After realizing I had a fever last week, I went to the hospital conveniently located behind my apartment complex. Not knowing which hospital to go to in the city, and the internet providing very little help, I decided with the convenient option. So, after waking up one of my roommates, we proceeded down the block to the hospital, where a nurse greeted us and almost immediately got a hold of the doctor on duty. His worry, like mine, was swine flu. So he ordered blood tests and a lung x-ray. I was not exactly thrilled about the x-ray, but there wasn’t much to be done. It was completely clear, at least. Meanwhile, the way hospitals tend to work is that you have to get everything yourself, and pay as you go. This generally means being given a prescription, sometimes vague, from the doctor, which you take to another building. There, if you don’t understand what’s going on, like my roommates and I, you find the right window to go to in order to pay. They give you another receipt, which you then take to the medicine counter. There are generally two different windows, at least, for medicine. One is for Chinese medicine and the other Western. After obtaining the medication, you then bring it back to the nurses who will administer it.

So, in this first hospital, I was brought to an “observation room,” a room with about eight beds. At four in the morning, about half of them contained sleeping occupants. They then gave me an I.V., which my roommate had obtained through the above described methods. Whenever I was seen by a doctor, (and it was a different person practically each time I saw a doctor) they would ask me where I had been, how long I had been in Kunming, where I had come from, and who I knew that was sick. They seemed not to believe me that I did not know who had given me this illness, whatever it was. But they were very worried that there was either unmonitored H1N1 somewhere in China, or that I must have known someone with it in America. It turns out I did not have the swine flu, though. After about two days in this hospital (I went home for the day and came back in the evening), I was pronounced cured and could leave.

Two days later, I was sick again. This time, we had done a little more research, and went to what seemed to be a better hospital. This one was cleaner than the first, seemed much larger, and wanted to admit me overnight for observation. I was obviously thrilled at the thought of spending the night in a hospital of any kind. They finally took me to another building, where I waited with nurses as they prepared a bed. My wonderful roommates stayed with me – Ilaria the first night and Sam the second – for which I was very grateful. The room consisted of three beds. They moved a man out of one when I moved in. I initially felt bad about this, and then he hung around for a while and was staring at us, so I was glad he was not there any more. In fact, being in the room kind of felt like being in a zoo. It has a big window looking into the hallway, and everyone looked in as they passed by. It makes me of course wonder whether they would be staring if I were Chinese. I will never know the answer, but I have a feeling being a foreigner aided with the length some people would stare. It feels very strange. Being a foreigner in China is strange in general, though. There is no feeling, at least that I see, that it is rude to stare at people, especially when they do not look Chinese. Just, in the hospital I was kind of hoping there would be some kind of understanding. Instead, there seemed to mostly be curiosity.

My time in the hospital mostly consisted of getting I.V.’s. I.V.’s are the preferred medicine of choice, here. Everyone seems to get them when they go to the hospital. In the first hospital, an older woman was there with heart trouble and was getting an I.V. In the second hospital, my days were spent lying in bed with sodium chloride and glucose solutions dripping into my hand. It kind of forces relaxation, at least. The lack of I.V. stands kind of hampers things like going to the bathroom, although I think I have finally mastered the juggling of the bags. Moving on, though. Again, this hospital worried that I had been in contact with someone with swine flu, until test results came back negative. Nevertheless, I went on antibiotics, which have hopefully gotten rid of everything by now.

On the third day in the hospital, they let me go home for the night, so I actually started getting some sleep again. The buildings do not have anything like central air, so the windows were left open, letting in tons of mosquitoes. The weather has been warm on top of this, so I was very grateful to be back in my own bed. The same day, I got a roommate. I felt kind of bad for her, because she was there all alone. Chinese hospitals do not provide things like food and water, or even toilet paper. So, people’s families usually spend a lot of time, bringing them provisions. In fact, a lot of people even stayed with their family members through the nights. My roommate seems to be getting along fine, though. There is a cafeteria right outside of the building, and I think she seems well enough to frequent it. She was very curious about us. This could have lead to interesting conversation, if it were not for the fact that she has a really thick Yunnan accent, so that I can barely understand what she’s saying most of the time. The Yunnan accent is taking a lot of getting used to. I do not have much hope of eventual comprehension at this point.

Anyway, Friday was my last day for I.V.’s at the hospital. Hopefully I am fully cured. It will be interesting to go back to school next week. At least this has been an experience…

written by  agentsarainkunming on September 19, 2009 from Kunming, China
from the travel blog: CHINA
Send a Compliment

---

4 comments...

We looked at this apartment last weekend. It was difficult for real estate agents to find 4-bedroom apartments for us, but we still looked at about five or six apartments, all through different agencies. The only down-side to this apartment was that one of the bedrooms didn’t have a bed (an activity for this afternoon), and that it seemed a little far from the university. It’s only about a twenty or thirty minute walk to class, though, and we will figure out the busses as well. The walk is nice because it goes along one of the main parks, which is basically a small lake with bridges going through it to small wooded areas. It’s very pretty if you ignore the algae in it, with lotuses coming up all over. There is usually music coming from the middle of the park, and we often see people doing aerobic dancing or tai qi. Aerobic dancing is a popular form of exercise in most parks around China. It’s usually done by older people, and they often use parasols, fans, scarves, or even tennis rackets, as they follow a leader through motions. It’s pretty slow, so it kind of looks like tai qi, not like a fast-paced aerobics class at a gym or anything.

