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Published: June 19th 2010
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Cute Cookies
The adorable cookies our Chinese teacher gave us. 6/11/10
This morning I had my first Chinese class with Lu laoshi. Stacy and I are the only ones in that Chinese class since our group was separated based on fluency in Chinese. The teacher spoke completely in Chinese and the class was much more advanced than what I was used to back in UNC-Chapel Hill, but the teacher took it slow. Stacy is more advanced than me in Chinese since she has had three years of Chinese while I have had only two years, so in her opinion the teacher was going too slowly over the material. The class is challenging, but the teacher is really nice and she gave us these cute cookies that her boyfriend brought from Shanghai.
In the afternoon we went to the clinic of a doctor who used to work at the TCM hospital, Dr. Chen Yunbiao. Just meeting him felt somewhat awe-inspiring because he just had that aura of a man who has innumerable experience in his profession. After introducing himself by having Charles translate for him, he read the pulses of a lot of people in our group. No one had any serious problems, but everyone was taking his
diagnoses seriously. He would read their pulses, look at their tongues, and ask them questions. Typically TCM doctors examine patients by looking, smelling, asking the patients extensive questions, and then reading their pulse, the last of which is the most important part of the diagnosis. Certain positions that are checked on the arms indicate the strength of certain organs because meridians for those organs run through the wrists. For example, on the left arm, the index finger checks the heart, the middle finger checks the gall bladder and liver, and the ring finger checks the small intestine and urinary bladder.
For Sammy, the doctor diagnosed her as having a weak Spleen (I capitalize Spleen because a Spleen in TCM is not the same as the spleen in Western medicine. TCM has a completely different concept of internal anatomy than Western medicine.) The doctor said that because she has a weak spleen, she has a weak digestive system, which she admitted to always having. When she probed him for more information on what he could tell from her pulse, he hesitantly told her that he could tell she had irregular menstruation and that she was menstruating at that moment.
Massage
Dr. Chen giving Liz a massage for her headache. Sammy was completely blown away because it was true.
Other people began having their pulses read but it made me angry because they did not even take Peter, who has had a constant cough the whole trip, into consideration that he should see the doctor first. So I was fuming and shouting that Peter should go until people around me also began to shout that Peter should go, and then finally Peter was able to get his pulse read. The doctor wrote him a prescription for herbs he could pick up at the TCM hospital that we are learning at. If he had not been able to go up at that moment, I would have gotten up and stood in the middle of the room to lecture everyone on how excitement does not make it okay to be selfish and ignore other people’s conditions. Although I knew they did not mean to be inconsiderate, it was still the angriest I had been in a long time.
After the pulse readings, we went downstairs to the herbal pharmacy where we were able to sample some of the herbs. I sampled some of the gooseberries and dried dates,
both of which were delicious. After that we took the bus back to our hotel, from where Sammy, Stacy, Liz, Desiree, Ananthi and I left to go to Wal-Mart. The Wal-Mart was two stories but still much smaller than the Wal-Marts back in the US. They also contained a very large herb, spice, and honey section which would not be found in such abundance in American Wal-Marts. I bought some dried dates, but unfortunately they were not nearly as good as the ones at the herbal pharmacy.
That evening Ananthi, Noor, Maura, Lewis, Shika, and I went to an Indian restaurant called Cacaja on a popular street nicknamed Foreigner's Street because of all the foreigners that like to frequent the non-Chinese restaurants there. We decided on Indian food because Ananthi fasts on Fridays and therefore had been fasting all day until sunset, so we let her pick what food she wanted. It was my first time going to an Indian restaurant and of course the food was spicy, especially Noor's which was full of red peppers. We had a fun time because, as Shika put it, "I love how witty our table is."
Noor: (after saying something
Indian Dinner
Dinner at an Indian restaurant before we went to the bar. mean to Lewis) Aww, poor Lewis. I'm sorry, man. Please don't be mad at me.
Lewis: No, no problem. I never single a person out when I'm angry...Noor.
Later on Shika recounted a weird but funny beer commercial involving an English brain and a French tongue while Noor insisted on getting drunk before his scheduled date with a girl later that night. After dinner we went to Theresa’s, a pizzeria on Western Street. We went to the bar upstairs to watch the World Cup match in which Argentina was playing against Nigeria. The entire group met up at Theresa’s and we took up two tables. Some of Noor’s friends from English Corner came and drank with him, also doing him a favor by sneaking in Bai Jiu, which is this alcoholic drink that is famous in Yunnan. It smelled extremely potent and apparently tasted like it too because Noor and Maura could only handle a few sips of it. One of Noor’s English Corner friends was rooting for Argentina since it was his favorite team, so the rest of us joined in on rooting for Argentina. Nigeria’s goalkeeper was absolutely fantastic, but unfortunately the rest of his team was not, so Argentina had a lot of opportunities to shoot on Nigeria’s goal. The game ended 1 to 1, an anti-climactic tie.
While I enjoyed being with my friends and meeting Noor’s English Corner friends, I did not like the smell of alcohol and smoke in the bar. Luckily I was sitting right next to a window and with a clear view of the TV screen, so it was not so bad. It was fun staying out late with my friends, but we ended up having to walk quite a distance to be able to catch a taxi since most of them were occupied. Pretty much all of the teenagers and adults in China like to frequent the bars during the World Cup games since the World Cup is a huge event to China. There were even little kids at the bar rooting for their favorite players. I was aggravated that the parents would allow their kids in that atmosphere of alcohol and secondhand smoke, but since there is no drinking age limit in China, anyone is allowed in the bars.
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Cuong
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I was probably one of those kids who grew up in the bar...:P Very cool about the comments on the pulse readings. I never realized that specific diagnosis can be made just based on pulse readings. Man, wished I would have gotten into the health field. The doctors always seems to get crazy amount of respect, especially ones that been practicing for a long time.