Posts
I’ll share my weekend with you. It basically consisted of clinging to a toilet and not straying far from it, writhing in stomach pain and curling up into a ball at the edge of my bed to sleep.
How did this happen? I’ll tell you.
After being on the brink of being sick for a few days before my trip to china I was wary of getting a head cold during the flight full of sick coughing, babies, breathing recycled air. Somehow, even though I’m not much of an in-flight-sleeper, I managed to feel health throughout my flight and my arrival. After a week of trying to adjust to a 12 hr jet-lag however, the airborne pathogens of this country got the best of me. So I had a little bit of a head cold. I had a slight cough and sneeze.
In attempt to head off the impending cold at the water’s edge, much like the famed 300 Spartans, I asked around for some medicine to act as a buttress to my walls, a fortress to my army of white blood cells. Some of my Chinese friends came through and handed me a foil pouch of powder. Telling me this is a traditional eastern medicine that will cure my cold, they handed me the package. I inspected it. It looked legitimate; something you might buy at the local supermarket. Still I had my doubts. I voiced them. “No, I think maybe this might make me sick.” But my concern was met with strong rebuke. All the Chinese around me assured me that it was an herbal cure and that taking this medicine would make me feel much better. It was Friday night, and not wanting my weekend to be hindered by a leaky nose faucet, I decided that I would take the medicine.
That night at dinner I emptied the brown granular condense of the foil bag into my cup of boiled tea water. Norvin and I were at The Northern. I don’t know why we call that restaurant The Northern, but we do. We ordered a selection of the normal food. We drank the normal tea. The only difference between what Norvin ingested and what I ingested was my choking down of the most disgusting flavored medicine water in a couple of brown gulps. I would have done it in one, but the water was too hot, and once I had got the flavor into my mouth I didn’t want to stop and continue later after the water cooled down.
Now because I fancy myself as somewhat of an engineer, or shall we say, scientist, I’m going to refer to Norvin as the control. He ate all the same things as me and was quite alright. Unfortunately for me, I woke in the middle of the night with the very intense desire to run to the water closet. And run I did. In fact, I barely made it. Simply imagine someone pouring an entire pitcher’s worth of…shall we say…black tea…into the toilet from a distance of maybe 1 meter. Ok, stop imagining it. It was pretty terrible. It felt like someone had a vice-grip on my bowels and was slowly knotting them up and squeezing them out.
Like clockwork, this continued every half hour on the half hour for about 24 hours. The color of the liquid changed. The constancy varied. But the liquid kept coming. I tried in vain to rehydrate after every jettison but it was difficult. My stomach wanted to remain empty. I was exhausted. And the weekend was slipping by.
Saturday was my first official Chinese lesson. After canceling twice before, on last trip, I promised my self I would make it to this one. The teacher is in Shekou, about a 25 minute ride away. I ate as much bread (in hopes it might soak up the pain) as I could fit into my shrunken stomach and got in the cab. Being it was the second day, I felt a bit improved and I made it through the ride without incident. It was during my lesson that things became apparent that I hadn’t expelled all of the medicine. Hěn kuài! Hěn kuài! Quickly I ran to the bathroom. Thank god, a western toilet.
After my lesson, Norvin and Alexi met me out in Shekou for lunch. I was a beautiful day. The warmth soothed my aches and made me feel better even though my head was swimming from the 2 hour lesson. And again, like clockwork, this time every hour on the hour, I stood from the table and ran off in the direction that I might find the nearest bathroom. Again, the control, that is Norvin, was fine.
Sunday it was every three hours, and in lesser amounts each time.
So that was my exciting weekend. I managed to watch a couple of DVDs throughout the mess. That’s one thing you can always count on china for. The earliest releases of the movies still in the theater. It didn’t ease the pain. It just made the time go faster.
The moral of the story, be careful taking traditional medicine if it’s not your tradition.
