Does it hurt?

Several doctors were sitting around a desk slurping noodles and finishing their cigarettes. I looked back at the “Emergency Surgery” sign on the door, wondering why we were in this particular room. Surprisingly, the Tonghua hospital was much cleaner than the one in Harbin, even though Harbin is a major city and Tonghua, well, it isn’t. Kevin said this building was just finished last year.

The doctor looked briefly at Kevin’s back and said (through Kevin’s student/impromptu-translator), “It looks too serious. The IV won’t help – he needs to have an operation.” After staring at the student and the doctor for a minute, we started talking back and forth.

“An operation? What kind of an operation?”

“Just a small operation. They must make a cut and remove the bad area. But just on the bottom one.”

The doctor drew a little picture on a scrap of paper. The circle was the infected area. The large line across it was where the cut would be made. Reassuring. As Kevin and I looked at each other, I’m pretty sure both of our faces said, “I have no idea.”

“Well,” Kevin told his student, “I guess if there is no other way… Will they put something on it for the pain?” The doctor affirmed something of that sort, and motioned us to the adjoining room.

“Lie down,” the doctor said, motioning to a vinyl covered table that looked similar to a large exercise bench. If you want a sheet you have to bring your own. We had hardly prepared for surgery. I looked nervously around the room, first noticing the trashcan overflowing with dirty bandages. The rest of the room was mostly bare.

Kevin was lying on his stomach, waiting anxiously as the doctor opened a cloth and pulled out a scalpel, large tweezers, and a few pieces of equipment. I think I would have been more freaked out except I still couldn’t quite believe what was happening. The doctor prepared some sort of injection that was supposed to numb the area.

“He’s using a new needle. That’s good!” I told Kevin, trying to be positive and reassuring. Kevin winced as the doctor made several injections around the lower wound. Approximately ten seconds later, he was going in with the scalpel. Thus the surgery began.

I grabbed Kevin’s hand as he gasped in pain. I watched as the doctor made several slices and then began digging around pulling out infection. I was feeling numb because it was all still surreal, but Kevin was feeling every single slice and prod. I am not sure how long the doctor took. Probably not too long, but time seemed to stand still.

I was squatting beside the overflowing trashcan, holding Kevin’s hand as he writhed in pain. The doctor, trying to impress us with his few words of English, kept saying, “Does it hurt?” I don’t think I yelled at him, but I was definitely yelling inwardly. “You are slicing open his back with nothing to kill the pain – How do you think it feels?!” I know the doctor wasn’t evil, but I swear I remember an expression of glee, as if he was already bragging to his friends: Today I operated on a foreigner! I avoided strangling him mid-surgery, but I threw a good many hateful glances his way.

I heard the doctor use his other English phrase, “Don’t cry!” Not so much in a sympathetic way. Not so much at all. I wasn’t sure if he was talking to Kevin or to me. I realized that tears were streaming down my face. After a while, the doctor finally seemed to realize that this foreigner he was cutting open actually was in a great deal of pain, and his expression became slightly more compassionate. At least he hid a bit of his doctorly enthusiasm.

It was all seemed very real now. Several doctors who came by to watch the spectacle were laughing nervously (I remembered the cultural tendency to laugh when not sure how else to respond), and I noticed that the assisting nurses could not hide their dismay. The student, who was also standing nearby, kept turning away, looking rather pale. Kevin was dripping with sweat, and I began to wish that he would pass out. I’ve never seen anyone in so much pain. I’ve never hurt so much without actually feeling any pain. I was sobbing as I tried to wipe away some of the tears and sweat that drenched Kevin’s face. I couldn’t think to pray, all I could do was call out the only name in my mind, and that I did with desperation.

The doctor finally stuffed gauze down into the deep wound and covered it. Then the student said, “The doctor says he needs to cut the top one too. Can you stand it?” Kevin answered truthfully, “I don’t know.” Fortunately the injection seemed to work better this second time. When the surgery was finally finished, I realized I was shaking. Kevin was covered in sweat and his eyes were still a little dazed. The student looked pale. “I’ve never seen an operation before,” He told me. “It was very terrible.” I assured him that it was my first time to see an operation as well.

