a quickie -- I posted last night, and there isn't a whole lot to report. But I couldn't let my favorite holiday go by without some kind of mention.
Not that it's much of anything here in Tianjin, so far as I can tell. I imagine that some expats are having a party, somewhere, but since I haven't met any American expats who are still here.... I guess I'll have to go around the rest of the night dressed as a 洋鬼子 (yang guizi, "devil foreigner").
So much for my attempts at humor for the evening! Anyway, today I was in the psychosomatic department -- but not the Andryny sub-section. Working on that for Monday or Tuesday, but the real problem is that most of the translators are women, and the guys don't want to be confessing their sexual inadequacies in front of women. Go figure... it's really not all that different from in the US.
But this was a total change of pace. The patients are mostly insomnia or depression cases... sound familiar to any US-based Chinese Medicine practitioners out there? It's mostly being treated by the doctor with a combination of Western medicine and Chinese herbs, with occasional acupuncture thrown in, instead of the other way around. Here's one of the places where Chinese is a lot easier, since it's 西药 (Xiyao, "Western Medicine") and 中药 (Zhongyao, "Chinese Medicine") to differentiate the two. When I explain the regulatory environment in the US to folks here, I get amazed looks that (a) anyone can prescribe Chinese Medicine and (b) a licensed TCM practitioner can't prescribe ANY Western meds.
The patients were mostly repeats, so the pace was pretty quick -- 57 patients between 8:00 am and 12:30 pm, to be exact. That's almost 13 patients per hour! And the new patients took some time -- 20 minutes to half an hour each. Good thing we only had about three of those.
Anyway, I'm off to haunt the streets for a little bit. Give some candy to some kids for me.
Friday, October 31, 2008
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Minor changes in plans...
So I went to talk to the head of the Foreign Affairs department at the school today, and she told me that there could be a slight change in plans. Instead of going to the 8th floor tomorrow morning (Friday), where I'd see the stroke inpatients again, I'd be going over to the Psychology department -- where I'll be following one of the doctors who's in the Andryny specialization. That's the men's health angle that I was thinking about when I came here in the first place. Of course, because of the acupuncture focus of the school and the stroke service, I pretty much went with the flow, to (I think) very good effect. But this is something I was hoping to see while I was here.
Treatment is a combination of acupuncture, Western medicine, and Chinese herbal medicine, so I'm totally going to have to be on my game if I don't want to look like a dummy. But that's no problem. The only problem is that the doctor I'm supposed to be following tomorrow is only available Monday and Friday of next week -- and that's supposed to be my last week in Tianjin! I'll see if I can get another doctor to follow on Tuesday, at least. Then there's a conference that has some interesting lectures on Wednesday afternoon and Thursday morning. So I'm just busily remaining flexible!
The afternoons upstairs are generally pretty slow, so the instructor takes some time to go over specific treatment protocols with me for different conditions (besides stroke). These aren't the same as what I got in the textbooks in school -- they come from one of the doctors here at the school. So I've gotten a little list of things to try based on other people's experience, too.
One of the things that's a little frustrating is that the computer system they use here to place doctor's orders is interminably slow. It literally takes half an hour to update anyone, so if (like today) a patient needs something for her cough, interns who can't read the Chinese (and consequently can neither help nor learn) have been stuck doing, well, nothing. But the last couple of days, the instructor has brought a book of research papers published at the school, so I've gotten additional notes on treating obesity, manic-depressive disorder, prostatitis, and, of all things, conversion of atrial fibrillation with acupuncture.
Good stuff. Stay tuned!
Treatment is a combination of acupuncture, Western medicine, and Chinese herbal medicine, so I'm totally going to have to be on my game if I don't want to look like a dummy. But that's no problem. The only problem is that the doctor I'm supposed to be following tomorrow is only available Monday and Friday of next week -- and that's supposed to be my last week in Tianjin! I'll see if I can get another doctor to follow on Tuesday, at least. Then there's a conference that has some interesting lectures on Wednesday afternoon and Thursday morning. So I'm just busily remaining flexible!
The afternoons upstairs are generally pretty slow, so the instructor takes some time to go over specific treatment protocols with me for different conditions (besides stroke). These aren't the same as what I got in the textbooks in school -- they come from one of the doctors here at the school. So I've gotten a little list of things to try based on other people's experience, too.
One of the things that's a little frustrating is that the computer system they use here to place doctor's orders is interminably slow. It literally takes half an hour to update anyone, so if (like today) a patient needs something for her cough, interns who can't read the Chinese (and consequently can neither help nor learn) have been stuck doing, well, nothing. But the last couple of days, the instructor has brought a book of research papers published at the school, so I've gotten additional notes on treating obesity, manic-depressive disorder, prostatitis, and, of all things, conversion of atrial fibrillation with acupuncture.
Good stuff. Stay tuned!
Monday, October 27, 2008
Inpatient Clinic
So today marked my first full day in the inpatient clinic at the hospital, and I have to say that things here are completely different. That doesn't really surprise me -- if you have to stay at the hospital, then you're almost necessarily sicker than someone who doesn't. I'd seen people in pretty bad shape come into the clinic -- folks who probably would have been in an assisted living facility in the US, but were being taken care of by family here in China.
Upstairs, though -- I'm observing on the 8th floor instead of the 2nd -- there's an incredible range of health and functionality. Just today, I saw a woman who was ready to go home, who had virtually no signs of her stroke a couple of months ago. Later that day, I saw her cruising by the door to the ward I was in, smiling and laughing. I saw a 38-year-old man who was in thanks to an aggravation of his symptoms from a stroke four years earlier. He didn't look happy to be there. I saw four people on supplemental oxygen, and two on NG (nasogastric) tubes because they had no gag reflex and had to have food delivered directly into their stomachs so they wouldn't choke on it. A man in his sixties cried because he was, the instructor told me, afraid of getting needled. (See, TheDiscourser? It's not just your wife.)
Hopefully, you're getting the idea that as varied as things were in the clinic downstairs, the inpatient wards were five times that upstairs.
Let me give you an idea of what things look like. The main hallway is kind of dark -- about half the lights are out at any given time, though I think they're turned off rather than burned out. And like a lot of buildings in China, the ceiling is pretty low -- probably 2.5 meters, rather than the 10 feet (3 meters) that we're used to in the US. Each ward -- there are maybe 25 wards on this floor without counting -- has four beds in it, all lined up along one wall underneath a strip that has jacks for power and -- I think -- oxygen, and maybe something else. I'll look again tomorrow. Along the opposite wall, maybe 2 meters from the foot of the beds, are chairs, and maybe another bed, where there is invariably a family member for each patient, maybe two or even three. So in a full room, you're looking at maybe ten people in the room, plus the doctor (or doctors) and any students there to watch.
It has a definite 1960s feel to it, down to the nurses who wear those little squared-off caps. You could almost smell the boiled cabbage, except that it's not boiled cabbage here, it's thin congee (rice porridge) and stir-fried vegetables, at least it was this morning. But it came by on a big cart, with family members coming out to collect the food in their own containers. The dedication shown by families here is just... well, I think I keep on talking about it. I'm impressed by their spirit and devotion.
Patients -- or rather, their family members -- supply their own needles, which are kept on the table by the bedside. Each patient gets needles twice per day -- once in the morning, where they get body acupuncture that is somewhat specific to their symptoms and condition, and once in the afternoon, when they get a more-or-less standard combination of three points, inserted bilaterally. In between, they also get a five-minute session of cupping, usually along the back-shu points on either side of the spine (but sometimes also in a problem area, like an arthritic knee or a painful shoulder). There's always food in the rooms -- the Chinese have a healthy obsession with food -- and it's surprisingly social, considering the reason people are there.
Anyhow, it's a new and different atmosphere, and I'm once again enjoying it, even if I have moments where I feel like a little duckling following the doctor around, listening to her lectures (and translations), and (more rarely) answering her questions. The time seems to go by quickly since there's much less standing around, and there's the doctor's room to retreat to on the rare occasions when there's time to kill.
So we'll see how this goes. Yet another look into the way they treat medicine here... always fascinating.
Upstairs, though -- I'm observing on the 8th floor instead of the 2nd -- there's an incredible range of health and functionality. Just today, I saw a woman who was ready to go home, who had virtually no signs of her stroke a couple of months ago. Later that day, I saw her cruising by the door to the ward I was in, smiling and laughing. I saw a 38-year-old man who was in thanks to an aggravation of his symptoms from a stroke four years earlier. He didn't look happy to be there. I saw four people on supplemental oxygen, and two on NG (nasogastric) tubes because they had no gag reflex and had to have food delivered directly into their stomachs so they wouldn't choke on it. A man in his sixties cried because he was, the instructor told me, afraid of getting needled. (See, TheDiscourser? It's not just your wife.)
Hopefully, you're getting the idea that as varied as things were in the clinic downstairs, the inpatient wards were five times that upstairs.
Let me give you an idea of what things look like. The main hallway is kind of dark -- about half the lights are out at any given time, though I think they're turned off rather than burned out. And like a lot of buildings in China, the ceiling is pretty low -- probably 2.5 meters, rather than the 10 feet (3 meters) that we're used to in the US. Each ward -- there are maybe 25 wards on this floor without counting -- has four beds in it, all lined up along one wall underneath a strip that has jacks for power and -- I think -- oxygen, and maybe something else. I'll look again tomorrow. Along the opposite wall, maybe 2 meters from the foot of the beds, are chairs, and maybe another bed, where there is invariably a family member for each patient, maybe two or even three. So in a full room, you're looking at maybe ten people in the room, plus the doctor (or doctors) and any students there to watch.
