{"id":277,"date":"2010-06-25T00:43:24","date_gmt":"2010-06-24T16:43:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kerry.net.au\/?p=277"},"modified":"2010-06-25T00:49:14","modified_gmt":"2010-06-24T16:49:14","slug":"i-saw-a-chinese-doctor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kerry.net.au\/?p=277","title":{"rendered":"I saw a Chinese Doctor"},"content":{"rendered":"

I saw a Chinese Doctor<\/p>\n

On Monday I bought some fruit, nuts and some sort of pumpkin bun at the market.\u00a0 Late this afternoon I returned to buy more fruit.\u00a0 I bought bananas as usual plus some lychees which are pretty delicious.\u00a0 I decided to buy some dumplings from a woman who I\u2019d watched on Monday.\u00a0 After having a mouthful, it tasted like the green pancakes available in Xingtai.\u00a0 I returned for 2 more.\u00a0 They contain what seems like a mixture of scrambled egg, lots of garlic and something green like a spinach.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\"\"I then spied the pumpkin buns and bought one.\u00a0 I am now on nodding or \u201cknee howing\u201d (\u201cni hao\u201d\/\u201dhello\u201d) terms with a number of the traders.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Heading towards the exit I saw the spicy pizza like bread which a student had once bought me and bought some. The problem of what to eat for dinner and where was solved very quickly and easily.\u00a0 I sat in the park and ate.\u00a0 I knew before I reached the pumpkin that my eyes were\u00a0 bigger than my stomach.\u00a0\u00a0 Tea cost less than a dollar.\u00a0 The fruit was about $2 for 6 good sized bananas and 2 serves of lychees.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On the return journey I passed a number of tiny medical establishments just before the hostel.\u00a0 I had called in on one of them on Monday and when I asked about cupping was told to return the next day.\u00a0 I was busy and didn\u2019t.\u00a0 By the time I arrived all were closed except for one and the woman there recognised me.\u00a0 She told me that I had to wait as someone was eating dinner.\u00a0 After a while she made a phone call and while we were waiting she taught me 2 new Chinese words.\u00a0 Then a doctor arrived.\u00a0 He wanted information and the usual sign language was insufficient.\u00a0 A woman with good English was rung and we began a protracted discussion.\u00a0 I rejected all medical offers, at high prices,\u00a0 and settled on what I had gone in for, cupping.\u00a0 The recommendation was for 3 days.\u00a0 As it had taken quite a while to sort out, the doctor seemed a nice, patient bloke with a sense of humour and as I actually think it improves my flexibility and my ability to keep on keeping on, I agreed.\u00a0\u00a0 A prescription was written and I was taken next door to another cubby hole.<\/p>\n

The cubby hole had a treatment bed, a lounge, a small bedside locker and a stool or two plus a couple of drip stands.\u00a0 Immediately behind it was a tiny section housing a cupboard full of factory sourced drugs and so on.\u00a0 There were more in the bedside locker.\u00a0 A door led behind but all activity happened through the front entrance.\u00a0 A young woman who had arrived during the telephone discussion was now sporting an intravenous drip and languishing on the bed. She was turfed off to the lounge where she proceeded to chat with the nurse and cough.\u00a0 A clean sheet was placed over the bed for me.<\/p>\n

There was no plastic bag of clanking cups this time. Just a small plastic bowl with 4 cups.\u00a0 They had to do double duty and then triple when I asked for my lower back to be done too.\u00a0 The suction was not strong so I will be interested to see if it increases with future treatments as I\u2019m booked for 2 more before leave.<\/p>\n

By the time I got off the bed the population had increased by three.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The first woman was up to her 2nd<\/sup> bottle, a very small one into which many small ampoules of a colourless drug had been added. A newcomer was sitting on the lounge with her tiny bottle running too.\u00a0 Another seemed desperate to keep the bed warm and the third was busy sitting on a stool beside the bed and sewing something.\u00a0 It would all have been much more entertaining for me if I hadn\u2019t had to lie on my side facing the wall.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I saw a Chinese Doctor On Monday I bought some fruit, nuts and some sort of pumpkin bun at the market.\u00a0 Late this afternoon I returned to buy more fruit.\u00a0 I bought bananas as usual plus some lychees which are pretty delicious.\u00a0 I decided to buy some dumplings from a woman who I\u2019d watched on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[93,31,6],"tags":[9,15,20,32,30],"class_list":["post-277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-china","category-kunming","category-work","tag-china","tag-culture","tag-food","tag-kumning","tag-medicine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kerry.net.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kerry.net.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kerry.net.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kerry.net.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kerry.net.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=277"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.kerry.net.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":282,"href":"https:\/\/www.kerry.net.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277\/revisions\/282"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kerry.net.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kerry.net.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kerry.net.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}