I’m So Sorry!

July 29

Today is my last day here in China. I was home alone for the morning as the health inspector made a visit to Dr. Wang’s clinic forcing her to be there. I ventured out to have a walk around the courtyard for a bit, when I grew a wild hair. I walked out the gate and into the small market area near the apartment complex. I wanted a cold beverage. Particularly one that does not necessitate first boiling it. I picked up my favorite Chinese beverage that is some kind of white grape juice, maybe? I can’t really tell based on the picture but it’s delicious. Then I took a gander around and stumbled upon what might be the greatest of my purchases this entire trip.

Underwear.

Not just any underwear but a couple pair of briefs with a picture of two cartoon whales on the side and the words, in english, “I’m so sorry” next to them. Really?!? The underwear are apologizing? At first I found it quite bizarre but then it hit me how appropriate it is to have your underwear apologize on behalf of yourself. Sold.

I walked up to the cashier with my box of underwear, size large in order to compensate for the fact that I am not a tiny asian woman. I smiled at the lady behind the register as she rung me up. She looked at me and spoke something in Chinese with the box in her hand. I put my hands up in the universal sign for “I don’t speak that language.” So she pointed to the box, then pointed to me, and I nodded assuming she was asking if they were for me. Then she shouted something over her shoulder to the girl in the back who came out with a different box, same style. Size EXTRA large. Awesome.

I laughed out loud, thanked them in Chinese and left the store with my big black ass, leaving my pride and 16 Yuan on the counter.

She’s Canadian, not American!

July 28

Dr. Wang had to go into work today so I wasn’t able to go to the Chinese Medicine Center. Instead, Yang Ma Ke (her husband) took me to a different city that no one seemed to know the name of for lunch with his brothers. We had a duck, a whole duck, and cleaned every bone. Literally, every bone was left on the table sans every smallest bit of meat. At one point I looked over to the girl sitting next to me and watched her pull a purple colored row of vertebrae out of her mouth. I did just fine, until I got to the cartilidge of the joint and couldn’t go any further. I think it was ok though, because they chattered on about my chopstick skills. I couldn’t understand what they were saying but at this point I know what those phrases sound like because it happens at every meal with every different guest. Admittedly, it was actually the best meal I’ve had here. In all honesty it was incredible in flavor and the meat was as tender as anyone could ask for. The only part I disliked about it was the pinkish speckled gelatinous rectangle piece of God-knows-what that I had to choke down in three or four bites. Luckily I kept it down. Somehow I don’t think duck would taste as good coming up. Not to mention the disrespect and shame that act would conjur. I wouldn’t have picked it myself, out of the boiling pot of duck carcass and vegetables, but these people feed me like I’ve never eaten before.

It is raining now. I haven’t seen rain in I don’t know how long. It is not swelteringly hot outside now, which is refreshing. And my skin didn’t melt when I walked through it. Who knows though, I might end up with a tail or a third arm in just a few days time. If not from the polluted rain, then from the God-knows-what jelly I ate at lunch.

I walked through a Mosque this morning, Yang Ma Ke waited outside for me. It was kind of like a Catholic church in the way everything is painted in vibrant colors and ornamented with shiney fake gold all over the place. It wasn’t as awe inspiring as I was expecting. In fact, it was a little disappointing in a lot of ways. Nothing really special or beautiful about it inside. And I had to pay 10 Yuan to see it. I suppose it was worth the money, considering 10 Yuan is a little over a dollar. And as I write this, the Muslim call to prayer is playing somewhere between the sounds of chainsaws and hammers.

I’m going to admit that it is getting increasingly difficult to answer the same questions from all the people I meet. “Do you know how to drive?” “Do you have a boyfriend?” “Do you use MSN?” “Why do Americans like iphone?” “Are you hungry?” “How do you know how to use chopsticks?” “What do you think of China?” “Do you like Celine Dion?” “Why are your eyelashes so long?” “When will you come back to China?” … Yes, of course. No. No. Because it’s made by apple. Not even a little bit. We have chopsticks in the US also. China is interesting. No. Because I got good genes. Probably a very long time.

