Anyway, it's time to talk about China and Chinese people. I am a wai guo ren. No matter how much I try to pretend I'm Asian, I'm not and nothing is really going to change that unless I opt for a radical surgical procedure on par with turning me into a woman. I'm a white boy and will always be so. However, I've spent a decent amount of time here and know the language fairly well. I'm not fluent by any chance, but I have a basic grasp of Mandarin (or I'd like to think that...). Anyway, Chinese people see that I'm white, and assume I don't know Chinese. I can't count how many times I get bemused looks when I say hello or thank you in their language because they think I'm trying to be cute. The purpose of that long introduction is that since people assume I don't know Chinese, they frequently talk about me in front of me, assuming I don't know what they're saying. Sometimes I like to feed this (I pretended I knew no Chinese for an hour after I was picked up at the airport yesterday because I wanted to see if the school people were talking about me; they didn't), because I think it's funnier for me to trick them than to let them know. This came up today as I was registering at the local police station (a requirement here in the communist paradise and is actually a two part procedure: registration and a permit application). The policewoman, who seemed awfully nice, started talking to the foreign affairs secretary of my school, asking some general questions about me, not in an official capacity, she was just curious and shooting the shit as my papers were processed. She asked if I knew any Chinese, and was met with the answer that I know a little. She then inquired as to what I was doing and he told her I'm an English teacher. She then laughed and wanted to know how I'm supposed to teach beginners English to a class of Chinese kids when I don't understand Chinese. Little did she know I was eavesdropping the whole time! I just kept a blank look on my face as they chatted, then said thank you and goodbye in very cheery Chinese as I left the office, which she seemed to find adorable.
We continued on our travels on the foreign affairs secretary's (Mr. Wang is his name and he will now be referred to as such) electric scooter, a first for me. I was scared shitless at first since I was riding on the back without any type of restraining device and nowhere to put my feet (which frequently scraped the ground). It wound up being a cool ride; this place reminds alot of Florida for some reason. Before the afternoon smog rolls in (unless the really cloudy and hazy atmosphere has occurred by random chance two days in a row..), it looks really nice here and is legitimately green. It's cool, and the humid weather also applies to the Florida analogy. Anyway, after dropping me off, I decided to go to the store to get some supplies to set up my apartment since aside from sheets and a bed mat, they gave me nothing, not even TP. So I had to pick up some water and soda, hangars, cleaning supplies, and, of course fangbian mian (Chinese ramen, like the American stuff but on steroids). Walking into the store, I couldn't find a basket to hold my innumerable supplies, so in typical me fashion, instead of asking a shop keep for something to hold my shit, I just decide I can balance it all. I manage to pick up two bottles of soda, two bowls of noodles, a tupperware container, a plastic cup, and a pack of sponges before I dropped everything. Someone came over immediately, took all the stuff out of my hands and gave me a basket. Quite helpful. Anyway, after buying three completely full bags of stuff (and spending less than $20 to set myself up- I love China), I decided to go to the restaurant next door for some food.
There are five cafeterias on campus, but I was too nervous to go in them because I didn't want to be stared at (a common occurrence here since I'm the only white person I've seen in this town though supposedly there are more--- as a quick aside, I wore my Holy Cross shirt with the Chinese writing on the front and people were fascinated by it in Beijing, Shanghai, and Wuxi. I didn't understand why it was so enthralling but it elicited constant stares). Anyway, of course I entered the restaurant and was stared at. Awesome. I sat down and was handed a menu I couldn't read. I never really learned how to read food items, I just memorized the names of good dishes. All I wanted was some dumplings. This wasn't me pre-ordering my food like I did in Korea (I'll probably write about that tomorrow since I'll have nothing else to do when everyone back home is sleeping and I'm at my computer); I just wanted some fucking dumplings. I'm in love with them.
So once again, my Chinese isn't great, but it's decent. I know my pronunciation isn't bad, but usually people can understand me within the context of the conversation. I ask the waitress for some dumplings. They either don't have them or she didn't understand me. Then she rattled off some crazy Chinese at me which went straight over my head. I didn't even get one word. Even after asking her to repeat herself, I still didn't understand her; I think she was talking about the type of food they served at the restaurant but it meant nothing to me. Then I tried to order some kung-pao chicken, another tasty, reliable dish we ate in Beijing all the time. They didn't have that either. They also apparently didn't have noodles, or I fucked that one up also, I really don't know. I didn't know what to eat, and I think the lady asked me if I like spicy food (... I think that's what she said...). I said yes, I like spicy food and then she said something, I think it was the name of a dish. At this point I was somewhat exasperated and hungry (and pressed for time since I had my physical at 1pm), so I told her I'd eat whatever she was saying. I was presented with this:
(by the way, if I did that correctly and actually uploaded the photo [and I make no promises there], then I also found a way to put up songs on here, which is awesome).
I was somewhat concerned by the dish since nothing in it looked recognizable. I found out the twisty things were crunchy and tasty with a mouthful of rice, but the other stuff was unrecognizable. After some trepidation, I decided to give it a taste. A little chewy, but tasty, once again with a mouthful of rice. While I wasn't shoveling it into my mouth, I was making a pretty good pace with it. The waitress walked by and I asked here what I was eating. She moves her hands to the top of her head to make ears, says 'moo', then says duzi (that's Chinese for 'stomach'); using my powers of deduction, I realized I was eating cow stomach. Phenomenal. I guess this is real Chinese life. I ate probably half the plate or so (I was full at that point but got hungry 3 hours later) and paid and left because I had a doctor's appointment at 1!
