First the weather report: it's 30 degrees celcius and sunny. Like they say: there's no spring in Baoding, we've definitely jumped straight to summer now.

Today has been partly excellent, partly a little blahh. I've been a little ill in the past couple of days, nothing to keep me from doing what I normally do, teaching classes etc, just some infection and whoknowswhat, that has forced me to get a little more acquinted with the Chinese health care system. Yesterday I went to the No. 2 hospital to get some tests done, after which they gave me some antibiotics plus some other stuff (who knows what?!?) through an IV infusion, which is the way they prefer to do it here, get it directly into the circulation.

And today, I had to go to the university hospital for round 2, this time it took me 5 hours of IV drip drip dip...ugghh... And I have to go back tomorrow for some more. Eugh.

But on the other hand, the first part of the day today was just great, definitely one of those "I love Chinese people" -days. Funnily enough, before I got ill, I had arranged with a student of mine from last term, Wang Ke Qi (or Cathy) to take me to visit a traditional Chinese hospital on the outskirts of Baoding. So we went there first thing in the morning, to meet a wonderful Dr Li Ji Cun, an old gentleman with a definite sparkle in the eye. We hung around his office, watching the people come and go. As you can see from the picture, there is no privacy for the Chinese patient, the surgery's doors are always open and people come in with their troubles, and get examined while others are waiting for their turn.

The Chinese doctors do their diagnosis based on taking the patient's pulse from the wrist, looking at the tongue and the face, and asking the patient to describe the symptoms. As it happened that I was feeling a little ill, the doctor examined me and gave me his judgement: the flow of energy and blood is blocked, which is causing the pain. He prescribed some traditional medicine and told me not to take the antibiotics, as they are too strong and can do more harm than good. I actually tend to believe Dr Li more than the doctors at the "Western" hospitals here, but I'll go through the 3-day treatment they prescribed and then will start taking Dr Li's medication. So far no effect from the Western medicine, which by the way has cost me around 500 RMB so far, while the traditional pills were 3.50 RMB!!!

Cathy has been having some problems with her throat, which is how she knows Dr Li, who has been treating her. To show me how acupuncture works, he did a quick treatment on her, sticking the needle to two points on her throat (geeeez it goes deep!!) and one one both of her wrists. Just stuck the needle in, wriggled it around for a bit, and pulled it out. The whole thing took just a couple of minutes, but pretty much knocked Cathy out for a few minutes afterwards, she just about fainted... Apparently, there are 365 acupuncture points on the body, and these guys know exactly where all of them are.

While Dr Li was treating other patients we went to take a look at the adjoined temple, dedicated to a famous Song Dynasty doctor Liu Shou Zhen, who treated the emperor and lived right where the temple now is. People come to the temple to pray to Liu for good health by offering incense, money (fake and real), fruit, colourful paper etc etc. The temple area was an amazing place to be with a million things going on: fortune tellers, incense salespeople, old women praying, others building mountains of incense... There were lots of people around as it was the first day of the third months in the Chinese lunar calendar, which is an important day for praying. It was great to have Cathy around, as she was asking all the old people around for the meaning of the things there were doing. For example, there was a woman who after burning the incense collected all the greay ashes that were left. We found out that the reasons was that she would later mix them with water and drink it for her health. Another woman was rubbing the ashes to her leg, to make it better.

We stayed at the hospital until lunch time, when Dr Li invited to come over to his house to eat. He and his wife (who are both quite old but still working) prepared a great lunch of vegetables, fish, shrimps, bread, pork and soup. Not to forget then beer, of course.

These people were just absolutely wonderful, once again I was treated like a real guest of honour, this time by people who are a lot older then me and know more than I ever will... it's just amazing to me how they receive a little girl like me, and treat me like I was someone special. In a way it makes me feel a little unconfortable, but mostly it just makes me feel all warm and good, it's so great to see people like this, who are simply kind and warm. Makes me believe in humanity a little more :) In fact, I really don't think the same thing would easily happen in Finland, a foreign girl being taken to meet a doctor at a busy hospital, and being given so much time and even invited to eat at the doctors house afterwards, and heartily welcomed back any time (and meaning it). It's moments like this that make travelling worthwhile :)