It has a definite 1960s feel to it, down to the nurses who wear those little squared-off caps. You could almost smell the boiled cabbage, except that it's not boiled cabbage here, it's thin congee (rice porridge) and stir-fried vegetables, at least it was this morning. But it came by on a big cart, with family members coming out to collect the food in their own containers. The dedication shown by families here is just... well, I think I keep on talking about it. I'm impressed by their spirit and devotion.
Patients -- or rather, their family members -- supply their own needles, which are kept on the table by the bedside. Each patient gets needles twice per day -- once in the morning, where they get body acupuncture that is somewhat specific to their symptoms and condition, and once in the afternoon, when they get a more-or-less standard combination of three points, inserted bilaterally. In between, they also get a five-minute session of cupping, usually along the back-shu points on either side of the spine (but sometimes also in a problem area, like an arthritic knee or a painful shoulder). There's always food in the rooms -- the Chinese have a healthy obsession with food -- and it's surprisingly social, considering the reason people are there.
Anyhow, it's a new and different atmosphere, and I'm once again enjoying it, even if I have moments where I feel like a little duckling following the doctor around, listening to her lectures (and translations), and (more rarely) answering her questions. The time seems to go by quickly since there's much less standing around, and there's the doctor's room to retreat to on the rare occasions when there's time to kill.
So we'll see how this goes. Yet another look into the way they treat medicine here... always fascinating.
The Days are Just Packed
I'm looking at my blog for the first time in what seems like a week.... and I discover that it's been, well, almost a week since I last posted. Since it appears that I have a few minutes, let me explain what's been going on.
No, that would take too long. Let me sum up.
I'm finished in Dr. Yang's clinic, this week I'm in the inpatient department on the 8th floor (in 15 minutes or so), and next week I'll probably be in a specialty psych department. I had a tour of the school on Friday where I met an 18-year-old guy from Sacramento who had a stroke 16 months ago, and he's pleased with his progress since coming to the hospital. Zach and Josh have gone, which means I get back to my routine, more or less.
Now if I only had a holocaust cloak, that would be something.....
No, that would take too long. Let me sum up.
I'm finished in Dr. Yang's clinic, this week I'm in the inpatient department on the 8th floor (in 15 minutes or so), and next week I'll probably be in a specialty psych department. I had a tour of the school on Friday where I met an 18-year-old guy from Sacramento who had a stroke 16 months ago, and he's pleased with his progress since coming to the hospital. Zach and Josh have gone, which means I get back to my routine, more or less.
Now if I only had a holocaust cloak, that would be something.....
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
New clinic!
It's already halfway through the new week, in a new clinic. It's been interesting, and I've got so much time and so little to do.... wait. Scratch that. Reverse it.
Thank you.
So on Monday I went to talk to Ms. Liang, and she told me that the doctor upstairs in the inpatient department that she wanted me to work with wasn't going to be available this week, so she was moving me to a different outpatient clinic for this week, and then next week I'd be upstairs. That was okay with me -- although I didn't really think that I'd gotten everything I could from Dr Wang, I also knew that I was reaching diminishing returns, especially with my mediocre Chinese.
There were also two Americans who would be in clinic with me this week, Zach and Josh, a couple of guys from the TCM school in Hawai'i who were getting some clinical credit before ending a two-month trip here in China.
I'll let that line stand alone, but they're good guys, and it's nice to chat in fluent English with a mostly-common cultural context for a change. (Josh is from Berkeley, actually, so there's a totally-common context there.) I won't go into much detail about them at this point, except to say that we've been having fun hanging out together and the next time I'm in Oahu (the first time I'm in Oahu), I'll definitely want to visit them, and also check out the school, which seems to have a very Daoist perspective on Chinese Medicine.
So now, I'm two doors down, seeing largely the same kinds of patients -- facial paralysis, hemiplegia, other sequelae of stroke, and a bunch of neck and back pain. But I'm also getting quizzed by Dr Yang on point functions (differentiate the indications for San Yin Jiao, Tai Xi, and Fu Liu), needling techniques (describe the difference between tonification and sedation needling techniques when rotating the needle), and TCM theory (explain why the patient with depression and poor appetite now has dry, dark patches of skin on her face). So far, I'm doing pretty well. I'm also getting lots of new information and demonstrations on all three counts, too.
This includes "point" or "leopard-spot" needling, which I'd never seen before -- think of the effects of plum blossom needling but much more gentle and suitable for delicate areas like the eyelid. Or other locations that are less painful to needle (上八邪Shang Ba Xie, for instance, just proximal to the MP joint between the metacarpals instead of in the webbing of the fingers). So there's a lot here to learn -- and lots of opportunity to practice my Chinese, of course.
Yesterday afternoon, Dr Yang had a lecture, so we went upstairs to follow someone who was doing cupping on the inpatients. These are folks who are within a couple of months post-stroke -- in some cases, hours after being admitted -- and it's an entirely different experience. These are folks lying in beds, five beds to a ward with no curtains, family all around, and two acupuncture treatments per day -- one in the morning and one in the evening. They also get cupping (Jia Ji points for five minutes a pop) once a day, and some get Tui Na (bodywork) or other rehabilitative treatment depending on their condition. Like in the outpatient department downstairs, there is a lot of heavy stimulation including through-and-through needling technique. Unlike the outpatient department, most people get somewhere between six and ten needles, not twenty or thirty as for facial paralysis. This, I suspect, is because the patients in an acute stage are needing to get over the worst of their symptoms (such as a reduced or lost gag reflex or profound hemiplegia), so it's not such a good idea to disperse their Qi quite so much.
It was a pretty quick two hours, no matter how you look at it.
Tomorrow promises to be interesting as well, as Dr Yang wants to demonstrate both 烧山火(Setting the Mountain on Fire) and 透天凉 (Penetrating Heaven Coolness) techniques, and maybe have us practice them on a patient. I still need to get the hang of needling without a guide tube, so I might try to find a way to practice that first.
Thank you.
So on Monday I went to talk to Ms. Liang, and she told me that the doctor upstairs in the inpatient department that she wanted me to work with wasn't going to be available this week, so she was moving me to a different outpatient clinic for this week, and then next week I'd be upstairs. That was okay with me -- although I didn't really think that I'd gotten everything I could from Dr Wang, I also knew that I was reaching diminishing returns, especially with my mediocre Chinese.
There were also two Americans who would be in clinic with me this week, Zach and Josh, a couple of guys from the TCM school in Hawai'i who were getting some clinical credit before ending a two-month trip here in China.
I'll let that line stand alone, but they're good guys, and it's nice to chat in fluent English with a mostly-common cultural context for a change. (Josh is from Berkeley, actually, so there's a totally-common context there.) I won't go into much detail about them at this point, except to say that we've been having fun hanging out together and the next time I'm in Oahu (the first time I'm in Oahu), I'll definitely want to visit them, and also check out the school, which seems to have a very Daoist perspective on Chinese Medicine.
So now, I'm two doors down, seeing largely the same kinds of patients -- facial paralysis, hemiplegia, other sequelae of stroke, and a bunch of neck and back pain. But I'm also getting quizzed by Dr Yang on point functions (differentiate the indications for San Yin Jiao, Tai Xi, and Fu Liu), needling techniques (describe the difference between tonification and sedation needling techniques when rotating the needle), and TCM theory (explain why the patient with depression and poor appetite now has dry, dark patches of skin on her face). So far, I'm doing pretty well. I'm also getting lots of new information and demonstrations on all three counts, too.
This includes "point" or "leopard-spot" needling, which I'd never seen before -- think of the effects of plum blossom needling but much more gentle and suitable for delicate areas like the eyelid. Or other locations that are less painful to needle (上八邪Shang Ba Xie, for instance, just proximal to the MP joint between the metacarpals instead of in the webbing of the fingers). So there's a lot here to learn -- and lots of opportunity to practice my Chinese, of course.
Yesterday afternoon, Dr Yang had a lecture, so we went upstairs to follow someone who was doing cupping on the inpatients. These are folks who are within a couple of months post-stroke -- in some cases, hours after being admitted -- and it's an entirely different experience. These are folks lying in beds, five beds to a ward with no curtains, family all around, and two acupuncture treatments per day -- one in the morning and one in the evening. They also get cupping (Jia Ji points for five minutes a pop) once a day, and some get Tui Na (bodywork) or other rehabilitative treatment depending on their condition. Like in the outpatient department downstairs, there is a lot of heavy stimulation including through-and-through needling technique. Unlike the outpatient department, most people get somewhere between six and ten needles, not twenty or thirty as for facial paralysis. This, I suspect, is because the patients in an acute stage are needing to get over the worst of their symptoms (such as a reduced or lost gag reflex or profound hemiplegia), so it's not such a good idea to disperse their Qi quite so much.
It was a pretty quick two hours, no matter how you look at it.
Tomorrow promises to be interesting as well, as Dr Yang wants to demonstrate both 烧山火(Setting the Mountain on Fire) and 透天凉 (Penetrating Heaven Coolness) techniques, and maybe have us practice them on a patient. I still need to get the hang of needling without a guide tube, so I might try to find a way to practice that first.
Sunday, October 19, 2008
A Day in the Life
Time for the promised photo blog. This time, it's a somewhat-typical day based on photos I took over the course of about 24 hours. I have to preface this by saying that I spent a bunch of those 24 hours in my room sleeping this time, owing to a mild case of 拉肚子. (Translation not forthcoming, and I might have my characters wrong.)
Anyway, I think there's enough here to agglomerate a Saturday... I should be doing this again sometime, so I should get good pics of the other stuff as well.
The morning starts at about 6:15, when I wake up. At 6:30, Monday through Friday, there's tinny music being played over the loudspeakers, and people down at the athletic field are jogging or doing calisthenics which are presided over by loudspeaker as well, about ten minutes after the music starts, presumably to let people get there and so on.
As for me, I've started doing some stretches in the morning, or some version of the 气功 (Qigong) 八段锦 (Ba Duan Jin, usually translated as some variant on "Eight Brocades of Silk"). Then a shower, and...