We all went to the IV room and waited for the nurse to come back from lunch break. We spent a lot of quality time in that IV room, as Kevin had to come back every day for the next several days to get another injection. All the hospital workers started to recognize us. We finally left the hospital as the afternoon sun was starting to dim. I kept shaking my head and thinking, “Did that really just happen? Did we really live through that? I think I’m in shock.”

Usually life brings what you least expect. Kevin and I weren’t really planning to spend most of our visit in the hospital, but sometimes real life just interjects its own plans. I have never wanted to be a nurse, but found myself cleaning wounds and changing bandages every day. I still have no desire to be a nurse. But if this had to happen to Kevin at any time, I am so glad it was when I could be there with him. This kind of thing has got to be good preparation for marriage. Part of your standard pre-marital counseling exercises: "Went through horrific Chinese surgery experience - check. Cleaned deep, cavernous, puss filled wounds - check." Still – if I never have to step foot into a Chinese hospital again, I would be okay with that. Really okay with that.

Harbin Medical Hatch

By the time we found our friend's apartment it was about 1am. We were glad to have arrived. Ginny and I stayed up talking for several hours longer. She warned me that the sun rose early in the Northeast. I realized what she was talking about when I finally went to bed at about 4am and the sky was suspiciously light outside.

Kevin had told me about the two spider bites on his back that had been bothering him. I didn't realize what that meant until we the first morning in Harbin when he couldn't sit back in a chair because the bites hurt too much. When I made him show me his back, I was appropriately concerned by the red, swollen wounds. We called over Ginny and then the Blakes, who said we had better talk to a doctor. The SOS doctor (the company we can call for medical advice) said Kevin should go to the hospital to get it checked out. They recommended a hospital in Harbin, and we headed there that afternoon.

Ginny found one of her students to come and translate. The student "happened" to have a friend with her who was a medical student and spoke good English. She came along too. We figured the hospital couldn't be too bad if SOS recommended it, right? Hehe. I haven't been to very many hospitals in China, but this was definitely the worst one I'd seen. As we stood around waiting in the hallway, we discussed the images that were coming to mind.

1) The old medical hatch discovered in "Lost."
2) A makeshift hospital from World War II.
3) A really old mental institution I once visited in Kentucky (visited.wasn't admitted to. Really.)
4) Some horror movie involving scary abandon buildings.

The building was old and dim. The walls were dirty and cracked and pealing. Trash was scattered on the grungy floor. The air smelled of some mixture of iodine and stale urine. An old woman was wheeled past on a gurney, clutching her own dirty blankets (patients provide their own bedding and food and such) and staring into space. I was trying to be confident and play the reassuring role, but I was starting to feel slightly traumatized. We followed the students from room to room as they tried to find where we were supposed to go. We headed down the stairs into the basement, which looked like the upstairs except for being darker and windowless. We stumbled upon an airless hallway-like room filled with people lying on gurneys hooked up to IV's. Their relatives sat around nearby, staring at us with interest.

Finally we threaded our way back through the empty hallways to the correct doctor's room. The floor was scattered with old bandages and scattered yellow iodine cloths. The doctor swabbed the wound areas with iodine and quickly covered them with gauze, which promptly began to fall off. He told us the bites looked infected, that it was fairly serious, and that Kevin needed an IV (antibiotics - almost everything is administered through an IV).

Unfortunately, the doctor (apparently, the only doctor) who did IV's had already gone home. They said to come back in the morning. In the morning, we would be leaving on an 8am train, traveling all day and not getting back until Tonghua late at night. "Can we get the antibiotics in pills?" we asked. They don't really trust pills. They don't think they are as affective. We argued back and forth for a while, trying to explain our standpoint. "We can't get an IV tomorrow. We will be traveling. We know he needs the antibiotic, so wouldn't the pills be better than nothing?" Back and forth, back and forth. It was one of those times when you are speaking the same language without any actual communication. Finally, suddenly, our medical student friend said, "Okay, now we will go get the pills." Breakthrough.

