Deep culture shock and Chinese imprisonment

I was detained in a hospital fever clinic for an indeterminate amount of time this past Friday. It turned out to be seven hours. They finally released us, eight coughing, sick (but not with covid) patients, at midnight. The next day, I went to get a massage and was refused service because I was having pre-period spotting. I was told it was dangerous. A woman selling tea on the street told me to stop eating eggs because I have a cough.

Let me back up. Medicine is mostly hospital based in China. Due to current (and ever changing) covid regulations, small and medium hospitals in Shenzhen will just not see you if you have any symptom that could be taken as covid. A sniffle. A cough. A headache. You have to go to a large hospital that’s well equipped for the severity and danger of the situation.

When you get there, they won’t see you inside the hospital. No, that would be a public health threat. You are sent around back to an isolated fever clicic where 大白 (da4bai2) (literally “big white”, what we call the covid workers in full hazmat suits) will give you an N95 mask and gloves and test you upon admission and not release you until your covid results come back up to 4 hours later.

I’ve been once before and despite the shock of finding out I couldn’t leave and had to just sit there despite being done with my doctor’s visit, was in and out in two hours. So, this time I went in calculating a four hour max wait. I left work two hours early, went home to get my social insurance card and passport (my only valid ID here in China), dicked around and went to two other hospitals because the map said they had fever clinics but one didn’t and the other’s wasn’t open for some reason, and made it in by 5pm, so I figured I’d be out by 9pm at the latest. Not bad for a Friday night.

I don’t normally go to the doctor for a cold, just so everyone knows. I’m not a hypochondriac, I don’t panic at the first sniffle. However, whenever I work with children, I catch all manner of diseases I don’t normally get. When I was interpreting in the schools in the States I got pink eye, bronchitis, several ear infections, the list goes on. And just a couple months ago I got a sinus infection that needed antibiotics from the toddlers I take care of — uh, sorry, teach, and I’d been sick for over a week without improvement plus had spiked a fever the night before, so I wanted to run my blood for peace of mind.

Does anyone remember when I said I went home to get my social insurance card first? Yeah I didn’t need to do that because when I finally got to the third hospital their 社保卡 system was down and I had to pay for everything out of pocket. I think the grand total was around $50-$60 for the doctor’s visit and meds (though I wish I had the chance to go through the meds and reject some of them first before scanning my code into the automatic pharmacy vending machine and getting all my meds dropped like bags of chips out of the slot, because one of them was ibuprofen which I don’t take, oops).

I went to the bathroom. I wanted to take off my gloves for this because who uses the bathroom with gloves but I didn’t, no one else had and I wanted to follow the rules, not make trouble. I washed my gloved hands in the sink and dried them with paper towels, feeling a bit angry at the ridiculousness of it.

When I had come in, they had asked me more about covid risks than my actual symptoms. They even asked if I had gotten any packages from overseas lately. Come on.

Anyway, by 7pm, my covid tests came back and I was free to go. Sweet, two hours again. Nice and quick. I got up and got my freedom papers printed and went to leave only to be told I couldn’t leave. No one could leave. Sit down. Wait.

My mind blurred in confusion. Something didn’t add up. I asked the nearest 大白 and was told something that I think normally I would have understood but the stress was taking a beating to my language parsing skills. I told her I didn’t understand. She said it again, simplifying her Chinese. I caught the gist. Someone here tested positive so we can’t leave.

I went to ask another 大白 in more depth. “什么情况？”, what’s going on? Again I was told to sit down. I asked how long until we can leave. She said they didn’t know themselves. Surely someone must know. I asked them to ask their superiors, a little ashamed because no one else had found their inner Karen and were all sitting quietly. I was the only foreigner there. They told me to sit down, more forcefully this time.

I asked the doctor. He said he he knew the least out of anyone. He was meant to have clocked out an hour ago, he said. My stomach dropped at this. We are all absolutely stuck here. I sat back down and took off my gloves. My hands were sweaty and uncomfortable and I didn’t care anymore.

At first I just waited, playing on my phone and trying to study my flashcards but not really being able to focus. 大白 came out and told us not to pull down our masks for any reason.

8pm came. 9pm. 10pm. I started hitting a wall emotionally. I messaged some friends and posted in the American Citizens support group for Shenzhen. People started reaching out to me, offering to bring food (I hadn’t eaten since lunch and was very hungry), make phone calls, contact the embassy.

Food delivery was unfortunately not an option as the doors weren’t opening for anyone to come in or out, but the phone calls were life savers. Friends called the hospital, the health commission, the emergency after hours number for the consulate. My Chinese tutor video called me and gave me translation from normal to simplified Chinese for my own understanding of what was going on (this women *gets* me, to the point that she understands how I feel about language learning and immersion). Friends told me to make a scene, film everything, report to the media, call the police.

An embassy volunteer messaged in the group, tagging me. She stated there is a covid case here and we could be locked up for up to 24 hours. Overnight, sick, with other sick people, with no food.