Breakfast of champions! Actually, I had some black sesame porridge along with the pomelo (I ate the whole thing, not just the two pieces you see here.)
This, or something like it, makes up about half my breakfasts. The other half of the time, I get breakfast from a street cart, so it's usually something with eggs, wrapped in bread. Either way, it's pretty decent, and pretty filling.
Then, I walk downstairs, out the door, and next door to the hospital. Say what you like, but the commute ain't bad, even if there are people giving me funny looks because of the 美国人 (Meiguoren, "American") walking into the clinic wearing a lab coat.
So I think I've already reasonably described the experience in clinic, so far. Starting on Monday, things might be different.
This is a picture of me and 王医圣 (Dr. Wang) in the clinic after work on Saturday. One of the patients was particular about dressing the photo with the little bamboo plant that usually hangs out by the sink.
And yes, I've seen other pictures of him, and that IS the smile he uses for photos. In clinic, though, he jokes and laughs and points a lot. He's pretty expressive, even for those of us who have become (in the words of one person I'm corresponding with) instant illiterates.
So the day -- the morning, anyway, but on Saturday, that's the entire work day -- is over, and it's time to go get some lunch. Today, I'm walking across campus to the school gate, where there's a little alleyway with a few street carts. They get a lot of students, and the food is reliably pretty good.
Here's me with one of my fellow interns, whose English was only a little better than my Chinese. Nevertheless, we managed to make plenty of jokes to one another, ask for help when it was needed, and so on. It might have taken a while, but -- especially when the Not-Russians were around -- it was welcome relief.
And this is me with my friend 王婷 (Wang Ting), whose English and my Chinese were just compatible enough that we communicated quite well. She's helped me get around, figure things out in the city, and so on... and encouraged my Chinese, just as I've helped her practice English.
She's thinking about studying abroad, and maybe she'll end up going to the US. She has an uncle in Boston, so if she goes, she'll probably end up going there.
Ting and I share a love of food, so we've had lunch together a few times, and went to dinner (the aforementioned Sichuan place) once. Not today, though... she already had plans once she got home.
Incidentally, the painted and carved rock in the background is pretty typical of the school -- there are about a dozen that I've seen -- and I've seen them also at the main University of Tianjin.
Food now procured, I decide to take the stairs up to my room. I do this probably about three times a day, unless I've got a good reason to take the elevator.
Anyway, I think there's enough here to agglomerate a Saturday... I should be doing this again sometime, so I should get good pics of the other stuff as well.
The morning starts at about 6:15, when I wake up. At 6:30, Monday through Friday, there's tinny music being played over the loudspeakers, and people down at the athletic field are jogging or doing calisthenics which are presided over by loudspeaker as well, about ten minutes after the music starts, presumably to let people get there and so on.
As for me, I've started doing some stretches in the morning, or some version of the 气功 (Qigong) 八段锦 (Ba Duan Jin, usually translated as some variant on "Eight Brocades of Silk"). Then a shower, and...
Breakfast of champions! Actually, I had some black sesame porridge along with the pomelo (I ate the whole thing, not just the two pieces you see here.)This, or something like it, makes up about half my breakfasts. The other half of the time, I get breakfast from a street cart, so it's usually something with eggs, wrapped in bread. Either way, it's pretty decent, and pretty filling.
Then, I walk downstairs, out the door, and next door to the hospital. Say what you like, but the commute ain't bad, even if there are people giving me funny looks because of the 美国人 (Meiguoren, "American") walking into the clinic wearing a lab coat.
So I think I've already reasonably described the experience in clinic, so far. Starting on Monday, things might be different.This is a picture of me and 王医圣 (Dr. Wang) in the clinic after work on Saturday. One of the patients was particular about dressing the photo with the little bamboo plant that usually hangs out by the sink.
And yes, I've seen other pictures of him, and that IS the smile he uses for photos. In clinic, though, he jokes and laughs and points a lot. He's pretty expressive, even for those of us who have become (in the words of one person I'm corresponding with) instant illiterates.
So the day -- the morning, anyway, but on Saturday, that's the entire work day -- is over, and it's time to go get some lunch. Today, I'm walking across campus to the school gate, where there's a little alleyway with a few street carts. They get a lot of students, and the food is reliably pretty good.
Here's me with one of my fellow interns, whose English was only a little better than my Chinese. Nevertheless, we managed to make plenty of jokes to one another, ask for help when it was needed, and so on. It might have taken a while, but -- especially when the Not-Russians were around -- it was welcome relief.
And this is me with my friend 王婷 (Wang Ting), whose English and my Chinese were just compatible enough that we communicated quite well. She's helped me get around, figure things out in the city, and so on... and encouraged my Chinese, just as I've helped her practice English.She's thinking about studying abroad, and maybe she'll end up going to the US. She has an uncle in Boston, so if she goes, she'll probably end up going there.
Ting and I share a love of food, so we've had lunch together a few times, and went to dinner (the aforementioned Sichuan place) once. Not today, though... she already had plans once she got home.
Incidentally, the painted and carved rock in the background is pretty typical of the school -- there are about a dozen that I've seen -- and I've seen them also at the main University of Tianjin.
Food now procured, I decide to take the stairs up to my room. I do this probably about three times a day, unless I've got a good reason to take the elevator.
There are really a lot of stairs going up the triangular stairwell. One side has 11 steps, another has seven... and the third side has the door.
Finally made it! So now it's time for a little reward...
Lunch! I've gotten my food and retreated to the comfort of my room, because it's actually a bit blustery and I don't feel like sitting outside. Tea in the blue thing on the right, and the bread is stuffed with grilled veggies (carrots and bean sprouts) and something that looks and tastes like about half of a hot dog, cut up. It's nothing special -- I might even venture to say that it's not really all that tasty. I don't think I'll go back to that cart. But for 4元, I'm not being picky.
A little post-prandial light reading. If it were a weekday, I'd be back in clinic at 2, but today's Saturday, so I'm off to see what else there is to do today.
Maybe I'll take a walk around and see what else is going on before I head to the Internet Cafe and check in with my blog and my e-mail. I like getting e-mail.
Looks like there's a baseball game going on over at the athletic field. Not that you can tell all that well, from this picture -- it's not as if it's a dedicated field or anything. I headed down to watch an inning or two. It wasn't terrible, though the pitching was, so there were lots of walks and passed balls. No chance to turn a double play on defense, since it was almost impossible to keep the runner on first.
Didn't matter anyway. The basic strategic mistakes were too numerous to mention here. I could only stand about an inning before I had to take off.
So, then I walked across campus. It takes up most of the city block -- it's about what you'd expect from a school of several thousand students. But very pretty, in case I haven't mentioned it before.
The center of the campus, shown here, is kind of quiet and open most of the time, except for quittin' time (when it's packed with students) and at night (when there are lots of folks taking advantage of the open area and playing badminton, or rollerblading, or whatever the hell else they do).
Here I'm facing the hotel, which you can see in the distance. I think you can see my room, but you know... it's one of those little squares you see in the right-hand part of the building. Not exactly exciting or anything.
On the way back, I walk past the restaurant that's in the hotel. I still haven't eaten here -- the one time I was going to, it had been booked out for a wedding. That was pretty cool, since there was a massive roar in the neighborhood, and when I went out the front of the hotel, it looked like they'd lit off about fifty pounds of firecrackers. Red paper everywhere.... firecrackers are cool. And common -- every time a new business opens, or a wedding, or sometimes I just think just because it's Tuesday. But these were the kind with sparkly bits of mylar in multiple colors inside, so the paper was pretty to look at. And, because it's China, it got swept up in a couple of hours.After that, the 拉肚子 had me in its grip, so it was pretty much back to reading and listening to music until I dragged myself out to dinner and went back. Not that I was miserable... I just didn't want to go out and do much. That's not exactly typical for me, but that's the way it was this evening.
I'll leave you with this video. I think it's self-explanatory.
Saturday, October 18, 2008
Another week down....
It occurred to me about about noon today that my weekend, such as it is, starts a little later than most people's weekends do back home. I finished working in Dr. Wang's clinic today, Saturday, at about 12:15 or so. That's about 9:15 PDT on Friday, so most of you actually finished up your weeks before I did.
On the other hand, I have about two hours for lunch and Thursday afternoon off. Plus a two-minute walking commute. I'm not complaining.
Anyway, today was my last day in that clinic. I'll be going to a different clinic on Monday, working with someone else. While there weren't any teary goodbyes, I was bid a warm farewell, with an invitation to come back and chat, and was told that I'm a good guy, and will make a good doctor. Like I said, I'm not complaining.
In a previous post -- maybe even my last post -- I think I might have implied that Tianjin is provincial, or something like that. It's not, not at all... last night I went downtown to hit an import-heavy grocery store (more on that later), and got a good look at the main drag. It's a solid kilometer of neon lights, advertisements, and music, almost exactly what I imagined a shopping district in a major Asian city would be. Out here in the Nankai district, the western part of Tianjin... well, the construction and feel is kind of Western Addition (of San Francisco) -- large multiunit apartments, lots of storefronts, and not a little grubby. It's not bad at all -- but it was all I had seen of Tianjin. It does major-urban-downtown pretty well, too. One block off that main street, the side streets were just this side of the hutong I stayed in in Beijing, but since that was where all the restaurants were, I imagine that it's a cost-of-doing-business thing. Well, all the restaurants except for McDonald's, Pizza Hut, and KFC.
So why, you may be wondering, was I downtown trying to find an import-heavy grocery store? Well....