And what is it with these people and Celine Dion? Is “My Heart Will Go On” the only song they have heard from the US in the past twenty years?? And how the hell did that horse-face of a woman infiltrate the masses here??? And do they realize that she’s Canadian?!?!?!

 

Doctor Doctor Give me the News!

July 27

So today begins the final three days of my trip to China. I think I am figuring out a lot about myself in a roundabout kind of way. Dr. Wang has taught me a lot about Chinese culture. Today at breakfast we talked about the earthquake and how they felt the tremors up in Yin Chuan. She said she had to run out of the exam room carrying her patient with a nurse holding his IV above his head. She then went on to explain that the Chinese expect, whenever they see a Western Medical Doctor, to be cured with an IV. I didn’t realize the truth of this statement until we visited the pediatric hospital here in Yin Chuan and took a stroll through the IV room. Yes, a room the size of any american hospital waiting room filled with people hooked up to IV’s. She looks at me and says, “See? They love it!”

The hospital was halfway between what you hope a hospital would be like and what you fear a hospital would be like. Some rooms had air conditioning, but only the expensive ones. Patients pay more for these rooms, but almost never for children. They believe that air conditioning and picnics make children sick (don’t ask me, that’s exactly what the doctor said). The exam rooms are a folding table as an exam bed, a desk that the doctor sits at, and a metal bucket of water containing tongue depressors. They reuse them. If you happen to get an exam in the new wing of the hospital you will find the exact same set up, but with a small sink in one corner. All doctors and nurses wear face masks. The nurses wear pink lab coats and the old style hats that stick up off their heads. Like a world war II infermery. Tomorrow we will visit a traditional Chinese Medicine hospital.

It is strange to hear the Islamic call to prayer everyday. There is a mosque, it seems, on every corner here. Dr. Wang says the common people are all Muslim, and the upper class are all Buddhist. I have seen only a few Buddhist temples, but many shrines speckling the city (in random places too… film studios, markets, department stores, and even at the post office). There is a mosque in construction just past the apartment complex. Still, five times a day, that strange song of unfamiliar tone rings out through all of the city and many people stop what they are doing to pray. So many times the song blends into the foreign city noises to my oh-so-american ears. At this point anything that is not in English sounds like a murmur to me. Now, maybe if they played some Beatles over that loud speaker I might be so inclined to put my forehead on the ground too… Until then I suppose I will go on coasting through the days speaking through a translator and humming bad american pop songs to myself.

Another English teacher came over for dinner tonight. Her name is Rainbow, because the translation of her Chinese name is Rainbow. I thought about making some joke about stoned parents, but thought better. That is just far too much explanation for my own personal enjoyment. I gave her some pixie sticks and some other snack foods to take back to her class, and some lip gloss and nail polish for herself (she said she liked mine, so I gave her what I had). She got teary eyed with appreciation. I felt bad that my junk could be such a blessing for her. I wished I had something nice to give her. Then she said, “Tonight I hope I have a dream and I hope you will be in it.” I resisted the “that sounds dirty” joke there, too. I liked Rainbow. She was sweet and lovely.

I am headed to bed, but bed is little more than a blanket over a solid wood plank. It feels good on my back, not so good on my hips, shoulders, arms, legs, sternum, head, face and knees. I can’t even remember what a western bed feels like. In my mind, it’s like a cloud or a marshmallow. And it probably smells like one too. God I can’t wait to smell something pleasant that isn’t burning in front of a plastic Buddah.

July 22

Went to the country side today. Dr. Wang took me to her in-law’s home which was way out in a small village of farmers. It was surreal. They lived in a small square house with an open fire kitchen and no running water. Water was pulled out of a well and boiled for use. Then it was stored in an old barrel until ladeled out for use. They had 6 or so sheep, one of which was pregnant, one of which was sickly, and one of which couldn’t stop mounting the others. They also had 7 or 8 chickens (resisting a cock joke here) that were cooped up behind and old iron gate that leaned up against the small space between the fence and the wall of the outhouse.

