Chinese Medicine

Chinese Medicine:

I have noticed during my time here that the Chinese often deal with sickness in a different way than I do. I thought it was something that I ate, but when I got the body aches, and the chills and I could barely stand up, I knew I actually had a fever, maybe the flu.

Tour Guide Alice: "You feeling okay?"

Me: "My stomach does not feel well."
Tour Guide Alice: "Here, put this oil on the acupuncture points on your face. You feel better?"
Me: "No."
Tour Guide Alice: "You need to go to hospital?"
Aunt Lynne: "She just needs a shower, water, and lots of rest.
Tawainese Tour Member: "You should drink salt water, and lots of tea, it will help your stomach. And lots of tea."
Me: "No."
Aunt Lynne: "She has a 7up thats helping to settle her stomach."
Taiwanese Tour Member: *mortified* "She's drinking what?!"

And don't worry, the fever broke the next morning, so luckily I was able to board the plane with

my tour group. The tylonel helped break the fever, and the 7up really did help settle my stomach.
I don't think the Chinese believe in the magical properties of 7up though.

One of our Canadian families is from China, many generations ago. It cracks me up, because they

act very western, but then I see the small tendencies that shows the mom grew up (maybe still in
Canada) but in a Chinese cultural home. Whenever we get to a restaurant, she takes a tissue and
wipes off all the pieces of her place setting. This is something I learned to do from Alice and
Shelley. It also cracks me up when she serves the daughter all of her food, her duaghter is 21.
She doesn't actually spoon feed her daughter, which is the problem that I was having with my
nursery children (My elves refused to try to eat by themselves, they would watch the plate in
front of them for 30 minutes, I assumed they didn't like the food, but when I picked up the spoon,
their mouths opened like baby birds). But as all the food went by, the mom would decide what was
healthy, and decide what kind of portion she should get of each dish.

Everything we are experiencing over here is based on good feng shui, good luck, good fortune and
good health. EVERYTHING. All the temples we visit, the buildings, the markets of jade and pottery.
Everything is made for good feng shui, good luck, good fortune, and good health.

So now we are in Nanjing, the south part of China, and actually quite close to Beilun (I've
thought about getting a train ticket home for all the things that I forgot to pack). We have new
tour guides here, and I feel bad because I guess our group just got really used to the way Tour
Guide Alice did things, and we miss following Winnie the Pooh. Our new tour guides our driving me
crazy. We have two here in Nanjing, and I think both are used to insubordinate, ignornat
Americans. When we're waiting in the gaited line for the tram, she will guide me to the door of
the tram saying, "please get on the car, yes please get into the car." as if I can't figure it out
while I'm following the rest of my tour group single file, like cattle. She comes up to only LYnne
and I and quietly confirms our meeting times to make sure we reunite with the group on time. And
then, she tried to strike up friendly conversation in Mandarin with the Panamanian family, and the
family from San Francisco. Both families look Asian, but are culturally about as Asian as Lynne
and I. Both families gave her blank, nonplussed looks. Then she said in English, "Oh you speak
Cantonese eh? It's okay, I don't know Cantonese, it's okay." . Anyways, sorry about the mini rant,
but the assumptions she makes about our group just drives me bonkers. We miss Tour Guide Alice!!

Tour Guide Alice and Winnie the Pooh

Climbing the Great Wall

Climb far enough and you get a whole section to yourself!