Part of it was pure curiousity, to be sure. But I've also found out that the water here completely destroys the lather I get when I want to shave. (For those of you who don't know, I wet-shave -- use a brush to put lather on my face. I've done it on and off since my mom's father passed away, and started again for pretty-much-keeps back in February.) I'll be building the lather in the bowl, add a couple of drops -- drops! -- of water, and suddenly the lather just breaks down and disappears. So I have to add more shaving lotion to the mix, and I'm using about twice as much as I'm used to. So I don't think I'm going to make it home before I run out of shaving cream -- that's the point. Anyway, I looked at Carrefour, and they only have foam-in-a-can. So I thought I'd look somewhere else.
没有。 (Meiyou, "do not have", a near-universal term for tough luck while shopping.) In fact, the place at Isetan didn't have any shaving cream at all. Several kinds of razor cartridges, facial products for men and women from four countries (US, Japan, Germany, and the UK), but nothing to lubricate a blade while it slides across your face.
There are some good bits coming from this. The first, most practical bit was the realization that men and barbers (the Venn diagram doesn't overlap completely) have been building lather with plain ol' soap for a long time, and I could probably manage that on my own. The other thing was that I got a good look at prices for some stuff in a supermarket that would compare favorably with a scaled-down Whole Foods. And what did I see? Chocolate -- decent chocolate, not Lotte -- starts at about 20元 per ounce, so a standard chocolate bar would be about $5 or $6. I could have gotten "Jamaican Blue Mountain" coffee (I don't trust anyone's claim to that label, just as I don't trust "Kona" -- both origins sell more than 100% of the actual capacity of the regions to produce) for 300元 per half-kilo, about $45. A pint of Haagen-Dagzs ice cream was 114元 -- an expensive splurge at more than ten bucks, to be sure. And a bottle of Veuve Clicquot was 836元, over $120.
I bought a little chocolate, just for grins.
On the other hand, pregnancy tests (right next to the razors, I couldn't miss them) were 15元, a little over two bucks, and the condoms (both American and Japanese brands) worked out to about 50 cents each, always in packages of 12 for some reason. (There's a joke here about Germans and the EU, which I won't repeat.) Guess there are priorities, and then there are priorities.
Anyway, I'm in the process of putting together another photo posting -- should be ready tomorrow sometime. Take care -- and for those who are the praying or "good thoughts" types, please do so for my friend Lizz. She's in the market for a new kidney again, and I'd really like her to find one soon.
On the other hand, I have about two hours for lunch and Thursday afternoon off. Plus a two-minute walking commute. I'm not complaining.
Anyway, today was my last day in that clinic. I'll be going to a different clinic on Monday, working with someone else. While there weren't any teary goodbyes, I was bid a warm farewell, with an invitation to come back and chat, and was told that I'm a good guy, and will make a good doctor. Like I said, I'm not complaining.
In a previous post -- maybe even my last post -- I think I might have implied that Tianjin is provincial, or something like that. It's not, not at all... last night I went downtown to hit an import-heavy grocery store (more on that later), and got a good look at the main drag. It's a solid kilometer of neon lights, advertisements, and music, almost exactly what I imagined a shopping district in a major Asian city would be. Out here in the Nankai district, the western part of Tianjin... well, the construction and feel is kind of Western Addition (of San Francisco) -- large multiunit apartments, lots of storefronts, and not a little grubby. It's not bad at all -- but it was all I had seen of Tianjin. It does major-urban-downtown pretty well, too. One block off that main street, the side streets were just this side of the hutong I stayed in in Beijing, but since that was where all the restaurants were, I imagine that it's a cost-of-doing-business thing. Well, all the restaurants except for McDonald's, Pizza Hut, and KFC.
So why, you may be wondering, was I downtown trying to find an import-heavy grocery store? Well....
Part of it was pure curiousity, to be sure. But I've also found out that the water here completely destroys the lather I get when I want to shave. (For those of you who don't know, I wet-shave -- use a brush to put lather on my face. I've done it on and off since my mom's father passed away, and started again for pretty-much-keeps back in February.) I'll be building the lather in the bowl, add a couple of drops -- drops! -- of water, and suddenly the lather just breaks down and disappears. So I have to add more shaving lotion to the mix, and I'm using about twice as much as I'm used to. So I don't think I'm going to make it home before I run out of shaving cream -- that's the point. Anyway, I looked at Carrefour, and they only have foam-in-a-can. So I thought I'd look somewhere else.
没有。 (Meiyou, "do not have", a near-universal term for tough luck while shopping.) In fact, the place at Isetan didn't have any shaving cream at all. Several kinds of razor cartridges, facial products for men and women from four countries (US, Japan, Germany, and the UK), but nothing to lubricate a blade while it slides across your face.
There are some good bits coming from this. The first, most practical bit was the realization that men and barbers (the Venn diagram doesn't overlap completely) have been building lather with plain ol' soap for a long time, and I could probably manage that on my own. The other thing was that I got a good look at prices for some stuff in a supermarket that would compare favorably with a scaled-down Whole Foods. And what did I see? Chocolate -- decent chocolate, not Lotte -- starts at about 20元 per ounce, so a standard chocolate bar would be about $5 or $6. I could have gotten "Jamaican Blue Mountain" coffee (I don't trust anyone's claim to that label, just as I don't trust "Kona" -- both origins sell more than 100% of the actual capacity of the regions to produce) for 300元 per half-kilo, about $45. A pint of Haagen-Dagzs ice cream was 114元 -- an expensive splurge at more than ten bucks, to be sure. And a bottle of Veuve Clicquot was 836元, over $120.
I bought a little chocolate, just for grins.
On the other hand, pregnancy tests (right next to the razors, I couldn't miss them) were 15元, a little over two bucks, and the condoms (both American and Japanese brands) worked out to about 50 cents each, always in packages of 12 for some reason. (There's a joke here about Germans and the EU, which I won't repeat.) Guess there are priorities, and then there are priorities.
Anyway, I'm in the process of putting together another photo posting -- should be ready tomorrow sometime. Take care -- and for those who are the praying or "good thoughts" types, please do so for my friend Lizz. She's in the market for a new kidney again, and I'd really like her to find one soon.
Thursday, October 16, 2008
The Russians are coming! The Russians are coming!
...actually, it turns out that they're not Russian. You can tell by their faces when Dr. Wang calls them "Elusuo" (Russian), and the interpreter interprets. They go all scrunchy, just like when you tell a Southerner that you have friends from Baltimore. "That ain't thuh Real South®," they tell you. "我们不是..." (Women bu shi, "We aren't....") these Not-Russians start, and then they get lost, so they say something to their interpreter, who talks too fast for me to follow, and Dr. Wang nods and promptly decides to forget it.
Meanwhile, back to the Not-Russians -- three women, two of whom look like they might have competed in the 1980 Olympic Games in the shot put (and never even walked around the block since), and two men, one of whom looks like Vladimir Putin's chubby cousin; the other one looks like the Moose's twisted love child with the Michelin Man, only not so good looking. They're exactly the stereotype -- of the Ugly American®. I can't count the number of times they've stepped in front of me. They've offended the Chinese (remember, the folks who apparently don't have any issues about privacy?) with taking pictures and video without asking. They don't have Dr. Wang's respect because they don't know the basics of Chinese Medicine.
Today, they asked what a patient's disease was. For the third time! They've only been here four days! And the patient has Bell palsy! It's not as if the answer is written on the patient's face! Oh, wait.... Yes! It is!
Okay, taking a moment to calm down so I don't wind up with a stroke myself.
Better. Anyway, I'm just irritated that there are so many of them in an already-crowded clinic. And it's been hot. With so many people in the room, it heats up like a sauna; between that and the aggressive rudeness, it totally saps your energy. It's been pretty warm outside, too; "late summer" indeed, even though it's well into autumn by the calendar. When you see the locals in shirtsleeves, you know it's hot.
I haven't mentioned this yet, but there's one thing -- besides my bad Chinese and the Not-Russian incursion -- that's almost intolerable, and that's the fact that the ward sits directly across the hall from the restroom. That's not such a big deal until about 10:30 or 11:00 in the morning, when it starts to smell. Today was perhaps the most entertaining example: too hot in the clinic, reeking of urine just outside the door, and five meters either way down the corridor you could hardly breathe for the cigarette smoke.
But really? I love it here. Not enough to make Tianjin my home, that's for sure... but enough to come back, even with the smells and rude foreigners and the allegedly-provincial nature of the city. And as my 中文 improves, things get easier and easier. It's nice to get compliments on my efforts at speaking Chinese; the surprised pleasure makes all my frustration worth it.
Last night, a friend and I went to a Sichuan restaurant in the city center. We had... let's see. There were bamboo shoots in spicy sauce, a noodle dish, eels braised with carrots and celery and lots of spices... and at least one or two other things that I can't remember at this moment. It was very good -- and not the fanciest place in the world, either. Just the equivalent of an Olive Garden or something like that. And the cost? 70元, a little more than ten bucks. For both of us. Since she'd picked up lunch the previous couple of days, I paid.
Later, she decided she'd teach me some 天津话 (Tianjinhua, the local dialect). So far, it's been one word, which I can't reproduce properly but means "interesting". We'll see how that goes... I'm sure it will be 有意思 (youyisi, "interesting").
Meanwhile, back to the Not-Russians -- three women, two of whom look like they might have competed in the 1980 Olympic Games in the shot put (and never even walked around the block since), and two men, one of whom looks like Vladimir Putin's chubby cousin; the other one looks like the Moose's twisted love child with the Michelin Man, only not so good looking. They're exactly the stereotype -- of the Ugly American®. I can't count the number of times they've stepped in front of me. They've offended the Chinese (remember, the folks who apparently don't have any issues about privacy?) with taking pictures and video without asking. They don't have Dr. Wang's respect because they don't know the basics of Chinese Medicine.
Today, they asked what a patient's disease was. For the third time! They've only been here four days! And the patient has Bell palsy! It's not as if the answer is written on the patient's face! Oh, wait.... Yes! It is!
