Hello fellow China Daily Bloggers! This is AlexisFW85 checking in to say hello... Nothing of much interest to note since my last post about my incident with the Chinese grandma on the bus... I'm leaving China soon, work is really hard these days, and it's all a bit overwhelming to take in. How are you these days?

I think this past Saturday was one of the best ones I've had in ages. You all know about my back issues. If not, check out my previous two blogs for more information...so a day where I was more or less back to normal, enjoying the lovely Beijing sun and oncoming summer weather was long overdue.I had my third session of acupuncture that morning. All was (more or less) normal: a nice 45 minute massage, followed by 30 minutes of acupuncture. The only difference was having some needles poked into my scalp. Very painful, but the guy was really nice and understanding.Following acupuncture, I attended and volunteered at a school event for about two hours. It was nice seeing parents, eating delicious catered food from Schillers and hanging out with the kids at my school. I may have also gotten to enjoy a nice glass of white wine in the warm sun...Afterwards, my husband and I decided to pay a little visit to Wangfujing. He is currently preparing for the Great Wall Marathon and needed to look for some new running shoes to break in before the big day. I had no real reason for going. I just wanted to continue enjoying being able to walk (although somewhat shakily) and maybe buy a few things to cheer me up. Nothing of great consequence happened while there. It was rather the bus ride back home that proved to be the most interestingly awkward part of my day. To be expected from me of course if you've read any of my previous blogs!We got onto the bus, and I found one of those raised parts of the floor where the bus tires are to sit down on since my back was starting to hurt. In any case, I sat there for a while, not thinking about much, until my back started to hurt from sitting down for too long. I soon got back up on my feet and chatted away the time with my hubby. That's when the fun began.Sometimes when you travel in crowded areas like the bus or subway, you're bound to have the occasional run in with people. They accidentally step on your feet, knock you on your side when buses stop too quickly, the usual. Sometimes, in my experience, dudes get a little fresh and take advantage of the close quarters and sneak a pinch. (To that I always answer with a swift elbow to the abdomen.) The bus ride home wasn't particularly this kind of crowded, so I was surprised to feel a small something rubbing across my bum, left to right, right to left...I knew there was no one behind me. So my first instinct was that it was probably someone's shopping bag. That theory immediately went down the toilet when the left to right, right to left pressure got harder, more purposeful. I knew it wasn't a man this time around since I was fairly aware of the people around me."Please be a cheeky kid, please be a cheeky kid," I began to chant to myself as the wiping motion continued.It was then that I decided to turn around and see what's was happening to my bum. I was met with the wide, friendly smile of a Chinese grandma. She was wiping stuff that I had apparently got on my bum from sitting on the floor. I don't think any stranger has ever treated me that nicely. Anyway, not nice enough to wipe junk off the bum of a complete stranger. Needless to say she got a big "Xie xie!" from me for her random act of kindness.

Hello all. As some of you may know, I've been having some pretty serious ongoing issues with my back for the past two to three months. I've done everything to solve the problem (X-Rays, Physiotherapy, MRIs, medication...) which consequently has maxed out my insurance coverage for the rest of my time in Beijing. Yay for me. Acupuncture is my last hope, and fortunately, I've started them this week! How is it going thus far? Well, as with any case where I find myself in a new and foreign situation, the answer to that question is: pretty awkwardly! :) My first session this past Monday was physically painful (as to be expected) but also a little embarrassing (as to be expected with me). The session started out great with about 30-45 minutes of Chinese massage that I desperately needed since my muscles were all kinds of out of whack. I was feeling good, relaxed, comfortable. That is until the acupuncture portion of the session began. The guy I set up the appointment with was the professional acupuncturist at the clinic. So when he came in and asked me to remove my trousers, I thought all was normal...until I realized that there were no special acupuncture trousers for me to put on. Then something else dawned on me - I wasn't wearing normal underwear that day. Oh no, that would have been too convenient for me. I was wearing a beautiful, albeit inappropriate, blue thong. It didn't seem like it was going to be a problem when I put a towel over my bum and laid down for the needles. But then the acupuncturist promptly pulled the towel down to my calves and started prodding me with needles while two other guys stood by and watched him work. I suppose I'm a little conservative with my body. Thankfully, I was face down on the table when this all happened. Did I mention that he also had to take my thong down partially for some of the needle placements? Yeah...I racked in another wonderfully awkward and painful experience when he pulled my undies back up my bum too roughly at the end of the session... I don't know what it is about me attracting mortification-induced scenarios like I'm getting paid for it...but at least it makes for a good story and a funny memory. Maybe once in my life I'll have an experience that doesn't involve having to laugh at myself. One can only dream. However, in this situation, the ultimate goal is to get my back sorted, no matter the cost it has on my sense of pride. Today's session went much more smoothly. (I wore better, less revealing underwear this time around!)

