Saturday, October 07, 2006
To the Emergency Room - Again!
My gosh, I didn't realize that three weeks had already passed since my last posting. Some days I feel like there are so many strange things to blog, that I can just do it later. Other days it's hard to find something to blog because the strange is becoming commonplace. Thanks for the anonymous people out there (all of you) for reminding me I need to keep up my blog. The things that make this China experience memorable are in the details, and already I find that if I don't keep up with this blog, I start to forget about these details.
Although everybody in my office speaks English in the office, I am the only person who speaks English as a native language (in fact I am the only person who speaks only one language - but since English is the language of money and you know how the saying goes, "Money talks and BS walks"). Being the only English native speaker, I often get asked to clarify some of the finer details of the English language. For example, I've been asked what "blog" and "webcam" mean. For these types of questions, I first remind them that Americans like short words and big everything else. Recently one person asked me to distinguish between Mr., Ms., Mrs. and Miss. Before answering this, it was again important to begin with a reminder - this time reminding that women are much more complicated than men. I think they were clear on this Ms./Mrs./Miss concept until I dropped the bomb about the additional rules for using Miss when one is in Dixie.
This past week was a national holiday in China and nearly all companies are off work for 7 straight calendar days - not 8, not 9, but 7 - and there are no partial work weeks. They do this by making a Saturday and a Sunday a regular working day (WD) instead of a weekend (WE) or a holiday (HD) as follows:
FRI 9/30: WD
SAT 10/01: WE --> WD
SUN 10/02: WE --> HD
MON 10/03: WD --> HD
TUE 10/04: WD --> HD
WED 10/05: WD --> WE (from 10/01)
THU 10/06: WD --> WE (from 10/02)
FRI 10/07: WD --> WE (from 10/09)
SAT 10/08: WE
SUN 10/09: WE --> WD
MON 10/10: WD
Although I need to work on a Saturday and a Sunday, nearly everybody else does too, so it doesn't seem like a big deal. And since I get seven days off without having to spend any vacation time, it makes it worthwhile. It's kind of like turning Thanksgiving into a week-long national holiday except there isn't much American (real) football on TV, so it's not like I'm missing out. (As I'm writing this I'm debating whether to shell out US$21.95 to ESPN to watch a webcast of University of Michigan play Michigan State University at 4:30AM China time on Sunday morning while still remembering that I need to work on Sunday and also knowing that UM is currently ranked #6 in AP Poll and my boss from the States probably pulled all his hair out from MSU's 4th quarter loss to ND and MSU's recent record in The Big House is not so good and even if it's a close game I'm not going to have anybody to talk with about the game.)
The holiday is called the Autumn Golden Week and it occurs during the first week in October. There is a similar week-long national holiday for the Chinese New Year and for the Spring Golden Week. Three week-long vacations isn't a bad way to live. Although we spent a few days in Shanghai, we did our best to avoid the crowds. But when 1.2 billion people are on holiday, it is quite difficult to avoid the crowds. It probably wasn't the best idea to visit one of the tourist attractions in Shanghai during this week. We wanted to see the Yu Yuan Garden. The entrance to this place is kind of hidden among a network of pedestrian streets that were completely packed with people and we were met with numerous challanges in trying to find this place. Challange #1 - find out where the entrance is located.
Challenge #2 - navigate our way through the mobs of people.
Challenge #3 - minimize the number of times we got stopped because people wanted to take a picture of our daughters.
But once we made it to the garden, it was actually much less crowded and was a stark contrast to the madness outside.
Despite the fun we had in Shanghai, I think the most excite came from having to take our oldest daughter to the Emergency Room (for the third time since we arrived just 11 weeks ago) because she injured her foot while riding a bicycle. Fortunately it was right close to our home, so we were able to first get home to calm her down, calm my wife down, and inspect the wound. Without my daughter screaming in one ear and my wife screaming in the other, I could tell indeed that my daughter would need stitches. Since my wife has already been to the Emergency Room and since it didn't make sense to take our youngest daughter there too, my wife drew the short straw and was elected to go. Luckily, our Ayi (bless her heart) was at our home and she also went to the hospital with my wife and daughter. Although I wasn't at the hospital to see first hand what happened, I had a pretty good idea what happened after my wife returned home crying and said "We aren't in America anymore!" Evidently she and my daughter were ushered to one room where they would wait for awhile, then somebody would come in and smile at them and leave, them my wife and daughter would get ushered to another room. This was repeated 3 or 4 times. Meanwhile our Ayi (bless her heart) was doing all the talking and filling out all the paperwork because nobody there spoke English during the National Holiday. Finally my daughter arrives in a room where she will get treated. Nobody wears gloves. Nobody washes hands. No sterile equipment is used. And most importantly, no anesthetic is used. (Another good reason to keep a stock of liquor at home - never can tell if I might need to have an emergency appendectomy!) Although my daughter obviously suffered through the seven stitches she got in her foot, she was in pretty decent spirits by the time she got home and I think it shook my wife up more than anyone. I don't think our Ayi (bless her heart) was too shaken up, she still took time to cook dinner, clean the dishes and finish the laundry.
