Day 16: "Blood-letting" in China

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  Wuhan, China
Sunday, September 11, 2005

Good News on the Washing Machine Front: Finally tried out my washing machine. It sings songs like "Yankee Doodle" and "London Bridge is Falling Down" when the washing cycle begins and finishes. I guess China felt the need to make laundry more fun. To make it even more fun than just songs, the dirty water from the machine flows out of a short tube coming out of the machine, travels across the bathroom floor, and drains down the hole in my bathroom floor. Surely this will serve as entertainment one of these days. I'm glad to find that the hole actually does serve a purpose, though not as glad to discover that it is apparently clogged with something, since the bathroom was half-flooded when the washing cycle finally ended. Granted, it was only HALF-flooded, but the water was disgustingly dirty because I had been washing clothes that I had worn out in the dusty, smoggy streets of the city, so when the water finally dried, my bathroom floor looked brown instead of light pink. And all of the clothes and towels that I washed now smell like feet

Anyone Like to Buy a Chipmunk?

. Hope future loads of laundry will smell less like feet and more like soap, or it could be a very smelly year.

Metro = Chinese International Import Haven: Eager for some new adventures, Jones, Linnea, Derner, Steph, Becky and I decided to chance the Chinese bus system to find a supermarket called Metro, which we were told sold the one food I miss most in China: cheese. On the forty-five minute busride over, a Chinese man began a conversation with Stephanie to practice his English. It's pretty common for Chinese people to compliment Westerners (calling features such as their blond hair, light eyes, and white skin very beautiful or lovely), so I was used to hearing such comments from random Chinese hoping to practice their English. I was very surprised, however, when the man asked me if I was an actress, before I had even spoken a word to him. He went on to tell me that I looked like Elizabeth Taylor (must have been the huge square sunglasses), which I definitely have never been told before and for which I definitely was made fun of for the rest of the day.

When we finally arrived at Metro, we discovered that it was like a Sams Club or CostCo back home, though things weren't quite as cheap. They had a whole section of imported cheeses and we even found some packaged deli meat, though none of it looked particularly appetizing

Anyone Like to Buy a Puppy?

. Near the cheese, they had a couple of mini-aisles of imported international food like cereals and jelly. We even found Duncan Hines cake and brownie mixes. I don't have an oven, but maybe I can make cake in a wok?

All of the imported stuff was very expensive, but it's all relative I guess, since 30 RMB (about 4 US dollars) for brie cheese is not that far off from what you would pay in America. It's hard to think that way, though, when most things that you buy at the grocery store are between 1 and 5 RMB. We also met a nice lady named Karen from Perth, Australia who let us use her Metro card to buy our groceries because apparently you can't pay for anything if you don't have a card to the place. We wanted to get cards for ourselves, but you need a passport to do that and we are all in the middle of getting our residence permits, so government officials currently have our passports.

I also tried a dragon fruit when we got back from Metro, which I don't think I have ever even seen before, though they do have them sporadically in the US. They're pretty cool looking so if you've never seen one, go check out the photo album. They're also very tasty and nutritional, so if you have the chance to taste one, you should.

Blood-Letting: Becky Goes First

"Blood-letting" in China: One night, the eight of us were called from our cozy apartments to Lorry's office where we were informed that we needed to go to a clinic in the morning for "a blood-letting."

Naturally, we were all extremely shocked, not only because we each had to get physicals, x-rays, and a ton of blood work done before we left the US in order to even get our Chinese work permits, but also because...

...we were in China and Lorry used the term "blood-letting."

After seeing our deer-in-the-headlights expressions, Lorry told us that the Chinese government needed us to do three more blood tests (to check for Hepatitis B and C and any liver damage that might have been caused by any form of hepatitis) before we could get our residence permits and foreign expert identification cards. Apparently getting vaccinated against hepatitis and tested for all forms in the United States isn't proof enough that we don't have it.

SO, the next morning we all woke up bright and early, met at 7:45am, and took off for the clinic (which Lorry assured us did not use contaminated needles or anything unsafe)

Blood-letting: The Wait

. Now, I'm pretty indifferent when it comes to needles as long as they aren't anywhere near my eyes or my jugular or anything, but let's just say that the whole process of getting blood drawn has never been a favorite pastime of mine. My veins are small and hidden so I usually end up getting poked several times in each arm, and then when they actually get the needle in a vein, for some reason my blood just doesn't want to come out. So basically, as much as I enjoy the blood drawing experience, I wasn't feeling too thrilled about having to go through it, especially since I had to go through it in China. Thankfully it was very clean and professional, but, as usual, they couldn't find any veins in my arms (though in China they're nicer about it and don't stick needles into your arm and prod around for them like they do in the States; if they can't see or feel them, they look for other solutions), so for the first time in my life they took blood from the back of my hand. Well, also as usual, the blood just wasn't flowing, so they kept hitting and milking my arm and raising and lowering it and stuff to try to get more blood to come out. The best part was definitely the needle which kept moving around as they did this, ripping a slightly bigger hole into my vein and hand. Very pleasant feeling. I had a huge blood bump afterwards which eventually lowered into a very deep bruise. For the whole rest of the day it hurt to close my hand at all. So that was fun.

At least I had a good afternoon: Jones, Becky, Derner and I went on an hour long trek to find a rotating sushi bar

Dragon Fruit From the Inside

. It wasn't the best sushi I've ever had, and the turnaround wasn't very fast so the same things kept going by, but as sushi is one of my favorite things to eat, I wasn't complaining a bit. It's really good to know that there is a Japanese restaurant relatively nearby, in case I start getting sick of Chinese food (which I'm sure will happen eventually). It was also pretty cheap for sushi since I'm in China and pretty much everything is cheap here, but it still was the most I've paid for lunch yet (40 RMB which is about $5).