The food they ate came from the small garden in the middle of their plot of land. Dr. Wang and I picked some cucumbers for lunch. During the preparation of the food the Islamic call to prayer went off from the mosque down the dirt road.

Then we walked over to the neighbors farm to see the wild geese upon which we found mid-coitus. Dr. Wang whispers to me “Oh I think they are making love…. quick take picture!!” The geese kept going at it even through our laughter. Then the farmer came out of her house and picked up a couple of wild goose eggs for us out of the nest and gave them to us for our lunch. As we walked back to the farmhouse Dr. Wang points at the goose and says “Goose, you are very sexual!” And then later she walked up to me with her electronic translator in hand and says “This is what that man goose is” The word on the screen was shameless. I got a kick out of her. I’ve been giggling about it ever since.
I couldn’t help but notice that this was the second pair of animals I saw attempting to procreate at the farm, within an hour of one another. It was some Wild Kingdom footage at it’s best.

Dr. Wang told me the story of her mother-in-law while we were waiting for lunch to be served. She said that when her mother-in-law was 6 years old the Japanese bombed the city she was living in. At the time in which the bombs fell she was away from home, on an errand for her mother, when all of a sudden the planes flew over and crowds started running. She never made it back to her home, and never saw her parents again. Instead she was taken in by a soldier who had given her a piece of cake and noticed how appreciative she was and felt bad for how hungry she was. He brought her up to a village close to Yin Chuan where she was passed around from couple to couple until they had their own children then they would give her up to the next family as help on the farmland. When she turned 18 she married Mr. Yang’s father who was a laborer. They worked very hard and saved every penny they could and sent all 5 of their children to college.

They wanted to give me everything they had. The Father-in-law even went into the village market to buy a lamb to slaughter for our lunch, but there wasn’t enough time today. We will return again on Sunday when Dr. Wang’s mother and sister arrive. It will be the first time that her mother will meet her mother-in-law. The mother-in-law had painted the windows and the door for the occasion and cleaned the kitchen so that, even 30 years later, Dr. Wang’s family will be impressed by the family she married into. The honor and respect of this culture is absolutely beyond compare.

The food was good. Difficult to eat, and spicy but it was good. The hardest part was properly eating the chicken meat of the bones without breaking a tooth and cutting open my tongue. I wasn’t fond of the marrow, but I ate it anyway because it is disrespectful to deny the generous outpouring these people showed me. Believe me, it was stiflingly disgusting. I can only wonder what kind of horrible things I will be getting my GI tract into this coming Sunday when the all family gala kicks off.

I am incredibly homesick. Missing my folks. Missing my friends. I couldn’t even look at the pictures today. I have never ever felt like this before. I had that horrible hollowed out chest feeling, that unable to breathe feeling of just deep longing to speak with someone who knows me. Just to hear a familiar voice say something…anything. Just to hear about Adam’s day. The sidewalk sale. All the shows he is playing that I am missing. Just to hear Melody’s day. How horrible her trainer is. All the fun things she is doing without me. Just to talk to my parents and hear about their trip and all the fun they had and how many times they wished I was there to laugh with them. I am dying to really laugh again. Jokes are hard in second languages. I joke, they don’t get it. I laugh at them, they don’t understand why. I just miss everyone. I have had too much of myself and not enough of the people that make me a better person.

This is getting harder. I’m afraid a week more might actually kill me.

For all my nuggas…

I got a haircut. 15 Yuan (which is about 2 american dollars) for the best haircut of my life. Very nice place. He spent 2 hours getting every layer perfect and making sure it looked just right. I couldn’t tell him how short or how long I wanted it so he just cut it. And it’s short. But I like it and he did an excellent job and I wish I could take him back to the US with me to cut my hair all the time.

 

I left the group Saturday and took a bus with Lihua back to Dalian. The olympic torch was passing through that day, so the streets were full of people. We were unable to see the torch itself, but the crowd was pretty amazing.