We stopped by a pharmacy and then headed back to our friend's apartment. The bandages were already falling off, so our medical student friend cleaned the areas again and reapplied gauze. She did a better job than the doctor at the hospital. We think she will make a good doctor.

Now that I was done pretending to be confident and reassuring, I was starting to get shivers whenever I thought about the hospital. I was surprised to not have nightmares about it. I was still concerned about Kevin's back, which looked gross enough to make me slightly queasy every time I saw it. But we would figure something out. We were all glad to have lived through this experience. Once again, after two years in China, I should have known that this experience was far from over.

As If Nothing Happened

I have been meaning to update for weeks, but the adventures just don’t stop happening long enough for me to write about them. It all started about three weeks ago, when Corrine knocked on my door one morning. I knew from the seriousness of her face that it wasn’t just a social visit.

“I thought I should let you know…This morning when I went to teach, the building was blocked off by police who were turning students away. My students told me that the first classes are cancelled. We don’t know what happened, but the rumor is that someone has jumped.”

Most commonly suicides in China are not committed with guns or poison. Guns are scarce while tall buildings are in abundance. Suicides seem to happen way too frequently in universities, but this is the first time it has been here, at our university.

The rest of that day was so strange. I watched students walk by talking and laughing. Since no official word had been given, rumors abounded, but no one seemed too troubled by them. The protocol seemed to be that unless something was confirmed, we might as well act like nothing had happened. This was something I couldn’t understand. The school wanted to make it go away. The students giggled when I asked about it. They crowded around the suspected sight where it happened, staring down over the wall and talking excitedly – the same morbid spectator effect as after a car wreck.

I couldn’t understand when I talked to some students later and they said, “How irresponsible! I don’t know how he could do that to his parents! It is ridiculous!” I’m not sure what my face looked like as I stared at them, trying to figure out how “irresponsible” and “ridiculous” were the first responses to someone hopeless enough to kill themselves. I felt like I had dug a hole to the other side of the world and discovered that people walk upside down.

And I was angry. My sadness and heaviness was quickly turning to anger over the responses that I just couldn’t understand. Depression is such a taboo issue. Suicide is so common, but no effort is made to change. I have talked with students who are deeply depressed but won’t talk to their roommates and friends because of the fear of being different. I felt as if I had run headfirst into a huge cultural wall that I would never be able to break.

It was better when I was finally able to talk with my students about it in class. “What is your response to this?” I asked. Most of them were shocked and some were scared, saddened, and mentioned the desire to value life. Maybe it was the realization that they weren’t as immortal as they thought. “What would cause someone to take their own life?” The overwhelming first response was pressure. Failure. Desperation. No connections or communication with others. We talked about what you can do in times of difficulty, things you can do to help a friend, and things that make you value life.

The next morning the boy's family came to the school, staging an angry protest. All day the building was swarming with security. That afternoon, the school finally made an official announcement: A recently graduated student, a boy who had not gotten his degee because of test scores, had returned to retake some tests. He had been unable to find a job and apparently didn't know what else to do. So on Thursday morning he jumped from the fifth floor balcony and died.

I had been sick all week, and I was frustrated by my inability to be there for students but slowly, a few barriers began to be let down, and I could see that they were indeed affected by the events. Several decided to go home over the upcoming holiday because suddenly they wanted to be with their family. A student came over one evening. I was still sick and didn’t have much of a voice, but I sensed she was troubled. She said, “We don’t have to talk, even. I just want to be with here with you.” I walked back from class with another student and she said, “You and Corrine smile a lot when you are teaching. I always feel happy in your class.” It was such a comfort to know that even though I’ll never be able to change the whole big system, I can make a little bit of difference.

After all of this, two weeks of sickness, and eight straight days of teaching, I was ready for a break. During the weeklong May Holiday I was going up to visit the Northeast and end my two month separation from Kevin. I told him, “If I get off the plane and you are standing there in the airport waiting for me, it will be the best thing that could happen to me.” He was there, and it was as good as I imagined. I ran into his arms thinking, “Finally, this craziness is over.” After two years in China, I should have known that it was only beginning…

Like any other day

This doesn't even fit together. But then neither do my thoughts or the events of this day. It was all scattered and confused and out of rythm. So then maybe this is fitting.