Ergonomic Wooden Chairs = Sleeping Butt: Wish I had a couch. Really wish I had a couch. I like having someplace to accidentally fall asleep. and is more comfortable. and butt won't fall asleep.

Update on Teaching Situation: Well, Andy and I finally heard something from our boss, Liang. We had been waiting patiently to hear anything from him while everyone else got their teaching schedules and started teaching. Actually, this was the first time we were in contact with him since we learned what and where we would be teaching. We had a meeting with him where we received the reading and listening textbooks and listening tapes, and discovered that all 800 graduate students needed to take an English exam to determine who still needed to take English classes

Dragon Fruit From the Outside

. Everyone who achieved high marks basically passed out of English classes, and everyone who did poorly was placed in classes. Well, there are only 12 Chinese professors who teach English to the graduate students, so you can imagine how long it took them to grade 800 exams. It's no wonder it was taking so long to hear any news about our class schedules. Liang said that they had not completely finished grading all of the exams yet, but that he was hoping we could start teaching the following Monday. He said that he would give us our class schedules by Sunday night at the latest. Lovely, look forward to that.

Sorry, I don't speak Chinese!: It's funny that sometimes people here laugh at you when you try to speak in Chinese, and some people get embarrassed, some people try really hard to help you, and some people yell at you in Chinese and rip you off for being white.

I was bored one evening and decided to use my dictionary to decipher one of the ramen bowls I had. The one I deciphered was braised beef noodles. It took me like an hour to figure that out.

Sex and the City: Yay for September HBO Emmy Award specials!! "Sex and the City" is on every Wednesday and Thursday nights, double episodes each night

Man Selling Nuts From His Bicycle

. Derner, Stephanie and I went over to Linnea's one night, and they were playing the funniest episode I have ever seen--if you recognize this quote and it makes you laugh, you know exactly what I mean: "They aren't strangers, they're our new friends with pot." Thank God for Linnea's excellent HBO reception, because my HBO has progressively gotten fuzzier, to the point that you hear the buzzing static and it's really hard to hear what the actors are actually saying. It's kind of like watching a movie with the mute button on but louder.

Some more of the Chinese Police: I expected our second meeting with the police to be short and sweet, but when I met everyone in front of our building to go to it, I found out that we needed to drive an hour to get there.

Lovely.

So, we get in a van and take off. Thirty minutes later, the van stops in a random alley, and Lorry gets out. He sticks his head back through his open window and says "I will be right back, stay in the van."

Right.

Melon on a Stick

After an hour of sitting in the van in this random alley, we can't take it anymore so we get out. Our driver is watching at us rather suspiciously so we don't wander too far, but we go to the corner and gather, extremely bored and a bit put out to be wasting so much time. Linnea and Derner start listening to Queen on Linnea's iPod, and pretty soon every Chinese person that passes by is not only staring at us for being American and randomly standing around on a corner, but also staring at us for busting out "Bohemian Rhapsody."

Finally, two hours after we left campus, we continue on to the police station, where we had 5 minute individual "interviews" with a police officer. It was stupid, really. They just asked us about our hair and eye color and stuff and then we had to sign the form where they wrote the color of our hair and eyes.

Basically a waste of a day, but as we were leaving the station we passed by a pickup truck with three donkeys in the back, so I guess it wasn't a total waste.

Chinese Food Update: I finally got around to trying one of the "banana yummies" everyone has been raving about

My Plant Side View

. Turns out they're raving for a reason. It really was yummy. It's basically a very thin pancake-y crepe thing folded up around chopped up bananas and fried. We've pretty much been eating in the markets lately since you can get a large tasty meal for like 20 cents easy and pretty much the only downside is occasionally having to step over dead rats in the curb. But that doesn't happen too often. I discovered some really cheap pineapple beer at the supermarket, which was definitely worth the 18 cents I paid for it, and I also finally tasted Chinese yogurt which I'm always told is much better than American yogurt. Turns out that this is also true. Chinese yogurt is like a piece of heaven in a little plastic cup

My Potted Plant, Affectionately Called Monsoon: So I'd wanted to buy myself a potted plant since I'd come to China, if only to add a little bit of life to my apartment, and they have a pretty big flower market nearby, but I hadn't found my way down there yet. One night, as we were walking out of one of the night markets after having eaten dinner, we passed by the flower market and Flannery (who is pretty much fluent in Mandarin Chinese) offered to go in and help me buy a plant. So we walk in, and there are beautiful flowers everywhere, and everything is full of bright lights and lots of smiling Chinese flower vendors calling to us to buy flowers from them. Flannery asked one of them where the potted plants were, since we only saw cut flowers everywhere, and she told us to go further on and to turn left at the gate. Well, we get to the gate, turn left,

and suddenly find ourselves plunged into the darkness of the night in a narrow passageway formed by large potted plants. It was a little bit frightening before our eyes got used to it, but there was a woman back there with a lighter who led us into a nearby greenhouse where everything was black as pitch save for the feeble light from her lighter

My Plant Top View

. I was beginning to think that it might be better to just come back during the daytime, when the woman lit a newspaper on fire, and held it up like a torch so that I could see the plants. I decided since I was there, and the woman was risking setting herself on fire just so I could buy a stupid little plant, I may as well just buy one and get it over with. I could only see like the five little plants by the woman, but I spotted a really nice looking one that apparently has something to do with the upcoming Moon Festival or Mid-Autumn Day Festival that was coming up. I have absolutely no idea what kind of plant it is (if you're good with plants, check out the picture of it in the photo album and let me know if you recognize it), but it's colorful and came in a really nice ceramic pot with Chinese artwork and calligraphy on it.

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