Do what you want, it's China

Two great examples of doing what you want, many great lessons can be learned from the Chinese:


1. Fairly mellow clinic shift this morning. Dysmenorrhea, stomachache, the like. Herbs herbs herbs. Just when I'm getting ready to tune out and wait for the time to pass before lunch, a woman walks into the clinic room with a bag making strange noises. Now, strange and loud noises are nothing new--cell phones, yelling, things crashing to the floor are all white noise at this point. Our doctors will answer their cells phones mid-appointment, no big deal. But this sounds like chirping, and it was. This lady brought her new baby chick to the doctor with her, inside her purse, wrapped in a plastic bag. Everyone looked up to inquire about the noise, and the lady smiles and shakes her head "yes" and opens her bag to reveal a little yellow chick running around maniacally inside her purse. Hey, do what you want, it's china. After several minutes of laughter and joking we asked our interpreter if this was just rote hospital procedure. She turned out to agree that "the nurse might be a bit angry about the chicken".
I should say so. There's a chicken, in the hospital. But no one showed the patient, or her chicken the door. It continued to disturb all of the 2nd floor with it's chirping while she patiently waited for her appointment in the hall.

2. On the bike ride home there is this particularly noisy section where they are doing some building construction and half the road is covered with steel plates. The cars driving over it make the street sound like NYC subway tracks--it's loud. Today they were doing some work on this piece of road. A guy was going at it with a mallet, making a racket. I've never seen this construction technique before, but alright, what do I know. Once he bent the metal to his desired shape he whips out his welder and starts-a-welding. Mind you, there are no traffic cones or blockades or anything, just a couple guys, a mallet and a welder. As he starts welding, a shiny new white car rounds the corner and nearly runs into the welder. The driver lays on the horn, hoping to get the crew to move so he can pass, but no sir. The crew doesn't care how fancy your car is or how loud the horn. The guy just climbed under the car and continued to weld away. Eventually the car backed up and swerved around the crew, probably pretty pissed. Who needs language for a battle of wills? Your car horn and welder will do. But whatever, just another day. Do what you want.

For Emily, wherever I may find her (no, really, where's my bike?...)

A poem of mixed emotions



Oh, brazen biking through hectic city streets
My butt bouncing on your hard seat
Never have my ischial tuberosities been so sore
Oh Emily, riding with you is never a bore.

While my love is eight long weeks away
through sapphic streets my bike and I will play.

Though not as pleasant perhaps as that greek isle
or riding Black Beauty english style,
We weave and glide through traffic galore
the daily accidents only build our rapport.

Oh Emily,
with sturdy spokes and rusty chain
the tarnished bell that will never sing again
callouses from your handlebars building on my thumbs,
I'll be distraught when our last day is done.

From hospital to hotel
the streets of Nanjing never feel like hell
When gliding on your frame of steel,
for 200 kuai you were a deal!

Though one day soon I must leave you behind,
for human adventures both far and wide,
I shall never forget my love for you
and the adventures and pleasantries you took me to.

Tire tread fading along the hard pavement
our every day was well spent.

Though bumpy rides
Though thick and thin
Shocks would have only been
added weight to your thin frame,
Oh Emily, how I hope we (never?) meet again!

Surreal

Yesterdays lecture turned out boring, but all for the best.

Afterward I ran into a doctor I met a few weeks ago, before Yellow Mountain. We chatted and she introduced me to a classmate of hers who I got into conversation with. We talked for a while and it eventually came out that she was going to start a job teaching English that night to 100 Chinese college students, and was feeling a bit lost as to what the hell to do with them, and rightfully so. So, I along with my friend from OCOM, Rik, volunteered our services and asked if we could come along to watch and help out if needed. She said that would be fine and to meet back in about an hour.

So the adventure began....

We ended up driving out, via hard-to-hail taxicab, an hour outside Nanjing to this huge university in the middle of nowhere. Literally--we're driving and driving and nothing and nothing and nothing and then BAM!--Huge buildings and university complex. I guess this is one way to make sure everyone studies.
Being that hailing the cab took about 30 minutes, we were a bit late. We got out of the cab and were immeadiatly shuttled off to a classroom by a gaggle of the professor's best students.

Walking into the classroom was like nothing else I have ever experienced, and maybe ever will.

The brightest lights, and row upon row upon row of students (100 of them) sitting attentively at their desks began clapping and cheering and taking photos when the three of us walked into the classroom. We were instant celebrities, and the smiles and enthusiasm continued for two short hours. We played some games, and went through basic words and sentences like: Can you help me find the bus station?
We went around with maps to have small conversations and ask the students to find the bus station. All conversations were peppered with "Teacher, can I take your photo?" "Teacher, we think you are so beautiful" "Teacher, where are you from"...on and on and on.

Some of them spoke very fluently, and other students couldn't understand a word of what I was saying. Though they were in college, they all seemed incredibly young and giggled madly when we taught them the word "bikini".
At the break, everyone came up and wanted their photo with me--I'm probably all over China's myspace and facebook, and at the end everyone wanted me to sign their lesson book, or photo ID, or something.