Okay, taking a moment to calm down so I don't wind up with a stroke myself.
Better. Anyway, I'm just irritated that there are so many of them in an already-crowded clinic. And it's been hot. With so many people in the room, it heats up like a sauna; between that and the aggressive rudeness, it totally saps your energy. It's been pretty warm outside, too; "late summer" indeed, even though it's well into autumn by the calendar. When you see the locals in shirtsleeves, you know it's hot.
I haven't mentioned this yet, but there's one thing -- besides my bad Chinese and the Not-Russian incursion -- that's almost intolerable, and that's the fact that the ward sits directly across the hall from the restroom. That's not such a big deal until about 10:30 or 11:00 in the morning, when it starts to smell. Today was perhaps the most entertaining example: too hot in the clinic, reeking of urine just outside the door, and five meters either way down the corridor you could hardly breathe for the cigarette smoke.
But really? I love it here. Not enough to make Tianjin my home, that's for sure... but enough to come back, even with the smells and rude foreigners and the allegedly-provincial nature of the city. And as my 中文 improves, things get easier and easier. It's nice to get compliments on my efforts at speaking Chinese; the surprised pleasure makes all my frustration worth it.
Last night, a friend and I went to a Sichuan restaurant in the city center. We had... let's see. There were bamboo shoots in spicy sauce, a noodle dish, eels braised with carrots and celery and lots of spices... and at least one or two other things that I can't remember at this moment. It was very good -- and not the fanciest place in the world, either. Just the equivalent of an Olive Garden or something like that. And the cost? 70元, a little more than ten bucks. For both of us. Since she'd picked up lunch the previous couple of days, I paid.
Later, she decided she'd teach me some 天津话 (Tianjinhua, the local dialect). So far, it's been one word, which I can't reproduce properly but means "interesting". We'll see how that goes... I'm sure it will be 有意思 (youyisi, "interesting").
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Food, glorious food!
This will not be the last of my food posts. In fact, I'm not entirely sure why I've waited so long to talk about this, except for the lack of photos and breadth of experience.
Anyway.... as we all know, I like to wander around a little bit. The other night, my wanderings brought me to a market. I won't call it a "night market", because that has connotations of deep-fried scorpions and roasted snake meat that this market was entirely lacking. But it was a market, and it was open at night, unlike the one that's across the street from the hotel where I'm staying.
(Vegetarians beware... The next few paras have descriptions of some of the animal-based foods I saw. Nothing too out of the ordinary for US palates, but if you avoid certain counters at the supermarket, you might want to skip ahead a bit.)
The market was reminiscent of an indoor Farmer's Market -- of course, not like the one at the Ferry Building. This was in a large warehouse, with fruit stands, vegetable stands, prepared food, and so on. In the two markets like this that I've been to, there are fruit and veggie stands in the front, and making up most of the middle of the area. Along the sides, there are vendors selling sausage, noodles, and bread (usually batter-based buns or flatbreads, often fried and occasionally stuffed). And in the back are the butchers and fishmongers. As I wandered into the back of this particular market, off to the left, I saw mounds of shrimp, live crustaceans (crabs reminiscent of East Coast blue crabs and some kind of flat, pale crayfish), and six or seven varieties of fish, all of them smelling sweetly of the water, eyes clear and gills pink.
Not for the first time, I wished I had a stove here to try cooking some of this stuff. Fortunately, I had already eaten, so I wasn't tempted to figure out some way to do it anyway.
The butchers are likewise impressive. Ribs hanging from the top of the stand, other cuts -- including variety meats -- on the counter below. Like the French or the Italians, the Chinese will eat everything but the squeal. (Or cluck, or moo, or what have you.) It's impressive, the lack of waste, and since chicken heads are pretty sparse in the meat department, they're remarkably cheap.
Of course, in a country where labor is still almost free, the cost of producing food is also insanely cheap.
(Okay, I'm stopping with the graphic descriptions of meat.)
It's possible, in fact quite easy and economical, to eat from street carts at least two if not three meals per day. These are nothing like New York street carts, except for the portability. I've seen everything from pre-prepared food held in a cooler (or just out in the open!), to buns steamed over boiling water, to food being fired in one of two full-temperature woks, and everything in between. Between the easy availability of bamboo charcoal to the portability of gas, it's possible to cram just about anything into a cart the size of two side-by-side shopping carts. I've even had (for breakfast) a fried egg, pickled vegetables, and sauce on a bun baked a la minute in a kind of Dutch oven. Most things are wrapped, of course, to go. This means a nigh-infinite number of thin, cheap plastic bags and food that usually has bread wrapped around it, but I've also seen soup go out in a bag, or (for eating nearby) what looks like a storage bowl, wrapped in a plastic bag to save having to wash constantly.
Getting other prepared food is pretty simple, too. Like I mentioned above, the market near the hotel has cold salads and sausage in addition to the fruits and vegetables and so on. Tonight for dinner, I had yu xiang dou fu (fish-flavor tofu), which is actually made without any fish. It was pretty decent -- on a par with the average-quality Chinese restaurants in the Bay Area, only, you know, for 7元, a little over a dollar.
Of course, there's always the supermarket nearby -- Carrefour, that famous French chain store. It's generally a good place to get fruit, though the street markets are pretty reliable for local food -- don't try to find dragonfruit, or even a banana, but apples and pomelos and jujubes (zao) are everywhere, even on the street. And corn is ubiquitous, even roasted at one of the aforementioned street vendors. Same thing with sweet potatoes, or maybe yams -- I'm not a botanist, I just know that they smell tasty and sweet roasted in a big barrel filled with charcoal.
Before anyone asks, I've already tried durian, I like it, but it's a pain to eat, and a bigger pain to find someone to eat the ginormous thing with you. I'll stick to the lesser culinary challenges, like whether or not to eat the membranes of a pomelo. Speaking of which, I have to mention that the pomelo here is nothing like the beast we get in the US. My past experiences with pomelos in the US have been less than satisfactory -- start with a fruit about the size of your head, and wind up with an edible portion that is about the same size and flavor as a grapefruit, only a little more bitter. Here, pomelos have relatively thin skins, so you end up with a sweet, unique-tasting snack for three or four. And the membrane is so thick, you almost have to peel the fruit out of them.
I still haven't had much experience with a proper restaurant. Maybe I'll find a way to work that out soon with one or another of my fellow interns. More when that happens.... or when I have pictures.
Anyway.... as we all know, I like to wander around a little bit. The other night, my wanderings brought me to a market. I won't call it a "night market", because that has connotations of deep-fried scorpions and roasted snake meat that this market was entirely lacking. But it was a market, and it was open at night, unlike the one that's across the street from the hotel where I'm staying.
(Vegetarians beware... The next few paras have descriptions of some of the animal-based foods I saw. Nothing too out of the ordinary for US palates, but if you avoid certain counters at the supermarket, you might want to skip ahead a bit.)
The market was reminiscent of an indoor Farmer's Market -- of course, not like the one at the Ferry Building. This was in a large warehouse, with fruit stands, vegetable stands, prepared food, and so on. In the two markets like this that I've been to, there are fruit and veggie stands in the front, and making up most of the middle of the area. Along the sides, there are vendors selling sausage, noodles, and bread (usually batter-based buns or flatbreads, often fried and occasionally stuffed). And in the back are the butchers and fishmongers. As I wandered into the back of this particular market, off to the left, I saw mounds of shrimp, live crustaceans (crabs reminiscent of East Coast blue crabs and some kind of flat, pale crayfish), and six or seven varieties of fish, all of them smelling sweetly of the water, eyes clear and gills pink.
Not for the first time, I wished I had a stove here to try cooking some of this stuff. Fortunately, I had already eaten, so I wasn't tempted to figure out some way to do it anyway.
The butchers are likewise impressive. Ribs hanging from the top of the stand, other cuts -- including variety meats -- on the counter below. Like the French or the Italians, the Chinese will eat everything but the squeal. (Or cluck, or moo, or what have you.) It's impressive, the lack of waste, and since chicken heads are pretty sparse in the meat department, they're remarkably cheap.
Of course, in a country where labor is still almost free, the cost of producing food is also insanely cheap.
(Okay, I'm stopping with the graphic descriptions of meat.)
It's possible, in fact quite easy and economical, to eat from street carts at least two if not three meals per day. These are nothing like New York street carts, except for the portability. I've seen everything from pre-prepared food held in a cooler (or just out in the open!), to buns steamed over boiling water, to food being fired in one of two full-temperature woks, and everything in between. Between the easy availability of bamboo charcoal to the portability of gas, it's possible to cram just about anything into a cart the size of two side-by-side shopping carts. I've even had (for breakfast) a fried egg, pickled vegetables, and sauce on a bun baked a la minute in a kind of Dutch oven. Most things are wrapped, of course, to go. This means a nigh-infinite number of thin, cheap plastic bags and food that usually has bread wrapped around it, but I've also seen soup go out in a bag, or (for eating nearby) what looks like a storage bowl, wrapped in a plastic bag to save having to wash constantly.
Getting other prepared food is pretty simple, too. Like I mentioned above, the market near the hotel has cold salads and sausage in addition to the fruits and vegetables and so on. Tonight for dinner, I had yu xiang dou fu (fish-flavor tofu), which is actually made without any fish. It was pretty decent -- on a par with the average-quality Chinese restaurants in the Bay Area, only, you know, for 7元, a little over a dollar.
Of course, there's always the supermarket nearby -- Carrefour, that famous French chain store. It's generally a good place to get fruit, though the street markets are pretty reliable for local food -- don't try to find dragonfruit, or even a banana, but apples and pomelos and jujubes (zao) are everywhere, even on the street. And corn is ubiquitous, even roasted at one of the aforementioned street vendors. Same thing with sweet potatoes, or maybe yams -- I'm not a botanist, I just know that they smell tasty and sweet roasted in a big barrel filled with charcoal.
