I have just ingested two giant balls of god knows what (that's what she said), hopefully I survive.
This afternoon a friend of mine on the trip gave me a hand with confusing the ever-loving hell out of the Chinese lady at the front desk so as to cover up my non-sanctioned trip to Beijing. In the process of he informed he that he was going to visit some Mosque. I was already pretty bushed from getting measured for my new tailored suit (pics on that to come), but what are you gonna do? So we went to the mosque. It was pretty cool, but definitely not historic. However, in the process of trying to get to the top of the minarette (didn't happen) a 20 something Chinese girl saw us. At first we thought maybe the tacit approval of some random dude had not been solid enough and we were about to be told to leave. Instead it was a very common interaction here. "Grace" was an English student and just wanted to practice with foreigners. After talking about the Mosque some, and my lack of knowledge of the ethnic composition of China leaving me unable to talk to her in depth about the life of minorities in the Han dominated culture she mentioned that she worked for a medical journal. Everyone thought she said "magical journal" at first, but after a few minutes I was able to get it through inference. So I asked if she had any medical training. She said she did and that her mother was a doctor. A quick look at the woman led one pretty quickly to assume that she practiced traditional Chinese medicine and not the western variety. One of my big things has been to find some sort of Chinese sleeping medication while here, but I've been scared to walk into a pharmacy and use hand signals and my translator that works only 90 percent of the time. This seemed like the perfect opportunity.
It turns out Western doctor visits and traditional Chinese doctor visits start out the same way: "stick out your tongue". I did and before I knew it an old Chinese lady was inspecting my tongue. She asked if I had any aches in a particular part of my spine, I responded once in a while. Then she said I must have heart problems too, which I do (and which Western medicine has been unable to pin down). Fast forward a few minutes and we're in a what appeared to be a Chinese pharmacy. It looked just like an American pharmacy and there advertisements for standard fare medications like Tylenol or western allergy medications. She handed a piece of paper to the pharmacist just like a prescription and they brought back two boxes of stuff packaged in the familiar plastic with thin metallic backing. When one thinks of traditional medicine they think of someone sitting in a backroom stirring a large cauldron, occasionally throwing in a frog's eye or two. That's not the deal. Traditional Chinese medicine is big enough business for medications to be marketed and packaged in slick little boxes which clearly had the touch of a highly paid graphic designer. Long story short, it came in a box and a lady looked at my tongue before giving it to me... so I ate it. It was pretty disgusting. But I only have to take it five more times and then I should be cured.
Pictures of the mosque. I'll post some of the medication tomorrow. My roommate (another blog on how lame that is to come) is sleeping and I don't want to wake the guy up.
Also, it turns out that Mosques in Tianjin, China are similar to Synagogues in West Palm Beach, Florida. The girl told us she didn't know much about the history of the particular building because her congregation had just merged into the congregation of this mosque. Temple politics! Maybe this is the commonality on which Judiasm and Islam can shake hands and make up. We did eventually ascertain that the building isn't particularly historic.
This afternoon a friend of mine on the trip gave me a hand with confusing the ever-loving hell out of the Chinese lady at the front desk so as to cover up my non-sanctioned trip to Beijing. In the process of he informed he that he was going to visit some Mosque. I was already pretty bushed from getting measured for my new tailored suit (pics on that to come), but what are you gonna do? So we went to the mosque. It was pretty cool, but definitely not historic. However, in the process of trying to get to the top of the minarette (didn't happen) a 20 something Chinese girl saw us. At first we thought maybe the tacit approval of some random dude had not been solid enough and we were about to be told to leave. Instead it was a very common interaction here. "Grace" was an English student and just wanted to practice with foreigners. After talking about the Mosque some, and my lack of knowledge of the ethnic composition of China leaving me unable to talk to her in depth about the life of minorities in the Han dominated culture she mentioned that she worked for a medical journal. Everyone thought she said "magical journal" at first, but after a few minutes I was able to get it through inference. So I asked if she had any medical training. She said she did and that her mother was a doctor. A quick look at the woman led one pretty quickly to assume that she practiced traditional Chinese medicine and not the western variety. One of my big things has been to find some sort of Chinese sleeping medication while here, but I've been scared to walk into a pharmacy and use hand signals and my translator that works only 90 percent of the time. This seemed like the perfect opportunity.
It turns out Western doctor visits and traditional Chinese doctor visits start out the same way: "stick out your tongue". I did and before I knew it an old Chinese lady was inspecting my tongue. She asked if I had any aches in a particular part of my spine, I responded once in a while. Then she said I must have heart problems too, which I do (and which Western medicine has been unable to pin down). Fast forward a few minutes and we're in a what appeared to be a Chinese pharmacy. It looked just like an American pharmacy and there advertisements for standard fare medications like Tylenol or western allergy medications. She handed a piece of paper to the pharmacist just like a prescription and they brought back two boxes of stuff packaged in the familiar plastic with thin metallic backing. When one thinks of traditional medicine they think of someone sitting in a backroom stirring a large cauldron, occasionally throwing in a frog's eye or two. That's not the deal. Traditional Chinese medicine is big enough business for medications to be marketed and packaged in slick little boxes which clearly had the touch of a highly paid graphic designer. Long story short, it came in a box and a lady looked at my tongue before giving it to me... so I ate it. It was pretty disgusting. But I only have to take it five more times and then I should be cured.
Pictures of the mosque. I'll post some of the medication tomorrow. My roommate (another blog on how lame that is to come) is sleeping and I don't want to wake the guy up.
Also, it turns out that Mosques in Tianjin, China are similar to Synagogues in West Palm Beach, Florida. The girl told us she didn't know much about the history of the particular building because her congregation had just merged into the congregation of this mosque. Temple politics! Maybe this is the commonality on which Judiasm and Islam can shake hands and make up. We did eventually ascertain that the building isn't particularly historic.
Large freshly built glass building next to the mosque... how surprising!
The place in Beijing where my new digs are getting made! I took a picture in case I forget where it was. Phone number + picture + receipt (on which is hopefully the address)... I think it will work out.
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