Today we went to get the required medical check-up for foreigners. After registration they led us to this hallway with lots of doors, and behind each one was a different exam waiting for us: blood test (super fast and efficient), eye and colour chart exam (no ABC’s of course, so there’s E shapes pointing different directions), urine sample (after they’ve dipped the little paper in it, just throw your still full container into the office trash basket), x-ray (also super quick), ultrasound (first time I ever had someone scribble on my abdomen with a jelly-covered computer pen), ECG (literally: “heart electric graph”), and then in the last room there was a doctor to give us a general examination. She was… like no other doctor I’ve ever seen.

I suppose there are a few reasons why the minimum amount of courtesy shown to paying customers/patients is a few notches lower in China. We’d been taught by foreigners and Chinese to expect that. And of course I’ve visited less-than-caring doctors in the West. But I’ve never had a drill sergeant give me a check-up before. We saw the routine three times: “Take off shoes!” “Coat on there!” “Stand face wall! Look picture!” We hopped to it! At the end came her report: “This your height! This your weight! Blood pressure normal! Check-up finished!” And then she promptly ignores you like you’ve just evaporated into thin air. We managed to get her to smile briefly twice: when Jessica said 谢谢 (thank you) and when I caught her stethoscope mid-way to the ground after she’d dropped it.

People like her make me wonder what they’ve been through. We wonder that a lot, actually, walking the streets and seeing so many old, lined faces pass us every minute. So much history… but that’s for other posts.

Stayin’ Alive Part 2: Learning to cross the street is next.

Every day we have different errands or meetings to go to, and that means walking around, since most stuff we need to get to is within walking distance. We took these photos today. Note the cell phone:

 
 I was glad to find that sword dancing happens not far from our apartment. Better photo next time.
 

Apparently someone across the street from us has wireless internet… hence this post, written sitting really close to the window.

We’re out of our suitcases, doing laundry, steaming 包子, drinking tea (yay!), and hanging pictures. Feeling almost completely moved in. Some people took us to the foreigner Sunday morning fellowship this morning. Until a few months ago it was the only English one in this city of 11 million (there’s one for overseas Chinese and five or six Korean ones), but they just managed to get another one registered in another part of town. It was kind of strange to need your passport to get into church – kind of like driving to the USA for milk and cheese gas, only they don’t give you dirty looks at church. It was interesting – mostly white Westerners, but a handful of Africans, Indians, and overseas Asians. “Foreign passport holders only.” Once our language is good enough to at least get a clue, I imagine we’ll check out some local registered churches.

One thing that us and the other new couple learned the hard way was that you can’t put toilet paper down the “loo,” as our UK friends call it. We’ve had a constant stream of information from JHF ever since we left Taiwan, but somehow they forgot about that bit. Turns out the nice girl down the hall who loaned us her plunger found out the hard way also when she first arrived. It always feels better when you find out you’re not the first foreigner to do something wrong. :)

We heard a little bit from Mingdaw, who has adopted Chou-chou. She got fixed, and has one of those plastic satellite dishes on her head. Do-do does, too, and he just got shaved again, so I hope they send photos.

Speaking of bathrooms, several people who were with us in Thailand are still not over whatever bug was at that resort that made everyone so sick. So if you’re going to Thailand, avoid at all costs the SUAN BUA RESORT!! It turns out that this has been going on for the last few years. I thought it was suspicious the way the staff seemed so prepared and efficient with the medicine dispensing and record keeping arrangement they had going on.

I haven’t had much time to think about taking photos yet, but the one in this post is from today on the walk back to our apartment.

Pronounced: b?o zi
Means: these yummy stuffed steamed buns that we eat a lot.

Pronounced: ti?n j?n
Means: Tianjin

We’re here! We arrived exhausted and had a full afternoon and evening of running around and starting to get oriented. But the other JHFers have been great – they really know how to take care of rookies and have done a lot to begin easing our disorientation stress. Our apartment is on the sixth floor. Here’s the view from our windows:

Our first night was a special night during Chinese New Year’s where they light off extra fireworks. There are big stands on the corners selling fireworks, and people just light them off on the sidewalk so they shoot up beside/between the apartment buildings. At night you can see them all over the city. I was talking to someone last night and it started raining ashes on us. The bigger ones will set off all the car alarms in the area… it’s kind of funny.

This smoke stack is on our block. It’s where they burn the coal to make the heat for the buildings in the area. Heat comes on on a certain day and goes off on a certain day each year. You control the temperature by opening or closing windows… at least, that’s how we’re doing it!

I don’t think I realized just how comfortable we’d become in Yonghe until we drove in to Tianjin from the airport. A new city, big, polluted, doesn’t look or feel like Taipei, we didn’t know where anything is, we’re almost 100% dependent on others for absolutely everything… and this time there are other foreigners around who all know the area and who have better Chinese, so you feel like you’re behind. I was wondering why I suddenly felt better when we were shown where the first big grocery store was, and realized it’s because I was now just that much less dependent on others. Of course it’s not the first time we’ve experienced this, and in the big picture we have it really easy. Anyway, we’re still tired and disoriented and I’m not sure I even know what I’m saying. ;) But we’re here and settling down, surrounded by some great people.