So since about January of this year, I've been experiencing issues with my back. Some days my back is just in pain and a bit uncomfortable. Some days I can't sit or walk or stand for too long. Some days I can't walk period. As a result, I haven't been able to really experience the local Beijing community for quite some time. I'm either confined to my bed for the day or immediately following a long, grueling day at work. I miss China terribly. Even something as simple as walking to the local vegetable market and catching up with the vendors I've come to know over the years seems an almost impossible task for me these days with my back issues. Thankfully, I have other people's blogs to read here and feel like I'm still a part of the Chinese community that I love. Goals for getting this back sorted include the following:1) Acupuncture: It's the only thing I haven't tried yet. It comes highly recommended. It's my last hope.2) Gym w/ a pool: I need a way to start strengthening my back in an environment that will hold my weight for me, take the stress off my back. Also, I don't want to go to the local pool - it's all well and good, but the water is freezing cold! I have to admit I'm being a little bit of a snob about this, but for me to be motivated to swim, I need a semi-heated pool... :) Keep your fingers crossed for me being able to join the Beijing world again so I can visit galleries, go to shows, walk around in the hutongs and all those other fun things I miss doing in Beijing.

I should premise by saying that I know violence is everywhere. It strikes in places of war, places of unrest, places where opportunity for betterment lacks. With that said, I can't shake the waves of anger I feel at the injustice of it all when witnessing acts of violence. There have been many occasions in Beijing where I've witnessed people fighting in public with hordes of witnesses surrounding the altercation, simply watching what was going on without interfering. I'm a practical person - I don't think it is ever smart to get into the middle of a fight. However, I do also believe there are basic things that can be done to help stop public fighting. I also don't think that the "Bystander Effect" is something that happens exclusively in China. (It's that odd thing that happens when crowds of people witness but don't interfere with people who need help in public situations.) It happens everywhere in all sorts of social dynamics. Something that happened in Shanghai the other day really stuck with me. My husband, myself and our aunt were heading back to People's Square to have a rest at the hotel. On the way to finding our exit in People's Square station, I noticed two men holding a third man between them and leading him to an exit rather roughly. As I watched this, I noticed that they promptly began to beat the third man they were leading outside right outside the window of a crowded McDonalds. I was shocked. Those kinds of things don't normally happen in crowded areas, much less in front of a window where dozens of people were having lunch. What happened? Well, nothing for a while. People literally looked at what was going on while eating their food, while walking by the very exit where this man was being beaten into the ground. Luckily, those of us still in the station had the good sense to call some guards to the scene. It's something that I haven't seen happen often in China - people involving themselves to help someone else. (Again, China is not the only place where this happens.). The thing that got to me, however, was how nonchalant the guards were. They knew someone was being beaten up, they saw it with their own eyes, yet they walked towards the altercation as if they were having a nice stroll in the park. No amount of my calling out in Chinese, "Please, hurry!" could get them to make it to the scene in time. Hence, the two men got all of the punches and kicks in that they wanted and managed to get away in time, leaving the third man cowering on the steps. For me, it's not that this happened in China; it's not that the guards took too long to get to the man's aid. It's the sheer fact that there are still people out there who are not scared to be that violent in such a public way. I hate violence and injustice in every form. It is something that will unfortunately always exist in some form or another in our world. Violence, in the end, benefits no one, not even the aggressor.

