The image above is that of Wanda plaza; one of the big three shopping mall/ residential complexes in Hohhot. Wanda is a commercial magnate. He is also a very famous man in China, perhaps the Donald Trump or Alan Sugar of the PRC. This complex includes a large shopping mall, offices, residences and a hotel. Currently I am waiting for a leaving teacher to vacate their flat so I can move in. In the meantime I'm staying on the 20th floor of the hotel - the building on the left. I work just a short distance away, on the 9th floor of the building on the right.
From the moment I arrived I was busy. As soon as I'd stowed my suitcase in my hotel room I was out on the street again, heading to a small shop where I would get some passport photos done for my certificate of professional expertise. Chinese New Year is nigh upon us and the Chinese love the colour red, so my photo was taken against a red backdrop. After a few minutes of photo-shopping my portrait was ready for printing. I looked nothing like myself after the digital makeover the man gave me. He removed my blemishes and red cheeks, gave me a hair cut and readjusted my head to a less jaunty angle: all in the space of two minutes. He had one hand flying around the keyboard, whilst the other manoeuvred the computer mouse in quick, precise movements. This was my first experience of the Chinese obsession with modernism.
The next day I was off for a medical required for my resident's permit. This was a bizarre experience. I went with one of the Chinese staff from the school at which I work. Her English name is Julia and she filled in all my forms and even insisted on holding my coat and scarf as the medical proceeded. For the examinations I had to go to a building presumably designed for the purpose. Not quite a hospital, not quite an office complex, it was something like a medical center with people milling from room to room for the different examinations. We had a form to fill in and a different room for each field on the form. First up was the blood test. I sat and watched a girl give blood and get a vaccination for her upcoming trip to the United States of America. Then it was my turn to have blood siphoned from my arm. The doctor, a stern woman of middle age who could have passed for a teacher or a lawyer, plucked a needle from a local stack and pricked my prominent vein. It was at this point that I told Julia that I knew I was HIV negative and if my results came back positive I knew from where the contagion had come. After two vials were filled she took a swab and spread some of my blood onto a sheet of paper. She dripped some solutions onto it and circled my blood group. If it's that easy, I thought, why did it take so long and cost so much when I got it done in Edinburgh?
The next room to visit was the ultrasound. I watched as several people's insides were displayed on a screen in an incomprehensible form. When it was my go I asked Julia how my baby was. She laughed and said it was fine; apparently I had passed that part of the medical and everything looked clear. I couldn't help by laugh as the woman rolled the probe around on my tummy, it tickled, and I was told to stop laughing because it obscured the results.
I also underwent a crude eye test, during which I read letters off an overhead projector. There were five doctors running that test, but I think they had collected there just for fun because all they had to do was click a mouse and a new letter would appear on a different part of the screen and at a different size. After that I had a full body x-ray and then I was taken into a room where a man asked me how my arms and legs were. "Fine," I told him and some ticks went on the form. He then grabbed my neck and started strangling me. Apparently this was part of the medical, but I don't know what he was checking for - his hands never once went near my glands.
On my way to the BMI and blood pressure room I stopped in the toilet to give my urine sample. This was the most ridiculous part. I had been given a cup to urinate into and a small, plastic test tube to fill from the cup. The toilets looked like a cup graveyard. Half full cups had been deposited on every surface imaginable. They did not produce a particularly pleasant smell. Once filled, I put my test tube in a rack provided, near to the door, and thoroughly washed my hands.
In the BMI room there were two strange looking machines. One looked like a set of scales, but from a sci-fi movie: it extended up and towered over me. I stood on it and a button was pressed. It immediately measured my height, weight and calculated my BMI (20) from these results. Next I had to put my arm into a machine reminiscent of a torturing device. It squeezed and spat out a reading. Everything seemed to be in order and so we moved onto the final room, the ECG.
We watched a couple of people get wired up before it was my shot. In China medical procedures aren't exactly private. People just wander into the room and watch other patients as they await their turn. I was glad when the doctor unplugged me and Julia announced that we were finished.
I have discovered, in my travels, the lax and slightly disorganised nature of developing countries' healthcare. Hohhot's ranged somewhere below Quito's, but above Dharamsala's.