Before anyone asks, I've already tried durian, I like it, but it's a pain to eat, and a bigger pain to find someone to eat the ginormous thing with you. I'll stick to the lesser culinary challenges, like whether or not to eat the membranes of a pomelo. Speaking of which, I have to mention that the pomelo here is nothing like the beast we get in the US. My past experiences with pomelos in the US have been less than satisfactory -- start with a fruit about the size of your head, and wind up with an edible portion that is about the same size and flavor as a grapefruit, only a little more bitter. Here, pomelos have relatively thin skins, so you end up with a sweet, unique-tasting snack for three or four. And the membrane is so thick, you almost have to peel the fruit out of them.
I still haven't had much experience with a proper restaurant. Maybe I'll find a way to work that out soon with one or another of my fellow interns. More when that happens.... or when I have pictures.
Sunday, October 12, 2008
Sunday reflections
So, it's Sunday, and I don't have a lot to do today. I treated myself to a bit of a lie-in (a term I've always liked, to be honest), and it was black sesame cereal for breakfast, from a package, in case anyone was wondering. Nothing spectacular.
But I suppose it's time to get some more pictures posted... so here's my trip to the Great Wall:
My first couple of views of the Wall from the Jinshanling end. From the parking lot, you can either take a gondola up to the wall for something like 40元, or you can hike up for free. I think it's worth the hike, but as most people know, I'm a big walker. These pics above are from the start of the hike up.
Also, from the beginning, some locals invariably come along with you. It's hard to not let them attach themselves to you and help you along... which in some cases, is actually quite handy. Plus, many of them act as unofficial tour guides. I felt a little obligated to buy something from them on the hike -- I got an actually rather nice picture book for not-all-that-much -- but whatever.
The countryside is spectacular. Rugged, hilly... well, you get the picture. What used to be inner Mongolia (and is now, I think, Hebei province) is on the north side. The side that was being protected from.
A view through a doorway, back west from where we'd come. This particular tower didn't have the roof still on it -- Simatai is less restored than other sections of the wall, and is the section most clearly built during the Ming Dynasty.
But I suppose it's time to get some more pictures posted... so here's my trip to the Great Wall:
There are a number of sections of the Great Wall that can be visited. I hiked from Jinshanling to Simatai, two adjacent sections of the wall in various states of disrepair and restoration. It's pretty amazing, to tell the truth... far more so than I'd actually expected.
My first couple of views of the Wall from the Jinshanling end. From the parking lot, you can either take a gondola up to the wall for something like 40元, or you can hike up for free. I think it's worth the hike, but as most people know, I'm a big walker. These pics above are from the start of the hike up.
Also, from the beginning, some locals invariably come along with you. It's hard to not let them attach themselves to you and help you along... which in some cases, is actually quite handy. Plus, many of them act as unofficial tour guides. I felt a little obligated to buy something from them on the hike -- I got an actually rather nice picture book for not-all-that-much -- but whatever.
The countryside is spectacular. Rugged, hilly... well, you get the picture. What used to be inner Mongolia (and is now, I think, Hebei province) is on the north side. The side that was being protected from.
I look terrible in most of these pictures, but whatever. The hike was exhilirating, and I actually felt really good in terms of how well I was doing, considering how out of shape I've gotten while in school.
At any rate, the wall winds back and forth on itself, I imagine because of the reality of the terrain and the lack of desire to completely transform the landscape. (It wasn't a lack of ability. All you have to do is look at the wall itself to realize that the manpower was available to do nearly anything, if the political will was also there.)
Another of the early sections of the wall in Jinshanling. You can get a decent idea of what the hike is like most of the way -- a lot of ups and downs, spectacular ruins, spectacular scenery, uneven pavement.
Uh.... well, that's more-or-less straight up and down. Reminds me of some of the pyramids in the Yucatan, only with slightly wider steps.... and much, much higher.
Actually,the caution signs do show up from time to time, mostly in obvious places. But not in the places you might think, like where you might actually take a tumble off the 180-step climb.
Remember the ad-hoc guides? Here are the two who came along with me and the woman who I was hiking with.
I'm ashamed to say that I've forgotten their names. I think I wrote them down somewhere, but I don't know where.
At any rate, this is a little more than halfway through the hike, right before we went from Jinshanling to Simatai.
A view through a doorway, back west from where we'd come. This particular tower didn't have the roof still on it -- Simatai is less restored than other sections of the wall, and is the section most clearly built during the Ming Dynasty.It's a noticeable difference, actually. Not only is there a difference in the age of the wall itself, but the style is substantially different. It's quite clear that you're walking on two seperate walls during the hike, even if they join more-or-less seamlessly.
That is to say, there's nothing but a sign to officially tell you that you're on the Simatai wall. That, and about two towers in, there's a guy taking tickets, so you have to produce one of those.
Like I said, a little more run-down looking. The footing is a bit more treacherous on the Simatai section, but the views are still spectacular, and it's still pretty manageable, even in the rain.
I mentioned in the video that it started to rain while I was there. Actually, it was right about at this spot that I noticed that it was getting darker, even though it was just about noon. I'd smelled rain all day long, but since I'd come without a raincoat, or even a jacket, I was at least mentally prepared for what was coming.
At this point, Michelle, who was hiking with me, asked what I'd do if it started to rain. I shrugged. "I'll get wet, I suppose."
But since I was getting wet, unfortunately, I didn't take too many pictures on this segment of the trip. Michelle took a few other pictures, but we haven't gotten in touch yet. Hopefully we'll be able to, and I'll have a lot more pictures to share.
Here's the aforementioned end of the hike, with the bridge across the river. This is taken looking down from the second-to-last tower -- the last is the one you see across the river -- and that's the cable bridge to the right. The little white spot at the far end is the guy who takes your 5元 for crossing the bridge. If you're totally out of money, I'm not exactly sure what it is that you're supposed to do. Swim, maybe. Just above the top of the frame, there's a walkway off to the right where you can get off the Wall and hike down.
The bridge isn't really all that rickety, but since it is a suspension bridge, it definitely moves as you walk across it. Not frighteningly so, but there's no doubt that it moves.
Like I'd pointed out before, you can see that the Wall continues onward, and you can just make out at the top right part of the picture a walkway. It's about a 20-minute walk down from the top, into the parking lot, where our shuttle driver, a guy "not too tall, big round belly" as the hike organizer put it, was waiting to take us to the restaurant for our late (and well-earned) lunch.
Of course, if you don't feel up to hiking the whole way, there's always a faster way down. Yes, that's a completely-soaked me in the foreground of the picture.
The zipline cost 30元，if I remember correctly, and was a lot more fun than I'd expected. The boat ride back across the lake wasn't quite so much fun, but it was still worth it.
Lunch at the restaurant was, by the time I got there at least, pretty indifferent. They had a cafeteria-style setup for those of us on the hike, included in the price. In retrospect, I think I'd have preferred to pay less and order some of the food I saw walking by, food that was a little less dumbed-down for western palates. But those are my prejudices showing up again.
Actually, all in all, the experience was worth every penny I spent. I had a great time, met a few folks on the way, and really was astounded by the views and the sheer sense of history. Even some of the inconveniences (like getting rained on) were just added bits, things that made the experience unique. I'm glad that I chose to go out of the way for this trip, instead of the shorter, cheaper, and almost infinitely more-crowded Badaling section of the wall.
The ride back, by the way, was epic. More because of the holiday traffic than because of the rain, it took us nearly five hours to get back, while the ride out had taken a little over three including stops and waits to pick people up. I managed to sleep most of the way, but nevertheless, it kind of sucked. Dinner that night was hot pot with three Germans, which also meant beer with three Germans. But with beer going for 3元 a bottle, it was as cheap as water, so it was generally a good bargain.
Friday, October 10, 2008
More general thoughts on Tianjin
- I've already mentioned the traffic, but multiply it by about a squillion. I'm not sure I'll be able to walk across the street in the US safely, ever again, because instead of just going where they're going and slowing down a little (a lot), the helpful driver is going to swerve at top speed and plow right into me.
- Everybody smokes. I. Mean. Everybody. Smokes. And I'm seeing the results in clinic, too, as we're getting stroke patients in their 40s and 50s. And with all the secondhand smoke around me, I suspect that they're not all smokers.
- Most of the men drink. Again, this is based on what I'm seeing in clinic and on the street, but again, there are men in their 40s and 50s with alcohol-based encephalopathies and (I imagine) cirrhotic livers.
- But! People are generous and helpful in ways that we in the US just couldn't imagine. People watch one another's kids while they're getting a treatment; in one case, they watched another person's aged father with dementia. It doesn't always seem like it, especially when there's money involved: if you're in a financial transaction, be on your guard since nobody wants to leave money on the table. But outside of that, I've seen some generosity that would knock your socks off.
- Privacy is a myth. I alluded to the fact that HIPAA doesn't exist for the Chinese, and I've described the clinic in which I'm observing, which obviously makes medical privacy a bit of a challenge. But it goes deeper than that, since most people show up for their acupuncture treatments with a friend or family member, and since that person is sitting around for the better part of an hour, they usually get a good look at what's going on with another patient, and sometimes offer their opinions. Similarly, in public restrooms there may be no divider between the (squat) toilets, or there may just be a token one about a meter high. Now I'm not sure if it's the anonymity of the masses, or (more likely) just a cultural lack of concern for such things... but I know that it would totally freak my mother out.
- Things are simultaneously more and less disposable. For instance, everyone carries their own reusable bottle for water or tea. But you get the cheap, thin plastic bags with EVERYTHING, and if something is packaged at all, it's probably overpackaged. On balance, I think a little less waste is generated... a little. But it's hard to tell, because littering is a part of the culture where there are people picking up the trash every couple of blocks in Beijing, and about half that in Tianjin.