My hubby and I are enjoying another round in Shanghai for Tomb Sweeping Festival. We took the bullet train, and that was a pretty awesome experience. Though it meant that it would take us much longer to get into the city and get our explorations started, we were happy to say at the end of it all, that we finally took a bullet train. Not much to report on our first day of traveling yesterday. I am proud to say that I ate Shanghai dumplings (those wonderful jaozi filled with meat and soup) to my heart's content yesterday. When my husband and I were here last, it was during Chinese New Year, so all of the traditional Shanghai restaurants were closed. We're also staying in the city center this time around instead of the "Old Town" area which makes travel and sightseeing a bit quicker for things that are more central. Not sure what we'll plan on doing today. My only hope is that my back pain this morning will go away, so I can enjoy the day outdoors, not at work. (I've been struggling for over two months now with back pain that keeps me immobile at times.) Despite that set back, I'm keeping my positivity alive! Anyone have any suggestions on things we should definitely not miss while we're here in Shanghai? We leave this Sunday at 1PM, so we're up for anything to jam-pack into our work free days! :)

So this is my final piece following the story sharing I've done on this blog about my first year in China. This one didn't technically happen in my first year, but it was pretty close. And it was definitely a new experience for me. Working in an international school in Beijing has its ups and downs like any job, really. This is one piece I've written that warmly reminds me of my first year as a homeroom teacher. I do miss it sometimes, though there is one thing I don't miss in particular that you will read in this story...I call this one The Butter Eaters...------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I’ve had a very interesting first few months teaching mostly Chinese students at an international school in Beijing. Like any place where one is in constant contact with tiny children (tiny children who sometimes have vastly different views than you due to cultural differences), it is hard to go through a day without something unusual happening to you or around you. Take my friend Armen, for example. On a daily basis I can enjoy watching the entire storyline of Star Wars reenacted on the playground. I feel more connected to these films than ever thanks to him. And if you encouragingly ask Armen to explain what scene he is acting out, he looks at you suspiciously (probably coming to the conclusion that you are a dangerous Sith Lord), and zips away down the running track, holding his invisible light saber at his side like a true Jedi warrior. I have many friends from my classroom who love nature. They love it so much that they are constantly bringing it into my classroom. And leaving it to crawl all over the room while they are off doing who knows what. From snails to bugs to rocks, my classroom is ever in excess of the outdoors. I don’t often feel the urge to go outside these days - most of the playground is now on my classroom floor. I won’t even get into kids who lick my hands, eat the clothes I’m wearing and cough into my mouth on a daily basis... But the one odd thing that my kids do is an act universal across all cultures - the urge to eat really weird combinations of things. This urge has no bounds, be it age or race or creed. Everyone, and I mean everyone, whether they act on it or not, has the urge to try the disgusting. But the odd food combinations aren’t what bother me. I can take my friend Linita topping her piece of sushi with a cookie and yoghurt. I can handle my friend Banker drenching his stir fried noodles in soy sauce and ketchup and eating it like it’s the first meal he’s had in days. Bring on the weird. The thing that gets to me is the butter fascination. And this is not the “I-like-to-slather-my-bread-with-as-much-butter-as-possible” kind of thing. This is the “I-just-plain-like-to-eat-butter-out-of-the-packet.” Let me simplify: Fork. Butter. Eat. Gross. My kids can’t get enough of it. They take packets of butter by the handful. They try to sneak it out to recess. It’s the first thing they down at lunch time. And it’s not just a handful of my kids. Almost simultaneously, I can look down the lunch table and watch as half of my kids happily open their butter packets, stick their forks in and chow down. The butter eaters. When they finally realized how much this grossed me out, it only spurned them on, and so for two months, I was faced with the constant picture of kids chewing butter to their heart’s content and smiling at me with their butter-stained teeth… Ah, first grade. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Teach kids? I'd love to hear about the hilarious things your kids do! :) Normal 0 false false false EN-US ZH-CN X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-language:EN-US;}

Hello again. If this is the first blog of mine you're reading thus far, I'm spending the month of March sharing pieces that I wrote about China during my first year living in Beijing. It goes without saying that some of the feelings and opinions expressed in these pieces have dramatically changed for the better (I hope) in the past three and a half years I've been living in this city. With that said, I must admit that this was one of my angrier pieces. Keep in mind that I wrote this in my first year, when everything was new to me, when my mind was a little less open to Beijing culture. Even though I was a bit shocked when re-reading this piece, feeling my anger, my inexperience in every biting word I'd written, I thought it would still be a good story to share. Everyone feels this at some point. Everyone is angry about this, whether they're conscious of it or not. We can all relate and connect with this Chinese experience. I call this one, Left, Right and Left Again.