I broke down. I cried into my scarf, ashamed of my emotions, and waited. I laid down on the hard metal chairs and tried to close my eyes under the heat lamps but couldn’t sleep. I thought about the apple in my backpack and the vending machine with instant ramen noodles in the building but couldn’t imagine myself pulling down my mask to eat in this situation, nor do I imagine I would be allowed to.

They herded us into a corner, getting us all to sit closer together and wiping down chairs and surfaces. They retested us all, one by one, for covid. An hour later, at midnight, our tests came back. They were all negative. They all had to be in order for us to leave. It didn’t matter that my last covid test was negative Our fate was no longer individual, it was based on the group. Welcome to collectivism.

Does it make sense? No, it doesn’t. If I had been exposed to covid, a PCR test wouldn’t read positive after an hour or a couple hours after exposure anyway. It can take several days to test positive. The response was not based on medical or scientific fact, it was based on following orders and protocols. And, judging from the way the one 大白 screamed in protest when the door was opened for another worker to come in with sanitizing equipment, it was based on fear.

Now how about them period massages and coughing eggs?

Confirmation about the menstrual restrictions came from one of my Chinese tutors. She added that foot baths and spas are also out. Completely coincidentally (I couldn’t make it up if I tried), my (Chinese) friend and I were planning to go to a spa that day and she canceled because her period had arrived. She specifically listed the items out, saying “I can’t get a massage or go to the spa, my period just came”.

I asked my other Chines tutor about the eggs. I left her a voice message on WeChat while I was walking home from the medicinal tea shop. She replied immediately, saying “and no chicken either, really best to just eat less in general until you’re better”. I had heard previously that Chinese people believe protein feeds the illness, so it’s best to just eat carbohydrates and not much fat, like 粥 (zhou1), a rice congee, when you’re sick.

I googled it. All of it. I spent twenty minutes inputting various search queries. The entirety of the Western internet is unaware of this 忌口 (ji4kou3), a word that literally translates to “abstaining from certain food (as when ill)” in the Chinese-English dictionary. We don’t even have this concept in the Western world.

I expected culture shock getting off the plane. I wasn’t sure what form it would take, but I was ready for it. I took in the world around me, built differently from the ground up, with wonder and acceptance.

There’s a joy in discovering a new filter for life. The more filters I have, the more options I have for how to exist in any situation. I can shuffle them like a deck of cards, choosing whichever facet of whichever culture suits my purposes and eases the flow of life.

There are things that remain a small wonder to this day. The way the streets are designed and built, for example. There is a strip of tactile yellow brick down the middle, or sometimes off to the side. I often wonder what is for, a divider for pedestrians, or perhaps for pedestrians and electric scooters and bicycles? I like to walk directly on it, giving myself a little free foot massage. In the rain, sometimes those bumps are the only part of the street that’s dry. Maybe that is its purpose?

One year later, I didn’t expect to still be overturning rocks, especially ones of this size, but here we are. I walked into a pharmacy on the way home from work to get Vitamin C and was told they don’t carry it. I was able to get it delivered but the options were a $0.13USD bottle (the store had a $5 delivery minimum and I couldn’t think to buy that many bottles or what else I might need), or a $24USD bottle. I looked on Taobao (China’s Amazon) and found several options, mostly American imports which I am restricted from buying (only Chinese nationals can import from my own country, it seems). I found a Swiss brand bottle and bought it, checked the delivery time and saw I would have to wait over a month. Sigh.

When you get sick, everyone says “去医院看看，吃点药，多喝热水，好好休息”, “go to the hospital and get it looked at, eat a little medicine, drink lots of hot water, rest well”, yet the society is built more for “still go to work, get a doctor’s note from the hospital, never rest, good luck finding or buying medicine, especially painkillers (lol@cramping uteruses), oh yeah and definitely drink lots of hot water.”

“Why are you getting sick in the first place? Excercise more!” Ok, thank you for the advice. I would love to return to my 4–5 times per week gym routine and weekly long hike as soon as I am not, you know, sick.

I will never go back to the fever clinic or the hospital. I have ways of getting antibiotics if I need them and will have to self-diagnose and hit-and miss if necessary. If all else fails and I need to go back, I will make someone from my agency or school personally accompany me. You want me to take my freedom and life into my hands? Sure, you first. See if they still need me to get a doctor’s note for a sick day after that.

I understand why people are leaving China, both foreigners and Chinese nationals. Friends I have known personally are leaving in droves, every day it seems there’s another one. Why am I working so hard on staying? It’s the language. I’ve fallen in love with it. And, deeper still, it’s having a central pursuit in life that’s intrinsically motivated. No one is telling me to do it, paying me to do it, rewarding me for it. It’s all mine. Have you ever had a central purpose like that? Something you can’t wait to come home and do? Something that you feel work just gets in the way of?

One day, I hope I can make my central purpose the center of my life, what I do for most hours of the day. Isn’t that the dream? To turn your avocation into your vocation?

Beyond the language learning, I have health and fitness goals that are my own as well. I feel like after drifting for a long time, I have finally found traction and I am running. It feels so good to move. It feels free.

Until next time. ❤