The Dumb Laowai

This has been one of those weeks when I wonder why the hell I haven’t left yet. Of course, there are a few moments that remind me, but they are often hard to see when you’re on a tirade.

I went back to class after missing a week, worried about convincing the teacher that I was really sick. That, in itself, is a little irritating. I’m a grown man, here at my own expense, and I’m worried about what my teacher thinks of me. I guess she simply has a high-energy, mother-like quality that makes you want to please her. I needn’t have worried. My troubles simply lent credence to the ills of several other students.

I jumped in with both feet, trying to catch up on my missed lessons, when I was waylaid by a monster of a toothache. I gutted it out for a few days, taking antibiotics and drinking too much. That’s not normally a good plan, but I wasn’t thinking very clearly. I finally broke down and went to a Chinese dentist.

I had originally thought that I would have some overdue dental work done here, but passed on the idea after hearing of some medical horror stories. At that point, I didn’t care if my health-care provider had a hunchback and was called Igor. Pleasant surprise – I ended up in a very modern office, very sterile and friendly. The main problem was that I had even less of a working knowledge of dental terms than of everyday Chinese. In addition, it’s really not very easy to say “Yeah! It f…ing hurts,” in a foreign language when some guy has both hands in your mouth.

Unpleasant surprise – this guy, at least, was very reluctant to use any sort of anesthesia. It wasn’t until a purely unintentional physical response on my part came close to injuring him that he decided to shoot me up with the good stuff. He jabbed me for a few minutes and waited for the numbing to kick in. His first effort at re-entry resulted in another punch in his direction. This time I watched him prepare the shot. Apparently, lack of use had rusted his skills and he had not realized that there was a kink in the needle. No matter what he did, he couldn’t get it to produce. One quick replacement and we were in business.

To cut the story short for now, I’ve had three sessions, totaling almost three hours, and am hoping for my crown next visit. Pleasant surprise - total cost so far – US$60. If I had to have a root canal, at least it was one that didn’t hurt my wallet.

The next day I was reminded of just how fortunate I had been. I ran across a Watson’s drug store (a supposedly Western chain) and decided to look for a few things like antacids, etc. I had no luck in finding anything I wanted and barely stopped myself from buying bottles of “Deer Placenta” and “Mountain Yak Penis.” I have no idea what they are for, but I pictured having them in my medicine cabinet just to shock the next person who snooped. I’d have to hide them here, though. For all I know, they’re for estrogen therapy and people would begin to wonder.

I left the dentist and headed to the bank to pay both my water and television bills. I had forgotten about the television (nobody sends you a bill) and had just gotten my first water bill (six months of water and sewer totaled US$6.) I waited in a under air-conditioned bank lobby for almost an hour to pay a total of US$18.

Mildly irritated, to say the least, I left to find a bicycle repair expert (someone sitting by the side of the road with an air pump and a box of tools.) I was finally fed up with my recently purchased bike. I now realized that it wasn’t me. If my legs are cramping up after five minutes of strenuous pumping, during which I have to endure being passed by eighty year old men hauling refuse, something is wrong!

I should have known that US$30 for a brand new 18 speed was ridiculously low, even for China. After a few laughs, I was informed that nothing on the bike was actually new, other than the paint. It was so bad that the guy wouldn’t even give me US$10 for it. I ended up riding around all afternoon, in sweltering heat, to discover that my first bike had been a real steal (most probably, literally) and that for a similar quality bike I would need to spend almost US$125. I muttered and swore, realizing that I had to have a decent bike, before coughing it up. It took two minutes to forget about my problems as I raced down the street with ease. The last time I felt that good about a bike it had what, years later, would have been very valuable baseball cards stuck in the spokes.

Oh well. Only three more weeks to go and I can look forward to a sanity check back in the states. I don’t know exactly when. It’s difficult, if not impossible, to buy tickets on-line here and you usually get the best prices at the last minute. I may not give anyone more than a couple of days warning. Come to think of it, beware – I may not give any at all.