Anyway, back to my apartment search. We came into the agency on Saturday after seeing the apartment on Friday. They told us that someone else wanted it, too, but if they didn’t come up with the money for it by 6:00, we could have it (as long as we brought in the money the following day). So, we were worried for a bit that we would lose the apartment and have to start all over in the search. But the other people didn’t come through, so the next day we came in and met with the landlord. Signing everything was an ordeal. In fact, this whole process was an ordeal. We are not used to the Kunming accent – they say “s” instead of “sh”, for instance, and generally have a different way of pronouncing vowels and use some different expressions. So, in general we could barely understand our main real estate agent, and he could barely understand us. There was a lot of asking to repeat. Then, looking at all the rental agreement, we could understand about 50% of what was written, so we kept having to ask them to explain, and then not understanding what they were saying. But we finally got a grasp of everything. The landlord was pretty funny throughout the whole process. He wanted to talk to us about where we were from, immediately answering when we said we were from America with the blunt, “I’ve been.” I couldn’t really tell what had brought him there. I later asked his wife if he was working there, but I don’t think I could really communicate it well, because she sounded like I had said something totally absurd when she answered with, “no he works here in China.” Oh well. He was carefully watching us as we struggled to understand what was going on in the agreements. My friend Ilaria signed the agreement, and everyone was amazed at how fast she wrote such a long signature. Then, she had to copy the address of the foreign student office at the university, and they were making fun of her, that she could sign her name so quickly, but wrote characters so slowly. Of course, they were meanwhile trying to decipher her passport, which we were careful to only point out to each other in English and feel a little better about our situation. All in all, I think we are all pretty proud that we succeeded in renting an apartment in Chinese. It feels like a big accomplishment.

After finishing up business at the real estate office, we went over to the apartment with two of the agents and the landlord’s wife. The agents seem very helpful – they have helped us a lot with the landlords, and helped us get things like internet. The landlady has been very interesting. I think she is trying very hard to be helpful, so when we were looking at the apartment with her she went through just about every room and item in the house. The problem was, it seemed like she herself didn’t really know how to use some of the things, and there were some good moments like when she left the gas on (even though there was no gas there, since we needed to buy a card for it, so it probably was safe) (we turned it off as soon as she left). After trying to explain the complicated procedures of paying for utilities, she would then make a point of showing us where we could hang up our laundry and wait until we all acknowledged that we understood and then she would repeat it. So going over the house to a while. Yesterday, she was very nice and came with us to the police station, where we needed to register our residence so that we can get new visas. I think the problem with our relationship is mostly that we don’t understand her when she speaks, and she doesn’t understand us when we speak. So it sometimes feels like we are speaking two different languages to one another. I’m hoping I will get more used to the accent here. It will be interesting to see how much I can understand after living here a couple months.

written by  agentsarainkunming on September 5, 2009 from Kunming, China
from the travel blog: CHINA
Send a Compliment

---

3 comments...

Welcome to my blog! I have started this to try to keep in touch while I am in China. I apologize for the public communication, and would love to correspond through e-mail as well, so feel free to e-mail me at: s.segal.williams@gmail.com, or skype when possible, username: sarasegal-williams. I'll try to get back to you as soon as I can!

We currently cannot access Youtube and Facebook, among other sites. The government often blocks sites temporarily when there is unrest, or just general events that could lead to unfavorable internet posts. We are not really sure what is going on at the moment that they would not want communication about, but speculate it may have to do with a fear that the flooding from the hurricanes will lead to criticism of how they are being handled. Or it could be because of the protests in Xinjiang. This is all just speculation, though.

I arrived in Kunming on Wednesday night, and checked into The Hump, a popular youth hostel which so far seems pretty centrally located (I'm still figuring out the city). I've been pretty jet-lagged, but I think I'm starting to get used to the time difference. Being in a dormitory-room doesn't help too much, since it means a lot of noise with people coming in and out at all hours. The other night I came back to a room that smelled very strongly of durian. For those of you who don't know, durian is large yellow fruit with a very cloying odor that tends to linger for a while. Two years ago, my roommate in Qingdao brought one back to our room and ate it and it smelled like durian for several days afterward. The problem with durian is that it smells very sweet, and yet also kind of like baby vomit, and tastes even stronger. Anyway, this is just an example to give you an idea of how the past several days have been going. It will make do for now, though, and hopefully I will find more permanent housing soon.

On Thursday, I signed up for classes at Yunnan University. They offer a non-degree program for international students, so I will be taking language classes in the mornings. I will look for something else to do in the afternoons. Classes start on Tuesday, so I have a couple more days to get acclimated to Chinese time, never mind China itself.

I am here with two friends and a third will be joining us soon, so we are all looking for an apartment. It has given us something to do after we finished signing up at the University, and makes us walk around all day. Talking with real estate agents has also been really good language practice. I'm glad there are three of us to try to figure it out together. Looking for an apartment has been a little different from the usual in the States. There are quite a few agencies around Yunnan University, so we have just been walking around and when we find one just walking in. When we walk in, the agents ask us to sit, then usually bring us a cup of warm water. Then they will talk with us, asking how many bedrooms we want and things like that, then they generally sift through some papers a while, discussing the matter with their colleagues. Then they usually make a few phone calls, ask us if the apartment seems alright, make some more phone calls, and then almost immediately over with us to see it. Most of the apartments have been pretty nice, with large living rooms and big windows.

Today, we will continue the search. I'll keep you posted.

written by  agentsarainkunming on August 29, 2009 from Kunming, China
from the travel blog: CHINA
Send a Compliment

---

5 comments...