Now that all the administrative tasks seem to be out the way my resident's permit is almost complete. At this moment it is being processed and is with my passport at the local police station. Sadly it'll be there a few days because during Chinese New Year everything shuts down.
I think I will write another post about my school separately because it too will be rather long.
From the moment I arrived I was busy. As soon as I'd stowed my suitcase in my hotel room I was out on the street again, heading to a small shop where I would get some passport photos done for my certificate of professional expertise. Chinese New Year is nigh upon us and the Chinese love the colour red, so my photo was taken against a red backdrop. After a few minutes of photo-shopping my portrait was ready for printing. I looked nothing like myself after the digital makeover the man gave me. He removed my blemishes and red cheeks, gave me a hair cut and readjusted my head to a less jaunty angle: all in the space of two minutes. He had one hand flying around the keyboard, whilst the other manoeuvred the computer mouse in quick, precise movements. This was my first experience of the Chinese obsession with modernism.
The next day I was off for a medical required for my resident's permit. This was a bizarre experience. I went with one of the Chinese staff from the school at which I work. Her English name is Julia and she filled in all my forms and even insisted on holding my coat and scarf as the medical proceeded. For the examinations I had to go to a building presumably designed for the purpose. Not quite a hospital, not quite an office complex, it was something like a medical center with people milling from room to room for the different examinations. We had a form to fill in and a different room for each field on the form. First up was the blood test. I sat and watched a girl give blood and get a vaccination for her upcoming trip to the United States of America. Then it was my turn to have blood siphoned from my arm. The doctor, a stern woman of middle age who could have passed for a teacher or a lawyer, plucked a needle from a local stack and pricked my prominent vein. It was at this point that I told Julia that I knew I was HIV negative and if my results came back positive I knew from where the contagion had come. After two vials were filled she took a swab and spread some of my blood onto a sheet of paper. She dripped some solutions onto it and circled my blood group. If it's that easy, I thought, why did it take so long and cost so much when I got it done in Edinburgh?
The next room to visit was the ultrasound. I watched as several people's insides were displayed on a screen in an incomprehensible form. When it was my go I asked Julia how my baby was. She laughed and said it was fine; apparently I had passed that part of the medical and everything looked clear. I couldn't help by laugh as the woman rolled the probe around on my tummy, it tickled, and I was told to stop laughing because it obscured the results.
I also underwent a crude eye test, during which I read letters off an overhead projector. There were five doctors running that test, but I think they had collected there just for fun because all they had to do was click a mouse and a new letter would appear on a different part of the screen and at a different size. After that I had a full body x-ray and then I was taken into a room where a man asked me how my arms and legs were. "Fine," I told him and some ticks went on the form. He then grabbed my neck and started strangling me. Apparently this was part of the medical, but I don't know what he was checking for - his hands never once went near my glands.
On my way to the BMI and blood pressure room I stopped in the toilet to give my urine sample. This was the most ridiculous part. I had been given a cup to urinate into and a small, plastic test tube to fill from the cup. The toilets looked like a cup graveyard. Half full cups had been deposited on every surface imaginable. They did not produce a particularly pleasant smell. Once filled, I put my test tube in a rack provided, near to the door, and thoroughly washed my hands.
In the BMI room there were two strange looking machines. One looked like a set of scales, but from a sci-fi movie: it extended up and towered over me. I stood on it and a button was pressed. It immediately measured my height, weight and calculated my BMI (20) from these results. Next I had to put my arm into a machine reminiscent of a torturing device. It squeezed and spat out a reading. Everything seemed to be in order and so we moved onto the final room, the ECG.
We watched a couple of people get wired up before it was my shot. In China medical procedures aren't exactly private. People just wander into the room and watch other patients as they await their turn. I was glad when the doctor unplugged me and Julia announced that we were finished.
I have discovered, in my travels, the lax and slightly disorganised nature of developing countries' healthcare. Hohhot's ranged somewhere below Quito's, but above Dharamsala's.
Now that all the administrative tasks seem to be out the way my resident's permit is almost complete. At this moment it is being processed and is with my passport at the local police station. Sadly it'll be there a few days because during Chinese New Year everything shuts down.
I think I will write another post about my school separately because it too will be rather long.
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