Rash Decisions
Trip Start
Dec 2007
1
36
41
Trip End
Aug 2008
Beijing,
China
Saturday, March 8, 2008
Just because I feel so badly about our lengthy estrangement, I'll drop you a little yarn that is certain to cause you to question any regard you may have for my intelligence. So let's start with this, Beijing is very dry...arid is what they call it. I call it freakin' parched. It is on the edge of a desert so what do you want. As a result, two things are immediately apparent upon your arrival into China's Capital. The first is a constant thirst, which I use to excuse my tremendous alcohol bills, and the other is any skin moisture you may have brought with you on the plane is evaporated instantly, and each visitor is turned into a strange upright biped version of an albino alligator (or crocodile, if you prefer) within hours. It is that kind of flaking skin that demands vigilant scratching, especially at 2 am as the sandpaper sheets of the rock like sleeping surface irritates each square centimeter of skin. Is it possible to have an uncontrollable itch inside your inner ear cavity?
After a few weeks into my journey, and with bits of chalky white epidermis peeling away from my body in a record setting pace as I made my way through town, I figured I needed to do something. I don't want to say it was bad, but Hansel and Gretel where seen following my cascading scales of peeling skin as a guide back home from Grandma's place. Lotion was inked in on the top of my shopping list and I found my way to my local grocery store. It is a tiny store, but is remarkably well stocked, and strangely enough, health and beauty is a particular strong suit. I wandered down the multiple rows of "soap, lotion, shampoo, etc." aisles, trying to settle on just right combination of fragrance and constancy that screams "Soothing relief." Coconut and Vitamin E? Kiwi, Lemon and Ginseng? Something that looks like two atomic particles circling a milk bottle? I find all the classics, but all the fancy western brands cost a fortune. Oil of Olay at 85 yuan (12 bucks?!) are you kidding me. Luckily, on the very same row of fancy looking bottles is an alluring white plastic bottle that has an ultra-modern logo, Chinese characters in cool street fonts, and one English language word on the front, "Clear!" How can I go wrong with something in its very nature is "Clear!" Happily back home with my bottle scratching relief, I lather on a healthy dose of that glop and head straight to bed.
The next morning my skin, especially my legs are so dry I have to put on twice as much lotion as I normally would. I splatter big puddles on my thighs and rub the stuff up and down my legs. I notice that it doesn't really absorb into my skin so well, but it eventually I'm ready for work. All the day, my legs itch and itch. It is to the point where decorum and standard office policy for proper behavior are completely abandoned, and I scratch way like a leper chimp on a meth binge. I get up walk around several times during the day, because it seems to relief the itching. I try to determine what is going on, when I realize, I am wearing my new wool pants from a fancy fashionable designer, and cost all of 8 dollars at the Silk Market. I must be allergic to the inexpensive Chinese fabric in my cheap knock-off French Designer Silk Market pants, and I secretly curse my decision to buy fake uber-hip clothing and the even more incredible miscalculation to wear them the very next day to the office. Let's cut to the chase as they say...
I get home and take off my pants to discover my legs from hip to ankle are a scarlet shade of crimson that hasn't really been seen since the demise of the liquid dye versions of old 1940's Technicolor movies. You know, those kind of incredibly bright reds you see in movies like "Gone With the Wind," or the color parts of "The Wizard of Oz." My first thought is, "I should have known better than buy those stupid pants. That isn't wool...and whatever it is, it is shredding my skin. How could I be so stupid? Good thing I bought the lotion." So it's another good heaping potion of oozing white lotion relief, and on with the pajamas before going to sleep that night.
The next morning...Why can't I move my legs? The skin on my legs has now gone from irritate mess, to full on rash. I can't walk. I put on my softest linen pants in can locate in my closet and waddle my way to work. I am in complete pain all day...What the hell was that fabric in those stupid pants. I somehow make it home, and plop down in front of the TV. I lift my legs to an elevated position, as the latest Barclay's Premiere Football Match from England goes to half time. I pop open a large Tiger Beer and see a happy singing cartoon character come bouncing on to the screen. In a high pitched Chinese song, the character takes a bottle of my favorite lotion and tosses it to a very beautiful woman who is smiling while showering. She takes the lotion and rubs it into her hair. The Chinese song continues and beautiful men, children and even more beautiful women rub the lotion in the hair of children in a bathtub. Everyone is so happy to have my lotion in their hair. Then during the third chorus the catchy melody, some hybrid of Chinese characters and English words appear on the screen. I don't really catch any of the graphics, other than the very clear English word "Dandruff" which flashes in a neon green and pink, as the la....la...la...la part of the song begins.
Wait a minute. Dandruff lotion? Um, no...not dandruff lotion (wait for it...) No...Dandruff Shampoo. Yes, my dear friends. I had been rubbing handfuls of caustic chemical enhanced Dandruff Shampoo into my legs for days on end, thinking it was body lotion. Not too worry, I got some American Skin Repair lotion (at 10 times the price of the original Oil of Olay lotion I had shunned) and after a few days I was fine.
Chinese lesson one... Products aren't grouped by function as is the case in the West. You might find a bottle of Extra Virgin Olive Oil right next to Toilet Cleaner. If there is an empty space on the shelf...that's where it goes.... If it looks like a duck, and it quacks like a duck, in Beijing...you get the goose.
Comments
Love it!
Great story...Hope all is well...Pens start Round 2 and the Bucs are 9-13. They just split the first 2 game series with your Cards.