My New Life

It has been a while. Since I last wrote, my parents and I went on a week long trek through the Yunnan wilderness, during which time we faced such challenges as hungry goats, less than sanitary bathrooms, and unidentifiable foods. However, we also enjoyed phenomenal views, spent time in minority village homestays, and met other interesting travelers. About a week ago I put my parents on a plane (very early in the morning) and sent them home. It was great to have them here, and it was kind of a cool role reversal where I got to be the parent and my parents got to be the kids for a bit. I got them places, ordered them food, and held their hands when we crossed the scary China streets.
As soon as they left, I moved into my new apartment, which I am sharing with another Dragons semester instructor. It is gorgeous. It is probably the nicest apartment that I will ever live in. It is in a complex with a pool (although I just tried to swim in it and I was forced to buy a ticket, and then the pool was frickin' freezing...which considering my tolerance for cold, means it was take your breathe away, hypothermic shock cold). This past week I have spent settling in, buying a bike, signing up for classes, renewing my Visa, and running errands for the Dragons Instructors, since they have all been busy preparing for the new semester program, which starts today. I also played in a frisbee tournament this past weekend, the first annual Kunming hat tournament, which just happened to be perfectly planned for the first weekend that I arrived in Kunming. It was really fun, a great opportunity to meet interesting people in the community. The weather was absolutely beautiful, not to mention my team won the entire tournament (there were four teams).
So things are good. I am slowly learning my way around and trying hard to slowly acclimate to the local accent.
The weirdest thing that has happened to me in Kunming was that I had to go have a foreigner medical exam in order to renew my Visa for another 6 months. The exam was like nothing I have experienced. Chinese Hospitals have a reputation (among foreigners) for being terrible places, and up until this point I have been lucky enough to avoid them. However, there was no way around this one. Basically, the exam involves a variety of seemingly random tests that involve inflicting emotional and physical pain, while at the same time demoralizing the patient in bizarre ways. It was all very Chinese.
The first test that I had to submit to was an EKG. I am not even exactly sure what that is supposed to test, but I do know that it involved putting many circular suctions cups on my chest and clamps on my wrists and ankles while the woman administering the test told me in Chinese to relax. The second test was an ultra-sound. In my experience ultra-sounds are for pregnant women, but in the context of the Chinese foreigner medical examination, they are given to men and women of all ages, in order to look at your insides. This test may have inflicted the most emotional distress, because the ultra-sound gook was cold and slimy, and because I am ticklish, and because she kept telling me to stick out my tummy. It was all very weird. Then I went into the X-ray room, where I stood in the middle of this big machine and put my feet where the foot marks were, and then the man closed the door and the machine did god knows what, and I didn't ask any questions, because I did not want to know. Test 4 was ordinary: height, weight, and blood pressure. Test 5 I am pretty sure was to check if I was colorblind (there were green numbers in the middle of a red background), but for me it was more a test of my ability to recall how to say Chinese numbers under bizarre circumstances. I also got to hold a wooden spoon over my eyes one at a time and do the whole "the E is facing this way" eye test. All of these tests were on the first floor. Little did I know what was waiting for me upstairs.
Okay, I kind of knew because it was written on my examination sheet in English and Chinese, but I definitely was not prepared for it. At the first window a bored looking women silently thrust an small empty plastic cup at me and pointed to the sign for the bathroom. The Chinese government wants my pee. Okay. No problem. They even supplied me with the choice between western and squat toilets.
The last test involved a person taking a lot of my blood. Four vials to be exact. I do not know why they needed four vials, or why they needed to have a glass window between me and the blood taker, with only a small hole through which I had to put my arm so they could prick it with a needle and suck out all they needed. They must have tested me for every disease known to mankind. Unfortunately, they underestimated my blood flow, because when they told me I could remove the pressure that I was holding onto the spot where I had just been sucked dry, my blood continued to flow. Oops. Don't worry though, I got a band aid, and everything was all better. What I really could have used at that point was a sticker, but they were no where to be found.
Three days and 326 RMB (about $50) later, I have my very own Chinese Health I.D. and I can now apply for a Visa extension which will allow me to stay in China for another 6 months.