------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Commuters in Beijing are probably some of the luckiest people I have ever come into contact with. It’s like they live in their own dream world while moving through the city, armed with cell phones, iPhones, headphones and iPods galore. Don’t be surprised when you see commuters (whether by foot, by bike or by car) heedlessly crossing streets, merging into traffic or turning on to new roads without once looking at who’s around them. You’d be lucky to see them looking in the general direction in which they’re traveling. And yet, each person makes it to their destinations virtually unscathed. And don’t forget the aforementioned: they commute in this fashion with some form of electronic gadget that further distracts them from other commuters that they have nearly injured or have nearly injured them in some way. I am amazed that the day to day carnage on the streets of Beijing is not up to par with the reckless driving and - if it’s possible - reckless walking and biking I see happening every day. Don’t get me wrong - I’m not some violence-obsessed person, constantly thinking about death and blood. But it does surprise me that I don’t see more lifeless bodies scattered around the roads coupled with totaled bikes and dented and smoking cars ominously immobile on the sidewalk, especially in the more heavily congested areas of traffic where even the promise of immediate death cannot scare anyone into being more careful and aware of other people on the road. I sometimes imagine that the reason why people evade massive injury or fatal accidents on a day to day basis is due to another popular Chinese custom: spitting. This practice also takes place on the streets of Beijing and, coincidentally, it also seems to be something where proximity to other people holds very little concern to the person engaging in the act. It’s as if spitting creates this protective sphere around the people here; not only does it shield them from my scathing glares when they happen to spit centimeters away from my feet, but it also shields them from being hit by cars, bikes and other people when they walk or drive or bike around the city. I am not Chinese by birth or by custom, so naturally I am not immune to the onslaught that is commuting in Beijing. Already, after living here for only five months, I’ve nearly been injured and/or killed several dozen times. On one occasion, I was walking to a restaurant in a small alley behind a popular outdoor mall called ‘The Village.’ Of course, since this is one of the most heavily congested places to walk through with tourists and locals alike, cars, vans and trucks conclude that this is the best street to drive through for shortcuts to the main road. On this rarest of occasions, the car trying to smoothly drive through hordes of people was actually driving slowly and may actually have been taking into account the value of a human life. (This is not always the case for people who drive cars in the city.) I had to stop and look at this foolhardy driver trying to move through such a congested street. The closer he got to me, the more I realized that he really wasn’t watching where he was going. And there I stood, with nowhere to move, as he lightly tapped me on the leg with his front tire. The shield was broken. He sheepishly looked up at me and mumbled a quick ‘Dui bu qi.’ I looked at him, flabbergasted. What should I have said to him? ‘Oh, don’t worry about it, you only ran into my leg…with your car,’ while I quickly wiped the tire tracks off of my jeans… That’s just one of the lesser occasions where I have had a literal run-in with another commuter on the street. I digress into going in to the more frightening details of other similar occasions. Well, it was frightening for me - city commuters here experience these kinds of near-disasters on a daily basis. They're pros at mentally blocking near-death experiences on the streets of Beijing from their minds So here are a few pointers I’d like to share with the world of Beijing commuters on commuting etiquette: 1. In a competition with cars vs. people or bikes, cars will always win. And cars, I don’t think that’s a game you really want to play. Speaking for walking people and bikers, we’d like not to die, please. 2. Walking in the middle of a bike lane with your back to oncoming traffic and with headphones on so you can’t hear the incessantly ringing bells warning you to move out of the way is not, I repeat not, good for your general physical health. 3. Walking in bike lanes against traffic when there is a perfectly nice and well-paved sidewalk literally inches from you that will also take you where you need to go is annoying…to me. One day I will hit you for good measure. 4. Beeping or ringing your bike bell at other people to warn them to move out the way is fine…when there is actually a place for someone to move so you can pass. Analyze the road space situation first prior to beeping. Otherwise I will annoyingly ride my bike in the middle of the bike lane, even when I have room to move over for you. 5. Bike lanes are for bikes. Not people. Not cars. It is not a parking lot. Or a place to hang out and chat on the phone or with your friends. If you are confused about what the space is for, look at the nice picture on the pavement-of a bike. 6. Merging onto oncoming traffic, turning to the left or right and stopping in front of bike/car lanes suddenly is not a good idea. 7. Headphones, cell phones and electronic games are probably best spent using when you don’t have torrents of people, cars and bikes swirling around you promising to hit you-or at the very least curse at you-when swerving out of your path and thereby saving your life for another day. 8. Lastly, the golden rule: left, right and left again. It will save you and me a lot of grief.Or maybe I should just take up spitting.----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hope you enjoy this one, even if it was a little angry. I can't say enough how I've adapted to commuting in Beijing. It still annoys me at times, but I can take it with a grain of salt more often these days. My mantra is, "If you hate it that much, move to a different place!" Three years later, and I'm still here! :) One more recollection piece to go for the month of March. Thank you, China Blog Contest, for helping me share the memories.