It was weird, really really weird, and incredibly rewarding, and while I don't think Korea will be quite the same I can't wait to start.

Oh! I forgot to blog about it..I got the job I wanted! Or, rather, we--Timber and I--got the jobs we wanted! We both start in Daegu, South Korea at Ding Ding Dang on November 17th. I mailed my contract off yesterday.
Now that it's all official, and especially after last night, I can't wait to start my time there. It should be lots of fun, a great adventure and good break/planning time for me before I move somewhere else in the U.S.

...and now to post a poem.

This week, in Nanjing

Well, today is promised to be "considerably cloudy", as per the weather channel. Since when do they alliterate the weather? So I'm bringing a sweater to my third day in clinic. The first day was a little hectic, as we tried to figure out where we were supposed to be and where the blankityblankblank our interpreter was. Eventually everything worked out. The doctor as well as the interpreter are lovely. We've been seeing a lot of gynecology, some lung stuff, some depression stuff and its all herbs, all the time. Yay! I love it. The doctor is a really sweet person, very compassionate and caring and smart as hell. She is also a considerably competent teacher which makes it all the better.

After Monday though, I went home and went straight to bed for a 2 hour nap, then a brief break from sleeping and back to the pillows for 8 more hours. I think it was part the exhaustion of the first day, but also the food in China and the sugar in particular. No more sweet things! Yesterday though, I got some great shopping done at the 3 hour lunch break and then came home and went to the Opera. It was a cultural experience for sure, and I took some photos. I felt a little rude, but then all the Chinese people were doing it and thats my rule, follow whatever the herds of Chinese do. The best parts were the adventure getting there, since it doesn't seem that even if a building has an address, anyone will know where that address is. We took a cab and asked and asked and asked and eventually were pointed in the right direction. The performance took place in what looked like an old government building or temple. We were late, but no one seemed to mind. After two short stories, one painfully long, the performance was over and we went outside to figure out our next move. As soon as we got out there we saw a crowd of people watching their own street opera performance. Ladies with fans and hanky covered mikes singing and dancing and a big street band. The audience was singing along to all the songs they knew and clapping. Fun! They were really into us being there too, and kept on trying to get us to sing. None of us knew the words.

So today is wednesday, lecture day. We'll see how it is, it is supposed to be on clinical application of the extraordinary vessels, but really could be on anything.

a good day in China has no plan

I started out this morning trying to find the ticketmaster place, but no such luck. The addresses skipped from 54 to 112, so there is something about the chinese address system that I am missing.
I went to starbucks to de-compress from the search and read for a while. While in the vortex, I decided to just take a bike ride down to the Ming palace remains that I had seen on the map and had been by on the bus the other day. It turned out to be a perfect adventure. I went into the gardens where the majority of the remains are. Most of it is bases for the pillars that are no longer there, one small building and a few old statues. It was really peaceful and I felt like I was in the middle of a lot of good history. There are beautiful carvings in the bases that you can hardly see because they have been so weathered Across the street is more of what used to be the palace, but what is now a garden. There were lots of older men flying kites, and I asked one if I could fly with him. He did the best he could to get me a kite up and going, but the wind wasn't good for a crap kite flyer like me, so after a few tries he took the kite back. I think we both had a good time though nevertheless. I walked around in the park a bit more, among families playing badmitton and this guy playing with the coolest yo-yo I have ever seen. I took a video of it that I've uploaded, but it's sideways--sorry!

After the park, I took a short ride down to the Nanjing Museum complex, where the contemporary and historical art museums are both located. I basically spent the day there looking at some weird contemporary art, and some gorgeous ancient art. The contemporary stuff was a lot of commentary on how China is being changed my western modernism. A favorite was the papercutting from McDonalds and Burger King fast food bags. I think what most struck me about the historical art museum was how old things were. They had jade from tombs from 2500 BCE, from just outside their own city. The U.S. doesn't have that much history, and I don't think I've seen anything that old in Europe either. This really is a culture and a people that has been around for a long time, and while so many things have changed, so many have stayed the same. Writing it like that makes it sound kind of silly, but really---it's really really old. really. Jade carvings and clay pots that were from thousands of years ago looked in many ways like they could have been made just yesterday down the street. The carvings and craft were so much more intricate and advanced than I realized they could be for that era. I bought jade pieces last week that look like they could be in the museum alongside what I saw today. So, really, the same people (in a broad sense) have been doing the same crafts for thousands of years. Are you impressed? I'm impressed.

So then home, and yummy noodles from down the street and now blog and bed. Tomorrow I start my second round of clinic shifts at a new hospital doing herbs.

Oh--I forgot to mention, after all the looking for the ticketmaster place that would hopefully get me tickets and lead me to the dance performance I want to see, I found the theater by accident. It was closed, but it's really easy to get to. I figure I'll go back one night when the performance is supposed to be happening and see what's what. The world is funny that way, huh?

So, night! I have to get my smart-rest.