The Jian Hua associates have been great, having us in for dinner, making themselves available for questions, showing us around. I think we go to the bike market tomorrow morning. I’m aiming for an old one that won’t get stolen but hopefully won’t break down every other trip. There’s a tea shop in the wet market… now that we can make hot water we’ll get tea tomorrow, too. These three pictures are the only ones we’ve taken so far. I’m posting this using a pirated wireless signal from next door, so I’ll get it posted before our neighbour goes to bed. We’re doing great. Thanks to everyone for your cares and support! We’ll respond to all the e-mails when we get some longer time online.

We’re in the Bangkok airport waiting to board, about 14 hours later than planned. They didn’t take off as scheduled because of freezing fog in Beijing or something. But they sent us to a really nice hotel for the rest of the day and gave us a huge meal. We should board in about 20 minutes. A bunch of JHF people were in the same boat, so we had a good time. Afternoon tea and everything, courtesy of Thai Air. Next post in China!

First, I should say that the orientation (at a hotel in the city) and the annual conference (at a resort outside the city) that we’ve been attending in Thailand has been great. We’re learning a lot and meetings tons of really interesting people. There’s about 200 people here counting kids, and from all over the Western world. Lots of Kiwis and Aussies and Brits, Germans, even a French guy, and a few Yanks. The really cool thing is that almost everyone has tons of overseas experience in different parts of the world doing all kinds of stuff, especially all over China. Sexual health education, water development for villages way out west, doctors working on the Tibetan plateau, and of course, people teaching and working in the coastal cities from the high frozen north to the tropical south. One British couple coming in with us lived for 14 years in Hong Kong, then 17 in South Africa, and now their starting language school with us in Tianjin.

You can see from the photos that this resort is beautiful. The most immediate downside to all this is that for over a month, for every group that has come to this resort (lots of groups use this for conferences during Chinese New Year), they’ve had dozens of people get really bad diarrhea and/or vomiting on day two or three. Yesterday we had 50 adults listed as sick, and I don’t know how many children. One of the singers threw up on stage. Jessica, who got sick and spent most of the day in bed, saw a lady suddenly shove her baby stroller in another woman’s direction and say, “Watch my baby I’m going to be sick!” before throwing up in the bushes. Our general meetings are less than 2/3 full. And these are all seasoned ex-pats, too. Jessica’s doing much better today, and although we both feel yucky, she’s been able to eat some at breakfast and lunch. So it looks like we’ll be mostly OK by the time we fly out for China on the 21st.

This may or may not be the last post from outside of China. Depends on if we manage to get online again or not.

NOTE: This post should have been written almost a month ago now. I meant to write it within the first week after we visited Yangmingshan, but I was still feeling burned out about writing anything after finishing all of our stuff for grad school in December. However, that’s no excuse for it being almost a month late. :D Anyway, here it goes – better late than never, I hope!

The week of Jan. 14th – 21st was almost like a week long celebration for us. The 14th marked not only our one-year anniversary of being in Taiwan, but also my birthday. Joel made me breakfast and snuck out to the local wet market early in the morning to buy me a dozen gorgeous red roses. Later that night, we also ate lots of delicious food at our favorite all-you-can-eat hot pot and barbeque place with Yang Mama, Mingdaw, Zhi-ling, and John (our Canadian boss). We even tried barbequing some snails…though they turned out a little tough to chew…and very hard to pry out of the shells with chopsticks. :D

One of the coolest things we did that week was take a trip to the northern part of Taipei with our friends Charles and Angel. We drove up one of the mountains there, called Yangmingshan. About halfway up, we rolled the windows down to smell the fresh air. It was wonderful to be away from the traffic noises and exhaust fumes that fill the Taipei basin. The mountain was beautiful, but different from the forest covered mountains of New Hampshire and British Columbia. This mountain had only a few trees, but was covered instead with grasslands.

We got out of the car and took a short hike around the summit area. At some points, the grass was taller than Joel! It was pretty easy to imagine that we were walking through some kind of savannah and that we might encounter a lion stalking its way through the long grasses. But instead of lions, there are buffaloes that live in the grasslands of Cingtiangang. It was really beautiful. There were even several couples up there getting their wedding portraits done. Yangmingshan is also famous for its hot springs. After we finished exploring the grasslands, we drove to another part of the mountain that has sulphuric hot springs bubbling up from the ground. Apparently this mountain is an old volcano, though it is inactive now – except for the hot springs that bubble to the surface and the smell of sulfur that fills the air. This area looked totally different from the grasslands – more like the surface of the moon than the African plains.

We finished off the day with a great lunch at a restaurant that is partway down the mountain. They serve some of the wild mountain vegetables, which seem to have a sweeter flavour than those you might fight in the local market. We ate in a room of the restaurant that had old stone walls – on some areas you could see a light covering of moss growing. The atmosphere was amazing and the food tasted wonderful. However, the company of our friends, Angel and Charles) was the best part of the meal (and the whole day). We had a great time hanging out, laughing, joking, and practicing our Chinese on them. We’ve been blessed to have many great friends during our year in Taiwan, and even though it took me so long to write about our trip up to Yangmingshan with Charles and Angel, it was a day that we’ll remember for many years to come. :D

See more photos here!

Pronounced: z�i ji�n
Means: Good-bye! :(