- Oh, and acupuncture needles? After one use, they're dropped in a pan of alcohol, where they're taken out at the end of the day, straightened, and autoclaved. And I'll bet there are ten guide tubes in the whole city. Good on the waste factor, bad on the painless insertion and ultra-clean-needle factors. But that also means I've gotten to see a three-edge needle in use! Very cool, and I can see how it's much more versatile than a single-use lancet, which really is neither long enough nor broad enough to do the job sometimes. And I haven't seen a single needle break, even with VERY vigorous stimulation. (Dr. Zhang goes EASY in our class, by comparison.)
This isn't what I'd expected, to be honest... but that's not a bad thing. I'm still amazed at what a wonderful experience this has been so far, and I only expect it to get better as I get more comfortable.
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
A little more
As I said, it's been interesting working in the clinic/ hospital here in Tianjin. Yesterday, I got to see several people get Jinjin and Yuyao punctured. (They're on either side of the frenulum, underneath the tongue, and you puncture about 5 cm deep.) Sheer acu-geeky happiness... along with the "Sheaf of Wheat" needle the instructor pulled out to show off, 35 cm long! Two of the CP kids came in, along with one I hadn't met before... they're pretty funny, because they put up a huge fight with crying and yelling while the needles are being inserted... and then once it stops, there's nothing. It's as if there was no problem at all.
I seem to remember acting the same way when I was getting vaccinations as a kid.
We got a memo yesterday afternoon that said that on Monday, the hospital saw 8,177 patients. Not too shabby for the first day back from vacation!
So, I've been meaning to post my first impressions of what an AIMC student would want to be sure and have if coming to study in Tianjin... so here's the list, subject to revision.
This is the view from my apartment on the tenth floor of the Tian Zhong Hotel. It's usually hazy like this, except right after it rains. Right down at the bottom of the image, you can see a corner of the athletic field -- a football (soccer) field surrounded by a track. Every morning at 6:30, music plays across the city, followed by some sort of calisthenics routine that seems to be performed mostly by women.
The hospital, right next door, would be directly behind me if I could walk through the building.
I tried to take some photos of the apartment itself, but it's impossible to get an idea of the scale. It just looks like I took pictures of the corners of the room. Maybe I'll try again later... but here's where I stayed in Beijing:
The entrance to the courtyard. There's a more conventional-looking hotel across the street, but that's not as cool as this.
The floating globes are not lights, or aliens.... they're just water droplets on the lens. I still think you get the idea. It was raining, the day I left, and I was about to go squelching all over Beijing for a second day in a row.
(Chinese Medicine geekery note: two vials of Yin Qiao Pian, the first all in one go, and the other at four tabs every four hours, did the trick for my incipient Wind-Heat attack the next day. I probably should have used a third vial to be safe, though. Funny, too, when I realized that the stuff was made in Tianjin. Well-travelled tablets, just to wind up a few kilometers from where they started.)
This is half the courtyard... I don't know why the other half didn't really come out. Imagine another two tables on the other side, anyway. That's the tourist office and so on through the door under where it says "Internet Access"; through the doorway you can just barely see on the right is a landing leading up and down to the dorm rooms (not much to speak of, two double bunks). From the landing, you can also go left to the computer room for your 8元 per hour access, or right to some kind of meeting room that usually had a staff member watching TV there.
That didn't seem as bizarre at the time as it might sound now.
I seem to remember acting the same way when I was getting vaccinations as a kid.
We got a memo yesterday afternoon that said that on Monday, the hospital saw 8,177 patients. Not too shabby for the first day back from vacation!
So, I've been meaning to post my first impressions of what an AIMC student would want to be sure and have if coming to study in Tianjin... so here's the list, subject to revision.
- Lots of Chinese. I mean, a TON of Chinese language. Don't skip this, or you're going to feel like a dummy most of the time. Both conversational and medical. If you're willing to feel a little like a dummy, then the amount I showed up with was probably just about enough for this environment. If there were more people, and it was reasonable to slow everything down, then just the basics might do.
- A fair knowledge of the names of acupuncture points. Even saying "手阳明大肠经四" (Hand Yangming Large Intestine Meridian Four) will get you pondering looks. If you say "合谷" (He Gu, "Union Valley"), they'll instantly understand.
- At least a passing familiarity with Chinese characters. It's one of the reasons I keep on practicing them here in this blog.
- A willingness to realize that not all places in the world are HIPAA or Clean Needle compliant. More on this later.
- Good books, other ways to occupy yourself, something mindless but engaging and in a familiar language. Even if you love everything that's going on around you, your brain needs the occasional break from all the foreign experiences. In some ways, you're absorbing information as fast, and just as lost, as a baby. Only with the adult hard-wiring behind it making it more difficult. And babies sleep almost half the day to process everything.
This is the view from my apartment on the tenth floor of the Tian Zhong Hotel. It's usually hazy like this, except right after it rains. Right down at the bottom of the image, you can see a corner of the athletic field -- a football (soccer) field surrounded by a track. Every morning at 6:30, music plays across the city, followed by some sort of calisthenics routine that seems to be performed mostly by women.The hospital, right next door, would be directly behind me if I could walk through the building.
I tried to take some photos of the apartment itself, but it's impossible to get an idea of the scale. It just looks like I took pictures of the corners of the room. Maybe I'll try again later... but here's where I stayed in Beijing:
The entrance to the courtyard. There's a more conventional-looking hotel across the street, but that's not as cool as this.The floating globes are not lights, or aliens.... they're just water droplets on the lens. I still think you get the idea. It was raining, the day I left, and I was about to go squelching all over Beijing for a second day in a row.
(Chinese Medicine geekery note: two vials of Yin Qiao Pian, the first all in one go, and the other at four tabs every four hours, did the trick for my incipient Wind-Heat attack the next day. I probably should have used a third vial to be safe, though. Funny, too, when I realized that the stuff was made in Tianjin. Well-travelled tablets, just to wind up a few kilometers from where they started.)
This is the view right after you turn the left-hand corner at the back of the previous picture. Those are grapes overhead, the courtyard is over to the right through the red gateway, and the toilets are to the right, mercifully neither shown nor smelled.
This is half the courtyard... I don't know why the other half didn't really come out. Imagine another two tables on the other side, anyway. That's the tourist office and so on through the door under where it says "Internet Access"; through the doorway you can just barely see on the right is a landing leading up and down to the dorm rooms (not much to speak of, two double bunks). From the landing, you can also go left to the computer room for your 8元 per hour access, or right to some kind of meeting room that usually had a staff member watching TV there.
That didn't seem as bizarre at the time as it might sound now.
The restaurant connected to the hostel, where I didn't eat once because it catered mostly to Western palates. A few people ate their breakfasts there, but I got mine on the street.
It's not precisely the Inn of the Weary Traveller... but it's close.
I've got some street scenes, and some Great Wall photos... but you'll have to wait! I can't dole it all out at once!
Hospital daze
It's about halfway through my third day at the hospital, and I have to say, I'm really having a good time. Sure, I only understand about a quarter of what I hear, and another quarter gets interpreted for me, but I'm getting a lot out of it, if only because of the sheer volume that I see.
The room is set up with nine beds, with curtains between them -- three to your left as you walk into the room, and the other six across the far side. Plus there's a desk with a computer where herbal consultations and prescriptions can be written -- often for the first time a new patient comes in, plus some patients get medicine in addition to their acupuncture.
A prescription for acupuncture is for 10-14 sessions, usually every day or every other day. Patients come in and lie down on one of the beds, after giving a little slip to one of the interns there. The slip is pretty basic -- name and condition on one side, a grid with places for dates of treatment on the other, and the ubiquitous red stamp that makes it all official. The doctor in charge of this ward comes in and asks one or two questions -- many of these patients have had one or two courses of acupuncture already, so he knows them pretty well. It takes maybe 3 or 4 minutes to insert the 15-20 needles for the treatment, then it's off to the next patient. One lap around the room, and it's to the desk to see new patients, take a blood pressure reading, feel pulses, look at test results, or whatever.
30 minutes or so later, one of the interns will pull out the needles and send the patient on their way, a new patient jumps on the bed, and it's all over again. So I'm seeing (observing) about 40 patients a day this way. The ward I'm working in is about 60% facial paralysis (mostly post-stroke and other central neuropathies, with a few Bell palsy patients mixed in for fun). The rest are lumbar pain with nerve impingement, a couple of kids with mild cases of cerebral palsy, one man with dementia, and another with asthma.
It's all so fascinating. I'm gathering all kinds of information as quickly as I can... it's almost overwhelming. More after my afternoon shift.
The room is set up with nine beds, with curtains between them -- three to your left as you walk into the room, and the other six across the far side. Plus there's a desk with a computer where herbal consultations and prescriptions can be written -- often for the first time a new patient comes in, plus some patients get medicine in addition to their acupuncture.
A prescription for acupuncture is for 10-14 sessions, usually every day or every other day. Patients come in and lie down on one of the beds, after giving a little slip to one of the interns there. The slip is pretty basic -- name and condition on one side, a grid with places for dates of treatment on the other, and the ubiquitous red stamp that makes it all official. The doctor in charge of this ward comes in and asks one or two questions -- many of these patients have had one or two courses of acupuncture already, so he knows them pretty well. It takes maybe 3 or 4 minutes to insert the 15-20 needles for the treatment, then it's off to the next patient. One lap around the room, and it's to the desk to see new patients, take a blood pressure reading, feel pulses, look at test results, or whatever.