At the moment, I'm on a kick where I share some pieces that I wrote in my first year living in Beijing. Reminiscing about my anger, my mishaps and my numerous embarrassments has been really fun! Anyone learning Chinese hits that wall where you start to confuse phrases and words. It's beautiful when you get past that wall, but you have to first trek through a long, sometimes humiliating road of mistake-making before you get to decent Chinese-speaking. This is a recount of one such mortifying moment. I entitle this one, Thank you, Comfortable! Enjoy...---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ‘Thank you, Comfortable!’ So, I’ve been living in Beijing for nearly a year now and, slowly but surely, I’ve managed to feel somewhat confident enough to speak in sudden outbursts of Mandarin phrases with Beijing locals. Here’s how the process works: Step 1: Several weeks prior to engaging in said outbursts, I think long and hard about exactly what I want to say to the intended audience. Step 2: I immediately regress into a pit of self-doubt and self-deprecation when I realize, given the dependency on tones expressing what you actually want to say, I have no idea if this is going to actually come out correctly. Step 3: I practice it out loud with my boyfriend (namely because he’s so nice and positive and makes me feel special…even when I sound like a total moron). Step 4: I put myself in situations where I can say the given phrase several times over, building my courage for the impending outburst. It usually takes several more weeks of being in the necessary social situation to use the actual phrase. Step 5: Courage finally sets in. I wait for the golden moment, seize it, immediately forget what I wanted to say but still go with it, speaking a close approximation of what I had intended to say when I practiced it 7 months before. And the process repeats on and on, ad infinitum, but in any case, I’m getting something out of it, right? Does it count even when I’m the only person who understands what is being said? I think there’s some merit there… Well, not too long ago, I decided that I was going to expand the range of conversation I had with taxi drivers in Beijing. They’re usually talkative enough, asking the same handful of questions-Where are you from? What’s your name? Where are you going? What do you do for a living? Etcetera, etcetera. After several weeks of this same introductory banter, I decided to shake things up a little by learning a polite and respectful way to address the taxi driver when saying good-bye upon reaching my destination. I thought it was simple and considerate enough and would add a new dynamic to the conversation. And since I was feeling especially confident, I decided to throw out the previously mentioned process altogether and go with my gut. This time, surely, I knew what I was doing. I had the confidence. I had the background conversational experience. It was only a two-word phrase for goodness sake! I could totally handle a two-word phrase without the process. So I took hold of every opportunity to give each taxi driver a nice, “Xie xie, shu fu!” when leaving the taxi. After a while, I started to notice that I would get a strange, confused smile from each one, but I took this as confusion for my being overly nice. Chinese people can be like that from my experience; quite humble and unassuming. But I had heard other people referring to cab drivers as ‘shu fu’ before. Or so I thought… One day, when going out to meet friends for dinner, my boyfriend, Ian, paid the taxi driver and said a nice, “Xie xie shi fu.’ Naturally, I latched onto this obvious mistake and immediately pointed it out to him. ‘No, no, silly Ian,’ I said as I patted his head, ‘It’s shu fu, not shi fu!’ He looked at me incredulously. The fighting and playful condescension went on for a while, and like most Mandarin disagreements, we went to our pocket dictionaries for the final answer. Turns out, I was wrong. And not only wrong, but awkwardly so, since for about five months prior to Ian correcting me, I had actually been calling taxi drivers ‘comfortable’ instead of referring to them in the respectful manner I had intended to. And to my dismay, each awkward, uncomfortable and confused stare I got from the taxi drivers as I proudly said my awesome farewell phrase came flooding over me as I wallowed in Step 2, realizing that I completely skipped Step 3, the very step that would have saved me months of embarrassment. Needless to say, I will never waver from the process again. But to get it out of my system forevermore, here it is one last time: ‘Xie xie shu fu!’ (Thank you, comfortable!)----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------I've only had one friend who topped me in the embarrassing Chinese-speaking department. She was telling me about a nice cab driver she chatted with in one of her first months living in Beijing. She proudly said to me, "I didn't understand much, but I was happy that I understood him when he told me his name."I asked her what his name was. She said, "Shénme míngzì." (Cue crying with laughter here.)Any funny ones you'd like to share? Leave in the comment section below, please! :) Normal 0 false false false EN-US ZH-CN X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-language:EN-US;}