The sun just goes on shining,

Relentless,

Like it was any other day

For the sixteen story building,

The large, impressive building.

The same classroom building,

Where this morning

Students swarmed unconcerned

As policemen blocked their way.

“Class is cancelled,” they called,

Walking back to their dorms,

Laughing in discomfort,

Spreading troubled rumors,

In the sixteen story shadow

Of the large, impressive building,

Where this morning

Someone jumped.

So this is life,

This part called death.

An everyday suicide,

No big deal.

No cause for alarm.

Because what can you do?

How can you respond?

There is no grief here,

No tears, no questions.

Just a deep seated fear

Beneath a surface so smooth

It almost convinces.

But how can you ignore

Such a desperate cry?

I know I’m not the only one

Who is alone.

Who doesn’t know

What to do.

Who doesn’t understand

Why this anger.

Who doesn’t remember

How to cry.

Don’t you see

The pain behind the smiles?

Don’t you know

That the sun sometimes lies?

Don’t you understand

How no one’s left untouched?

Don’t you remember

How the darkness used

To laugh at you?

Here is something I’ll never understand:

How smiling makes everything okay,

How not saying it means it’s not true,

How ignoring a problem can make it go away.

Everyone knows what has happened.

Everyone knows what is true.

Everyone knows there’s a problem.

No one knows what to do.

So the sun just goes on shining.

This Calls for a Party (or Two)

I have been so bad about blogging that I have failed to tell you the recent most exciting news of Yangzhou. Pretend it is last Monday…

Christina and I walked in from a long day of classes late on Monday afternoon and knocked on Corrine’s door. She was just getting ready to tell Matt her groundbreaking discovery and was glad for a larger audience.

“I am going to tell you something really exciting. The first part is really good, but just wait, because the second part is even better. Today I accidentally got on the wrong bus and…I found the Starbucks! But guess what is right next door?? DAIRY QUEEN!!!” Three people were instantly jumping in the air yelling wildly.

We had been hearing rumors of a new Starbucks built in Yangzhou but hadn’t been able to confirm it. No one had even rumored of a Dairy Queen, not knowing that this piece of information would be vitally important to us.

I cried, “Let’s go! Let’s go right now!” The Hanings had to back out, but Christina and I dropped our teaching bags and headed out to celebrate. The free bus, which conveniently stops by campus every hour, brought us to a new, huge development on the outskirts of town. Right in the front of a massive, 4-story mall, the promised locations waited side by side. Starbucks. And Dairy Queen. Exciting, right? But you don’t understand how exciting. Imagine that coffee and ice cream are two of your favorite things in the world and your city just got its first really good coffee and ice cream.

Teachers in China have a scale for rating Chinese cities.

First, there is the KFC city. It is usually the first “western restaurant” to come.

Then, there is the KFC and McDonalds city.

Third, the KFC, McDonalds, and Pizza Hut city. This is where Yangzhou has been.

Moving on up, we have the KFC, McDonalds, Pizza Hut, and Starbucks city.

Only big cities have anything else. Huge cities. I have friends in major cities who do not have Dairy Queen. The only other Dairy Queen I’ve seen in China is in Beijing. Do you understand how incredible this is? Yangzhou, the little city of Yangzhou, has just moved up two gargantuan points on the rating scale. The mall itself was practically glittering in wealth. Christina and I wandered around gawking at the polished floors and exorbitantly expensive clothing…and the emptiness. I felt really rich just being there and really poor knowing I didn’t actually belong. I kept saying, “I can’t believe this is Yangzhou! I feel like I’m in Shanghai…or America!”

So on Monday, I ate an oreo blizzard. A blizzard. On Thurdsay, I ate a Georgia Mudfudge blizzard. I had to – it was Matt’s birthday. Tomorrow, I am planning to do some grading at Starbucks. Then I’ll lay off for a while before I go broke.