30 minutes or so later, one of the interns will pull out the needles and send the patient on their way, a new patient jumps on the bed, and it's all over again. So I'm seeing (observing) about 40 patients a day this way. The ward I'm working in is about 60% facial paralysis (mostly post-stroke and other central neuropathies, with a few Bell palsy patients mixed in for fun). The rest are lumbar pain with nerve impingement, a couple of kids with mild cases of cerebral palsy, one man with dementia, and another with asthma.
It's all so fascinating. I'm gathering all kinds of information as quickly as I can... it's almost overwhelming. More after my afternoon shift.
Monday, October 6, 2008
北京，再见! (Farewell, Beijing!)
I can't believe I didn't actually post from Beijing while I was there. Actually, I can.... the one place I had cheap Internet, it was free and dreadfully slow. Everywhere else, it was between 6 and 10 RMB per hour.... after the 2 that I get in Tianjin, it's hard to pay that much.
But it was amazing there! First thing I did, I walked from the bus station at the Third Ring Road to the Far East Hostel about a quarter mile from Tiananmen Square. It's in a hutong, which means that the streets are narrow and the public toilets are eye-watering (and quite public) and it's probably moments away from being razed for the sake of "progress"... but I digress. If you've never taken the time to walk the streets of a new city, you're really missing something. Every city has a pulse, an undercurrent that shows up in the way people greet you (or don't), the feel of the shops and the cars and the dirt and everything. Beijing is still in the afterglow of what is almost universally seen as a spectacularly successful Olympic Games, and the five days I was there exemplified that. October 1 is the National Holiday, which means that most businesses are closed for the week, and everyone goes on holiday. In this case, everyone went to Beijing -- five million of them.
Let me repeat that, with emphasis. Five freakin' million Chinese people went to the capital city on their one-week holiday. That's the entire population of the Bay Area, plus Bakersfield thrown in for good measure, added to the 12 million in the Beijing metro area. I went to the Summer Palace and there were 87,000 visitors that day. That's a little more than the population of Alameda at the Summer Palace, crammed into about 3 square kilometers of park and sightseeing. There was so much to do, and so many people doing it.... pure insanity. But in a good way, if you can believe that. I met a few expats -- a Brit, an Irishman, and a few Germans -- who gave me a break from the constant Chinese and broken English. "Hello! Come in! Very inexpensive! Only 100!" and "You want rickshaw? Three!" were the most common... the last is a scam where they insinuate that you're going to get a ride for 3 yuan, and instead they want 300! Such is life in a city that caters to tourists and a history of ripping them off. It turns out that the Irish guy went and got the cops to chase one guy who'd run that scam away.... China is definitely making an effort, no doubt about it.
So it was the Summer Palace, Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City, and the Great Wall (where I got rained upon) this trip. I'm going to have to go back when the city is a little more sane if I want to do anything else... which I do. Pictures will come, but I have to get the proper cable to make the connection. Turns out that's the one thing I forgot to bring with me. That, and one of my camera batteries is DOA, so I don't have any pictures from Tiananmen Square or the Forbidden City.
Enough for now. I'm back in Tianjin, where life is somewhat cheaper and I'm actually starting clinic! More on that in my next post, along with some impressions of Beijing.
But it was amazing there! First thing I did, I walked from the bus station at the Third Ring Road to the Far East Hostel about a quarter mile from Tiananmen Square. It's in a hutong, which means that the streets are narrow and the public toilets are eye-watering (and quite public) and it's probably moments away from being razed for the sake of "progress"... but I digress. If you've never taken the time to walk the streets of a new city, you're really missing something. Every city has a pulse, an undercurrent that shows up in the way people greet you (or don't), the feel of the shops and the cars and the dirt and everything. Beijing is still in the afterglow of what is almost universally seen as a spectacularly successful Olympic Games, and the five days I was there exemplified that. October 1 is the National Holiday, which means that most businesses are closed for the week, and everyone goes on holiday. In this case, everyone went to Beijing -- five million of them.
Let me repeat that, with emphasis. Five freakin' million Chinese people went to the capital city on their one-week holiday. That's the entire population of the Bay Area, plus Bakersfield thrown in for good measure, added to the 12 million in the Beijing metro area. I went to the Summer Palace and there were 87,000 visitors that day. That's a little more than the population of Alameda at the Summer Palace, crammed into about 3 square kilometers of park and sightseeing. There was so much to do, and so many people doing it.... pure insanity. But in a good way, if you can believe that. I met a few expats -- a Brit, an Irishman, and a few Germans -- who gave me a break from the constant Chinese and broken English. "Hello! Come in! Very inexpensive! Only 100!" and "You want rickshaw? Three!" were the most common... the last is a scam where they insinuate that you're going to get a ride for 3 yuan, and instead they want 300! Such is life in a city that caters to tourists and a history of ripping them off. It turns out that the Irish guy went and got the cops to chase one guy who'd run that scam away.... China is definitely making an effort, no doubt about it.
So it was the Summer Palace, Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City, and the Great Wall (where I got rained upon) this trip. I'm going to have to go back when the city is a little more sane if I want to do anything else... which I do. Pictures will come, but I have to get the proper cable to make the connection. Turns out that's the one thing I forgot to bring with me. That, and one of my camera batteries is DOA, so I don't have any pictures from Tiananmen Square or the Forbidden City.
Enough for now. I'm back in Tianjin, where life is somewhat cheaper and I'm actually starting clinic! More on that in my next post, along with some impressions of Beijing.
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
More from Day One
...even though it's Day Two.
It's a common observation of the elderly in China is that they'er not only in pretty good shape, but they're remarkably agile.
I know the secret of this. It's the loose traffic laws.
No, really. You see, it's pretty much a free-for-all out there on the streets, and the sidewalks are as often as not completely clogged with bicycles or something else. So you walk where you can, with drivers going wherever they want. Case in point: the cab driver from the Tianjin bus station to the hotel went the wrong way out of the parking lot, then the wrong way for about 3/4 of a block, just driving slowly and honking all the time. Traffic moves pretty slowly compared to in the USA, so it's not so bad... and if someone wants to cross the street, they just cross wherever. It's more common for someone to cross at a crosswalk, but since nobody's really paying attention anyway, it's common also for people to stop in the middle of the street, between lanes, until it's safe to keep on.
So my current working theory is that playing dodge-em with the traffic keeps the old folk in tip-top shape.
Anyway, yesterday was pure and complete culture shock. Today, I'm pretty sure I'll be able to get by, although it's going to require regular and constant study of Mandarin to really feel comfortable. Not too bad.
And since someone asked:
Last meal in the USA: Hot cocoa and a ginger cookie from Peet's at LAX. $4.65 US.
Meal on the flight (I slept through the first one): Ginger Chicken with rice and bok choi. Not bad for airline food.
First meal in China: Beef noodle soup from California Beef Noodle King USA (no, really, that's the name), 10 RMB (about $1.50 US). Then it was a chicken-and-faux-crab bun at a street vendor for breakfast. 2 qian, tasty, I could probably use another but won't. I declare China a good country to eat in, especially with the exchange rate.
I've already been waylaid by a 20-year-old guy who wanted to practice his English, which was kind of fun. I'd hoped to get a little lay of the land since he was working at the local superstore, but it turns out he's from Hubei and just here for the national holiday. Oh, well.
My room at the school hotel is tiny. I mean, really tiny. Reminds me of the time I lived in a converted pantry for two weeks while looking for an apartment, only with a bathroom attached. More on that when I can get the pictures off the camera.
Firecrackers outside. Must be a national holiday.... I'm on my way to Beijing today for the next three or four days, since the school is closed for the rest of the week. Should be a great time, and in a more tourism-accustomed town, I might even get the familiarity I've been looking for. See you soon.
再见！
It's a common observation of the elderly in China is that they'er not only in pretty good shape, but they're remarkably agile.
I know the secret of this. It's the loose traffic laws.
No, really. You see, it's pretty much a free-for-all out there on the streets, and the sidewalks are as often as not completely clogged with bicycles or something else. So you walk where you can, with drivers going wherever they want. Case in point: the cab driver from the Tianjin bus station to the hotel went the wrong way out of the parking lot, then the wrong way for about 3/4 of a block, just driving slowly and honking all the time. Traffic moves pretty slowly compared to in the USA, so it's not so bad... and if someone wants to cross the street, they just cross wherever. It's more common for someone to cross at a crosswalk, but since nobody's really paying attention anyway, it's common also for people to stop in the middle of the street, between lanes, until it's safe to keep on.
So my current working theory is that playing dodge-em with the traffic keeps the old folk in tip-top shape.
Anyway, yesterday was pure and complete culture shock. Today, I'm pretty sure I'll be able to get by, although it's going to require regular and constant study of Mandarin to really feel comfortable. Not too bad.
And since someone asked:
Last meal in the USA: Hot cocoa and a ginger cookie from Peet's at LAX. $4.65 US.
Meal on the flight (I slept through the first one): Ginger Chicken with rice and bok choi. Not bad for airline food.
First meal in China: Beef noodle soup from California Beef Noodle King USA (no, really, that's the name), 10 RMB (about $1.50 US). Then it was a chicken-and-faux-crab bun at a street vendor for breakfast. 2 qian, tasty, I could probably use another but won't. I declare China a good country to eat in, especially with the exchange rate.
I've already been waylaid by a 20-year-old guy who wanted to practice his English, which was kind of fun. I'd hoped to get a little lay of the land since he was working at the local superstore, but it turns out he's from Hubei and just here for the national holiday. Oh, well.
My room at the school hotel is tiny. I mean, really tiny. Reminds me of the time I lived in a converted pantry for two weeks while looking for an apartment, only with a bathroom attached. More on that when I can get the pictures off the camera.
Firecrackers outside. Must be a national holiday.... I'm on my way to Beijing today for the next three or four days, since the school is closed for the rest of the week. Should be a great time, and in a more tourism-accustomed town, I might even get the familiarity I've been looking for. See you soon.
再见！
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