Again, sorry for the delay in posting. I recently turned down an invitation to lunch from my classmates, citing what I thought was a mild case of “wine flu.” Little did I know that it would take over my life.

Being an old hand at curing hangovers, I went home and forced myself to partake in the hair of the dog before retiring to my bed for a couple of hours. I awoke covered in sweat and, at the same time, trying to determine who had snuck into my apartment and turned it  into a meat locker. Whoever it was, they also set all of my clocks ahead by eight hours. I’ve been told that, occasionally, I can be a little delusional, but there’s nothing like a good fever to get the imagination fired up. Big chunks of the next week were a blur.

I vacillated between thirty hour sleepless periods and fourteen hour semi-comas. I went from chills to fever so fast that my clothes often still wet from the previous fever. At one point I made it out to the drug store (Chinese style) and asked them to give me anything that would help. There is a theory that our bodies simply aren’t accustomed to Chinese medicine, one that it’s just short of doing nothing, and several in between. I hadn’t heard of any stories involving truly evil side effects. As usual, I just had to push the boundaries.

The clerks sold me a package of pills to reduce my fever, saying that once it was gone, I should start drinking the tea-like medications they gleefully recommended. This elevated my irritation with Chinese air-conditioning units. I understand most of the control buttons and have done extensive experimentation with the others, but I have yet to find any automatic temperature control. It’s simply a matter of turning it on full blast when you’re hot and turning it off when you’re cold. Normally, I can live with that but, when you’re going from fever to chills at a moment’s notice, you lose all idea of how warm your apartment really is (I have no thermostats and no thermometers!) This can make it a little difficult to judge whether or not you still have a fever.

It may have been the power of suggestion, but right about the time that the fever pills ran out, I started feeling a little more comfortable: time to start the tea for coughing, etc. Again, I’m not sure whether to blame the medicine or my own shortcomings, but all it did was to make be vomit for twenty-four hours. The only thing I’m sure of is that the medicine was involved somehow. That’s not normally a symptom you see several days into an illness.

Enter LD (Little Dictator – see previous posts.) I told her that my restless sleep had caused both my neck and my bum shoulder to start griping and she offered to massage away my problems. I had temporarily forgotten her obsession with cupping (what I consider to be the Chinese version of using leeches – heating dozens of glass jars and attaching them to your back, the vacuum sucking unspecified toxins from your body.)

At this point, LD gamely tried to attain the moniker of LA (Little Assassin.) She massaged me (read torture) to within an inch of my life before bringing out more glass jars than you see at a county fair. She continues to blame my poor health and excess toxins, but the result was my back being covered in hundreds of small blisters. I had already resigned myself to an even worse night of sleep when she made another diagnosis.

It seems that the main reason that I have fallen ill a few times is my insistence on the use of air conditioners when the temperature rises above 85º (24ºC.) Having grown up in the countryside, without air conditioning, she is convinced that is worse than either smoking or radiation for one’s health. As endearing as it often is, her persistence can sometimes be downright dangerous. She insisted on staying the night to make sure that I recuperated in a puddle of sweat and not further endanger myself by turning on the AC. I started to wonder of any of the embassies had a witch doctor on staff: the treatments might be a little more comfortable.

Thankfully, I’m now feeling better. The only problem is that I only have three more weeks of class and I’m now a week behind. I guess there won’t be much fun in June.

Due to the illness, I hadn’t been out of the house much for a week and everything seemed to strike me with a fresh sense of strangeness this morning. As I waited at a red light, along with fifty other bicyclists, a street vendor did his best to convince me that what I really needed was a watermelon for breakfast. As I rode through the campus I passed a student practicing his English lesson, pacing back and forth, loudly proclaiming “You always know what you are doing!” Riding by the tennis courts, I was treated to a wonderful tenor aria from a Chinese opera, sung by a guy with a pretty good serve. If you can give up your self-obsession for a little while, this place can be unbelievably entertaining.