The beautiful

Today we had teachers tea. Each month we invite English department teachers over to visit. Usually only a few will come, but it has been a good way to finally become familiar with the other teachers. It’s good to have colleagues that you actually know and can talk to. We talked about differences between examinations, scholarships, and universities in China and America. We talked about weddings. One of the teachers had just gotten married, and another will be getting married the same week as I.

After teachers tea, I walked to the supermarket. When I went to pay for my groceries and handed the cashier a bill, he just stared at it, shaking his head in confusion. I was trying to figure out what was wrong with it. Maybe the little magnetic strip they look for was missing. What if I had counterfeit money? The cashier called his friend over to look. The friend also looked perplexed and said hesitantly, “RMB?” That was when I realized that I was trying to pay with Thai baht. They look so similar. Except for the picture of the king. I smiled sheepishly at the cashier, who looked relieved when I pulled out a Mao.

As I was walking back through campus, the wind kept flipping my hair up over my head and into my face. I wasn’t sure if people were staring because I was a foreigner or because my hair was going crazy. I was thinking about how out of place I feel and how I am getting tired of never being able to belong. I couldn’t ignore all the stares I was getting, all of the stares which make me feel more like a circus exhibit than a person.

And then I saw this little girl. She was riding side-saddle on the back of her mother’s bicycle, perfectly balanced without even holding on. She was perhaps seven or eight years old, but her face was a mix of innocence and serenity. I kept looking at her, a little mesmerized, and after a few seconds she looked at me as well. She just looked at me, straight in my eyes, like she was glad to see me, like she knew who I was. After a moment, she started to smile, a simple, knowing smile. A smile that seemed to say, “Today I know I am beautiful just because I am alive. Today we are just the same; we can see it in each other’s eyes.” I echoed her smile, a long, familiar smile, and we continued to watch each other until she rounded the corner into the distance. Those are the kind of things that give you faith in life.

Self Respect

I think I jumped a little when my greeting echoed back through the microphone. I am not used to speaking into a microphone. I am not used to standing behind a mammoth desk, using PowerPoint, or teaching in an auditorium-style classroom. At the start of the lecture there were about 50-60 students. A dozen freshmen students, who had just finished a listening exam, slipped in before the end.

I was happy to see a lot of my students there, even my ridiculously-busy sophomore students. I was pretty excited about the topic: self respect. It is amazing how these topics are related to topics we have covered in class lately: maturity, decisions, priorities, generation gap, gender roles…we didn’t even plan it that way!

My voice sounded a little strange to my ears, and it was harder to connect to the students when I was blocked off by a huge desk and unable to move through the aisles, but I quickly got comfortable and assumed my normal mix of seriousness and melodrama. I couldn’t wait to get to this one part where I told the students: You are valuable. I wished so much that if I said it enough times they would believe me. I looked out into their eyes and was a little amazed by the vulnerability I saw.

I was excited to tell them this because in last week’s lesson, over half of the girls said they would rather be men. At the last open house, some of my students told me that their parents or grandparents were disappointed that they were girls. Last semester, one of my students told me that I gave her the first hug she ever received. Last year, a student told me how her relatives had wanted to let her die so the family could have a boy. I wish I was making these things up.

A surprising number of students have talked about interpersonal struggles. How do I make friends? How do I get along with my roommates? My friend won’t talk to me, and I don’t know why. How can I feel connected with others? I am so shy...what can I do?

I understand insecurity. Who doesn’t, really? Today I was glad that I know what it feels like to constantly condemn yourself, to feel that you can never live up to your own impossibly high standards, to fear that even your friends will grow tired of you, to cringe when walking into a room, to feel unworthy to breathe air, to strive every day to be good enough to feel valuable. I’m grateful for that struggle because when I looked out into the eyes of these beautiful girls today, I could see that they know what it feels like too. These are the things that break my heart.

At the end of the hour, the students wrote down questions and headed off for dinner. “Thank you for the lecture,” they said. “What you said was good.” “We are looking forward to next week.” I am too. I think I was made for this.