While thinking of what to write for my first blog post about my experiences in China, I couldn’t help but reminisce over the past few years that I have been living in Beijing. And then it hit me, what better place to start than at the beginning?My first submission is something that I wrote about during my first few months in Beijing in January 2011. If you’ve been living in China for a while already, you’ve already been to this place, and if you’re planning to come to China for work, it will be one of the first places you visit: the place where you conduct your mandatory medical check (if you’re not fortunate enough to get it done in your home country).Here’s a recollection on how my first visit to one of these infamous places went down. I lovingly entitle this particular recollection – Poked, Prodded and Put on Display. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------First experiences in China can sometimes be hard to take in. One such experience would have to be my medical checkup. After about an hour subway ride on Line 13 heading northeast out of the city center, I arrived at my stop where I would meet Lucia, a wonderful EF associate who would take me and another newly arrived teacher, Kurt, to the place where we would have our mandatory checkup completed. Everything went smoothly, more smoothly than I expected really. (After one year in the haphazardly run Indonesia, I had this weird assumption that anything taking place in a foreign country would be chaotic. Fortunately, that was not the case in China.) And even though it was a Monday, the medical checkup center seemed surprisingly quiet, serene. Basically, once you sign in at the registration desk, you are given a sheet of paper with your picture taken from a webcam scanned on the top right corner of the page. There are several serious looking sentences written in Chinese spread throughout the page and a list in the center of the page of various rooms to have specific tests done on you to make sure you are 'Not Abnormal.' Whatever happened to a good old-fashioned 'Normal'? Or even a nice, comforting 'Healthy'? To add to the sometimes overwhelming feel of 'Big Brother,' there is even a Room 101 where pregnancy tests are done. Hmmm. All in all it was a semi-undaunting procedure. The most interesting part of my time in the medical checkup had to be the first room I visited to have an ECG test done. The test itself took a matter of seconds, if that. It was the process leading up to the test that was ridiculous. I walk into a room and meet eyes with a tiny, good-natured looking Chinese woman ready to administer the test. People prior to me seemed to take some time to have their tests done, and based on the explanation of the test on the front door, I could not imagine why that was. That is, until I went into the exam room. Now, being in China and not knowing the language yet can be difficult when trying to communicate anything specific. Usually I just perform some kind of miming action and what I'm trying to communicate is more or less understandable and maybe sometimes a little humorous to the person watching me swing my arms around like an idiot. It can take a few seconds of gestures and waving some form of realia before the message is clear. And it usually works both ways. So we exchange a simple 'Nǐ hǎo' and the miming begins. She points at my shoes. I take them off. She sees that I am wearing socks. (According to the sign/graph on the entrance, you have to have an ankle exposed for the test.) She sniffs at me grudgingly and points to my sock. I take my sock off. Alas! She sees that I am also wearing tights and becomes a little more exasperated with me. So she points at my pants. I unbutton them and gesture pulling them down. I am met with a strong, 'NO!' coupled with emphatic arm gestures. I pull them back up, confused and a little embarrassed. I am met with another, 'NO! NO!' (More arm gestures.) I pull them down and look at her, hoping for a different reaction, some kind of confirmation. Again, 'NO!' I am about to pull them up...'NO!' At this point, I'm surprised she hasn't taken off into flight with all the arm waving she is doing. And I still am no closer to knowing what it is that she wants. I pull them down and proceed to take down my tights...'NO! NO! NO!' I pull them up. Another 'NO!' Now I'm frustrated. I just stand there, completely at a loss as to what articles of clothing she wants me to remove. (I briefly thought to move on to my sweater to see if we could accomplish something, but immediately decide that that would not be the best move.) She eventually motions to me again to remove my pants. This time, I'm slightly agitated, so I take down my pants and my tights, ignoring the fact that my bottom is exposed for the world to see, and look her dead in the eye for some kind of definitive confirmation that I am doing something correctly before she can yell 'No!' at me again. (Slightly awkward pause here.) Finally, she motions for me to lie down. She pulls my tights and pants down a bit further so she can connect this clamp thing to my knee. We have at last reached an agreement. As she is placing suction cups to my torso, making me feel like some newly discovered alien creature, she 'tsks' at me, shakes her head, laughs and says a simple, 'Difficult.' Well, at least I made a lasting impression. And if I'm lucky, putting aside this first test room fiasco, my results will come back 'Not Abnormal.'------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hope you enjoyed one of the first stories I’d written about living in China! What was your first experience like getting a checkup? (The second time I went round was equally embarrassing/borderline horrifying, but I digress...I’ll wait to hear about yours first.) In the meantime, I’ll dig around and see if there are any other “First China Experience” stories I can share.