When we got there we met up with a friend of Lihua’s who took us shopping in the russian market. The buildings there were absolutely indescribable. Like out of a movie. Gangs of New York maybe? 100+ years old with the classic russian spires and circular windows and tiled roofs. Buildings this old are rare in China. It seems as though they are always tearing down and rebuilding and then expanding and building more. The neighborhood the market was in is a literal slum. Families live in these one room shack type things that are merely rows of make-shift walls and cielings made from any flat object you can find… old doors, old tires, discarded pieces of wood, old street signs. The buildings that still stood housed too many people to even count, and the yards and sidewalks would be lined with these lean-tos. Trash was dumped anywhere. Raw sewage gathered in the dimples of the road, and when it rained (God help them all) it was a disaster. I wanted to take pictures but it was difficult to, since the people all swarmed around to look at the american, and I didn’t want to make a spectacle of them or myself by pulling out a camera…. It was strang seeing this city in this way, since i have been here twice before and always thought of it as such a nice city. Clean, modern, new… I had no idea that people lived like that in that city. I suggest to anyone traveling to find a local or a native in order to get the full picture of a place.

  

Then we had hot pot for dinner. Ay yi yi. I have had enough hot pot for one lifetime. But this was actually better than before. Again, traveling with someone who knows what they are doing is very beneficial. Boiling spicy water+live shrimp+live crabs+live clams+live what the hell is THAT thing?= extremely happy stomach. I swear, it was the best seafood I’ve ever eaten. I was glad that I didn’t notice the waitstaff putting food BACK on the buffet line from finished tables until I was finished eating myself. I considered taking a shot of my hand sanitizer as an after dinner cocktail, but thought that might be rude.

The next afternoon we went shopping to buy Lihua a few new shirts and some food to bring back to her friends here in Yin Chuan. She told me she would like to buy me a new shirt but what I picked out she said, “Black look not good for my american daughter.” She bought me a different shirt, a purple one, and told me I would wear it on the airplane because it is nicer than the one I chose that day. Yikes.

The airplane to Yin Chuan was full of people who had never flown before. It made me feel bad because I can’t remember the first airplane ride I ever took. I don’t even remember the first airplane I barfed on. Speaking of barf, the meal they served was a sandwich labeled “muslim”. It was three slices of white bread with some sort of reddish meat inbetween. I was thankful for the little layover in Inner Mongolia. Furthermore on the barf scale, the woman sitting across the aisle from me found plenty of use for the “airsickness” bag. It made me miss my dad.

Yin Chuan is very nice. Lihua gave me a Chinese name because her husband cannot remember my english name. Wang Xiao Yu. I learned how to write it too. She was very excited because her only child has her husband’s family name: Yang Lio. She invited one of the nurses from her clinic over to cook us lunch today. She brought her daughter, who is 4, and we had quite a day. I taught her many english words and we ate orange flavored popcorn and went to the movies. I saw Kung Fu Panda without subtitles and all dialogue in Chinese. It was pretty good. I even laughed a few times. I pretty much have no idea what it was about.

Tonight is when I turned fully Chinese. Lihua’s nephews and nieces took me to KTV. That’s right kids, Kareoke television. I wanted to do my Guns ‘n Roses standby but they didn’t have it so I settle for Kelly Clarkson. It was hysterical. They asked me if I knew Celine Dione and if I would sing “My Heart Will Go On”. When I answered ‘yes’ to knowing Celine Dione, I had no idea that they wanted to know if I personally knew her. The rest of the night I had to explain that I knew OF her, that I didn’t know if she was funny, or smart, or beautiful in person because I have never met her.

One boy, the med student, asked me if I knew what this meant, and he stuck up his middle finger. I said, yes, that it is something you do in america if someone is driving badly and he said “Here it means fehck.” I didn’t correct his pronunciation. Cultural exchange is what I think they call this…. It made me miss my mom.

 

Speaking of swear words everyone keeps saying “Nugga nugga nugga” which when said quickly sounds more like it’s socially inapropriate cousin. I asked what it meant tonight and they told me that “Nugga” means “that” but people say it kind of like “uh” or “um” in the states. I kept going “Nugga what!” with a gang sign at KTV. They all thought I was ridin’ dirty.