Week 9: 第九周
Beauty standards
I have gotten called pretty a few times, but I have been called handsome a lot. I keep telling people I am a girl and no one here seems to care. My mom told me it was just in the countryside, but apparently it's in the city too. I am a handsome girl...? I guess I'd rather be a handsome girl than a beautiful man.
There are different standards of beauty anywhere you go. Here, people compliment "bai bai de pi fu 白白的皮肤" which is “white white skin.” Girls especially do not like to tan; they wear pale makeup and walk around campus with umbrellas on sunny days. I remember my cousin's son saw a picture of me when I was super tan from playing soccer, and he seemed concerned/confused and exclaimed, "怎么这么黑？Why is she so dark?" My understanding is that some Chinese people either consciously or subconsciously believe tan skin means that you are poor because you are a farmer and are always outside.
My Italian friend said that in Italy pale skin means that you are never on vacation because you are poor and are always inside. I guess the lesson to learn here is that it doesn't matter what your skin color is, because no matter what, some people will think you're poor.
Nanjing
My parents lived in Nanjing for about a decade before moving to the States. I said I didn't remember anything about Nanjing from when I was seven, but then my family kindly reminded me that I got stitches on my leg in Nanjing. I now vaguely remember playing around with my then nine-year-old brother and then falling. I also remember being scared of the doctor because I couldn't understand anything he was saying. Anyways, last week was Qing Ming Jie 清明节, also known as Pure Brightness Festival or Tomb Sweeping Day. It's a holiday for the deceased. We got out of school Thursday, and I thought we got out of school Friday, but they actually just moved Friday's class to Sunday. Sunday, I showed up at 8:30am to take the test, found an empty room, but the teacher came at 8:35, then 3 classmates came by 8:40. The teacher laughed at how poor our attendance was and rescheduled the test for Wednesday.
Anyways, here's some of the pictures when my cousin and my cousin's wife took me to Nanjing. We went to the Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum (the place of "Father of Modern China" is buried) and the Ming Xiaoling Mausoleum (the place where the founder of the Ming Dynasty is buried). We also went to the Nanjing Museum but I am so strong that a two-day trip made me groggy so I kind of half-slept on the museum benches. I didn't get a lot of interesting pictures while half-asleep.
I love how my cousin's wife thought I was too tall so she made me stand one step below her. She wasn't satisfied and wanted me to stand two steps below her. But that made me stand closer to the camera, so I still look a lot bigger than her haha. She's so cute.
Chinese doctor
So I've been seeing a Chinese doctor regularly, but he doesn't practice Western medicine like I'm used to. He practices traditional Chinese medicine. I want to call it weird voodoo magic medicine because I don't understand it.
The time I saw him, he held four fingers on my wrist, feeling my pulse. Then without asking me what symptoms I have, he started LISTING MY SYMPTOMS. I was REALLY confused because in Western medicine, the doctor ASKS you how you feel and then writes down what you say. The doctor does not feel your wrist and then TELL YOU how YOU feel. I feel like most people cannot tell that I have physical and mental health problems by looking at me, but this doctor practices weird voodoo magic medicine. He said so many crazy things that I'll just put a bunch of them in list format:
"She sometimes feels it's hard to breathe." (This is true.)
"She feels nauseated and dry heaves but never vomits." (This is true.)
"Her vision is weird sometimes, but it's not her eyes are bad; it's because she is dizzy." (This is true.)
"She has a bad digestive system." (True.)
"Her spleen and kidney are weak." (I have no clue if this is true. No one has told me.)
"Heart needs to be strengthened." (Yeah, considering I've had cardiac arrest and ventricular fibrilation, I would say this is an understatement.)
"She has neck and back pain. Her vertebrate aren't exactly in place and that pulls on her knees, giving her knee pain." (The pain part is true, but I don't know what causes it.)
"She needs to do deep breathing exercises and aerobic exercise to improve poor blood flow." (Definitely true according to my Western doctors.)
"She is like a 5/10 or 6/10 for quality of life. She has health problems but she isn't that that bad because she can walk around." (I'm not sure how I would rate my quality of life, but yeah my health isn't great but I can still walk around and pretend to be normal.)