So after the drive to the hospital through Wuxi (with the same driver as yesterday, who will absolutely figure in at another point in this story), we arrive at the hospital. After some paperwork, we went upstairs to the examination room where Chinese bureaucracy was displayed at its finest. Instead of sitting in one room and having all the tests done there, I walked in, sat down, had whatever test that room did performed on me, then get up, and went to the next room. Instead of employing a few nurses to do many tasks, they employed about 3-4 nurses per room to do one task. Absolutely ridiculous. I mean ONLY ONE TASK. One person weighed and measured me. Another took my blood pressure. Another checked my heart rate. Normal standard stuff. Then the weird shit started. (Also, before I begin the weird shit, I had the most ghetto eye test ever. I didn't have to take off my glasses. The lady told me stand behind a piece of tape, gave me a metal spoon and asked me to read the chart. I didn't understand why I needed the spoon until she gestured to me that I was supposed to use the spoon to block one of my eyes as I read. No technology, just spoons. Nice, China. Nice.)
I believe I can now say with conviction, I am the only person my age that I know, who has had an ultrasound. i'm not joking right now; there is no hyperbole in my statement; I read the English on the door and I've seen them in movies: I got an ultrasound today. I have no clue what purpose it served or what they were looking for, but they did it. I couldn't stop giggling the whole time during the procedure because 1) it was ridiculous and 2) I'm ticklish. I'm sure the nurse thought I was retarded. After the ultrasound, I don't even know what they did next. I think it was something relating to electromagneticism, but that's just a guess. I had to lie down. Clamps were put on both my wrists and one of my ankles then I lifted up my shirt and they attached some clips to my chest. I got nervous at this point because I thought they were going to shock me. I wanted to ask the nurse if this was going to hurt but I couldn't remember the words. Anyway, it didn't hurt, and I still don't know what they did. After a chest x-ray (unlike Alex and Estee, I was not given the choice of a low radiation option for an extra fee. I'm just going to pretend Wuxi is more advanced than Beijing and all the x-rays here are low radiation. Maybe that'll help me sleep tonight., I got my blood work done and was told to go to the bathroom for a urine sample. The urine sample had me pee in a cup with a spout, then POUR THE URINE INTO A TUBE! I don't understand that at all. Why not just make the cup the sample holder? Why have an extra step that heightens the risk of me getting pee on myself? Argh. Anyway, no spills and after that, I was done. (Quick note here, the note being fuck you Alex!!! That douche informed/scared the shit out of me on Saturday night (while I was drunk so maybe my judgement wasn't at its apex...) by telling me they performed an STD test at the physical (that was a legitimate statement since every form here asks if I have AIDs or an STD). However, I wasn't scared of the STD test, I was more concerned about him telling me they stick a needle into the man's urethra (we're going scientific here, it's too painful otherwise) about two inches deep. I've been squirming the past few days and was dreading it while at the hospital, but of course they didn't; he was just fucking with me. Thanks.)
Anyway, you'd think the day ended there, but of course not. The Mr. Wang had to buy something at a market, so our driver had to navigate a minivan in an extremely crowded parking lot. Now, he is not a patient driver. He enjoys using his horn unnecessarily and once again today pulled in front of someone and slammed the breaks so they could potentially hit us. Anyway he was annoyed in the parking lot because he had to wait for some people to unload stuff from a truck. The second he had open space he sped through, honking his horn. He was honking at a lady in the way. She didn't move, and he didn't stop driving. Luckily he hit the brakes and didn't hit her that hard. She seemed more pissed than hurt. He, not surprisingly was pissed she didn't move and glared at her as he drove by. Good times. (On the way to the hospital, I saw a scooter driver on the ground who'd just been hit by a car, I think he was bleeding from the leg, but he had too many people around him to be able to tell.) After that, we got back here without incident (except for my breaking my ipod on the walk back to my apartment when it fell to the ground AGAIN. So I'm ipod-less, and trying to figure out a way to get a new one. Drats!
P.S. This has no relevance to anything above, but I felt like including it anyway since it happened yesterday at the Shnaghai airport. So I was waiting at the meeting point for Mr. Wang and had my bags in a cart. I was looking for him so my back was to my bags. I turn around and there's some Chinese guy, around my age, like 3 feet behind me, creepily looking at me. I asked him if he was Mr. Wang, but he wasn't. Then he didn't move, he kept standing there. Every time I looked over, he had a video game in his hand but seemed to be creepily looking at me. I didn't know if he wanted to hump me or steal my bags. Finally he moved away from my general vicinity, but HE WAS STILL FUCKING LOOKING AT ME. Not like the Chinese curiosity look but just really sketchy. I got really pissed because his look was annoying me. Finally, after 20 minutes, he walked away and I was saved from his creepiness.
1 comment:
I just happened to stumbled upon your blog - man, I laughed so hard at the physical examination post. Everybody has the same one but I still find it endlessly amusing!
Courtney
www.teamwuxi.blogspot.com
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