Although everybody in my office speaks English in the office, I am the only person who speaks English as a native language (in fact I am the only person who speaks only one language - but since English is the language of money and you know how the saying goes, "Money talks and BS walks"). Being the only English native speaker, I often get asked to clarify some of the finer details of the English language. For example, I've been asked what "blog" and "webcam" mean. For these types of questions, I first remind them that Americans like short words and big everything else. Recently one person asked me to distinguish between Mr., Ms., Mrs. and Miss. Before answering this, it was again important to begin with a reminder - this time reminding that women are much more complicated than men. I think they were clear on this Ms./Mrs./Miss concept until I dropped the bomb about the additional rules for using Miss when one is in Dixie.
This past week was a national holiday in China and nearly all companies are off work for 7 straight calendar days - not 8, not 9, but 7 - and there are no partial work weeks. They do this by making a Saturday and a Sunday a regular working day (WD) instead of a weekend (WE) or a holiday (HD) as follows:
FRI 9/30: WD
SAT 10/01: WE --> WD
SUN 10/02: WE --> HD
MON 10/03: WD --> HD
TUE 10/04: WD --> HD
WED 10/05: WD --> WE (from 10/01)
THU 10/06: WD --> WE (from 10/02)
FRI 10/07: WD --> WE (from 10/09)
SAT 10/08: WE
SUN 10/09: WE --> WD
MON 10/10: WD
Although I need to work on a Saturday and a Sunday, nearly everybody else does too, so it doesn't seem like a big deal. And since I get seven days off without having to spend any vacation time, it makes it worthwhile. It's kind of like turning Thanksgiving into a week-long national holiday except there isn't much American (real) football on TV, so it's not like I'm missing out. (As I'm writing this I'm debating whether to shell out US$21.95 to ESPN to watch a webcast of University of Michigan play Michigan State University at 4:30AM China time on Sunday morning while still remembering that I need to work on Sunday and also knowing that UM is currently ranked #6 in AP Poll and my boss from the States probably pulled all his hair out from MSU's 4th quarter loss to ND and MSU's recent record in The Big House is not so good and even if it's a close game I'm not going to have anybody to talk with about the game.)
The holiday is called the Autumn Golden Week and it occurs during the first week in October. There is a similar week-long national holiday for the Chinese New Year and for the Spring Golden Week. Three week-long vacations isn't a bad way to live. Although we spent a few days in Shanghai, we did our best to avoid the crowds. But when 1.2 billion people are on holiday, it is quite difficult to avoid the crowds. It probably wasn't the best idea to visit one of the tourist attractions in Shanghai during this week. We wanted to see the Yu Yuan Garden. The entrance to this place is kind of hidden among a network of pedestrian streets that were completely packed with people and we were met with numerous challanges in trying to find this place. Challange #1 - find out where the entrance is located.
Challenge #2 - navigate our way through the mobs of people.
Challenge #3 - minimize the number of times we got stopped because people wanted to take a picture of our daughters.
But once we made it to the garden, it was actually much less crowded and was a stark contrast to the madness outside.
Despite the fun we had in Shanghai, I think the most excite came from having to take our oldest daughter to the Emergency Room (for the third time since we arrived just 11 weeks ago) because she injured her foot while riding a bicycle. Fortunately it was right close to our home, so we were able to first get home to calm her down, calm my wife down, and inspect the wound. Without my daughter screaming in one ear and my wife screaming in the other, I could tell indeed that my daughter would need stitches. Since my wife has already been to the Emergency Room and since it didn't make sense to take our youngest daughter there too, my wife drew the short straw and was elected to go. Luckily, our Ayi (bless her heart) was at our home and she also went to the hospital with my wife and daughter. Although I wasn't at the hospital to see first hand what happened, I had a pretty good idea what happened after my wife returned home crying and said "We aren't in America anymore!" Evidently she and my daughter were ushered to one room where they would wait for awhile, then somebody would come in and smile at them and leave, them my wife and daughter would get ushered to another room. This was repeated 3 or 4 times. Meanwhile our Ayi (bless her heart) was doing all the talking and filling out all the paperwork because nobody there spoke English during the National Holiday. Finally my daughter arrives in a room where she will get treated. Nobody wears gloves. Nobody washes hands. No sterile equipment is used. And most importantly, no anesthetic is used. (Another good reason to keep a stock of liquor at home - never can tell if I might need to have an emergency appendectomy!) Although my daughter obviously suffered through the seven stitches she got in her foot, she was in pretty decent spirits by the time she got home and I think it shook my wife up more than anyone. I don't think our Ayi (bless her heart) was too shaken up, she still took time to cook dinner, clean the dishes and finish the laundry.