"We can maybe get her quality of life to an 8/10 but she will never get completely better to a 10/10." (I feel both encouraged and discouraged by this. I mean if the voodoo magic medicine doctor says I'll never be normal, that's kind of sad. But if he says I can at least improve, that's pretty exciting and I'll definitely take it.)
"Difficulty for treating her is 2.8/5." (I'm not sure why he switched from a 1 to 10 scale to a 1 to 5 scale, and the decimal is really specific.)
"She won't be the richest person around but she will have a happy life." (This sounds like a fortune cookie.)
"She spends money however she wants." (Considering I've bought three glass water bottles even though I came to China with two metal ones, there might be a bit of truth in that. But to be fair, they only cost $2 each. But I guess I don't need them so it's still wasteful.)
"She needs to avoid early marriage. She should marry someone a year older than her. She isn't endlessly picky and will be happy in her relationship." (Okay this also sounds like a fortune cookie mixed in with general life advice, but I wasn't planning on getting married anytime soon anyways so it's okay.)
"She doesn't want to challenge people, cause conflict, or hurt anyone's feelings." (This is true and I wish it wasn't. Also, I don't know why this doctor was telling me about my personality because my Western doctors definitely do not do that.)
"She goes through hardships but doesn't always tell other people because she thinks she can handle it and she doesn't want to bother other people." (This is probably true, but I still don't know why this doctor was saying this.)
"She shouldn't eat animal organs like most Chinese people do." (I hate animal organs so that's fine.)
"She is a diligent worker." (I'm still not sure what this has to do with me being his medical patient but I will definitely take this compliment that is not always true.)
I have been taking two spoonfuls of Chinese herbal medicine per day, diluted in hot water. I feel like I possibly might be doing better than before, but I still don't feel *great* so maybe I am making it up in my head or maybe it's too early to tell. The doctor has been working on my back and neck as well, and my neck and back do not pop much anymore and I definitely feel less pain. I've included a horrifying picture of my back after the first time my doctor worked on it with both his hands and suction cups.
This doctor tried to explain, "The difference between Chinese medicine and Western medicine is that if there is dust on table, Western medicine tries to get rid of the dust. Chinese medicine tries to figure out where the dust came from." I appreciate the analogy, but I still don't understand Chinese medicine.
Food
I couldn't understand when people were telling me what was on the dinner table. However, I started recognizing some food from introductory biology dissection labs, like liver and intestine. They asked me if I had seen food like this in America before, and I said never on my dinner plate but maybe in my biology class. In addition to liver and intestine, I've eaten pig feet, chicken feet, pig ear, poisonous puffer fish, kidney, and eel. I've not yet had lung, heart, frog, turtle, or snake, but who knows the semester is still young. When in Rome, do as the Romans do, I guess. I thought eating eating chicken feet was a Chinese thing, but I guess Italians do too.
Speaking of Italy, I was thinking about how I have to go back to OU in the fall and just stay there for the next few years or so, and that kind of sounded like a long time to be in one place. So I'm going to learn elementary Italian next year and spend a semester in Arezzo, Italy the year after that. When I studied abroad in Denmark, I met a Chinese girl that I am visiting this weekend in Hangzhou. And now that I'm studying abroad in Shanghai, I have met some Italian and French people that I will get to visit when I'm studying abroad in Italy. Who knows, maybe when I'm Italy I will meet some people from another country that I will eventually visit.
Thanks for reading!
"The more I see, the less I know for sure."
My friends in the US are solidifying their summer plans, but I've just started preparing for the midterm exams that are in two weeks. I feel like I am still surprised with how much I love China. I really want to come back for a few years. My tentative plans now are to finish school in Shanghai, travel in China for a bit, go back to the US for a few semesters, go to Italy, go back to the US and actually graduate at some point, then come teach English in China to put off the stress of PA school for a few years.
As time moves further along, the less sure I am of what I am doing but I guess that's the joy of being young. I'm only 22 in China and 20 in America, so who knows what's going on. Anyways, thanks for reading and see you next Thursday!