American History will never be the same...

I did two interesting things today. First, I had to go to a Chinese hospital and have a full physical examination, even though I paid to have one completed in the states before I left. My physical examination forms from the states didn't have a giant, red stamp overlapping a photograph of me. Seriously. That was the reason the exam report wouldn't work. So, today I had to go to another physical examination, and have the following performed:

--blood drawn
--a chest x-ray
--an ekg
--a urine sample taken (after being told to drink anything or eat anything
--blood pressure checked

etc., etc., etc.

The whole experience made me a little uncomfortable. I would have been uncomfortable, even if I spoke any Mandarin. Not speaking Mandarin made me extra uncomfortable. If you ever happen to come over here and need to go through a government physical examination, I'll let you in on what to expect:

Basically, you go in, go to a desk, give them about four passport photos which you MUST have purchased ahead of time, then you get a form. Then you fill out the form, wait in a line, and have them take a digital picture of you that they check against your passport. This is so each of the different doctors in the building, at the six different stations, will be able to pull up your picture on their computer in the six different rooms and verify that it's you, as you continue on your merry way. After your digital picture, you go to the window and pay, and then you go around to each of the different doctors' rooms as fast as you can. All of the rooms branch off of the same hall, and there are a ton of people scurrying in an out of all of the rooms.

The hall reminded me of the Franz Kafka novel The Trial. It also reminded me of the Orson Welles movie-version of that novel ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXA7RtM_GFY ).

Each time you go into a room, to...let's say, take off your shirt, lay down on a table and get slathered up with that weird ultrasound lubricant they use for EKG tests,--wait, I'm getting confused--I had BOTH an ultrasound and an EKG test performed. Both of them had lubricant. Anyways, there will be several people continuously appearing in the room, waiting in a huddled line for you to finish and hop off the table so that they can have their turn. Everyone will be speaking Mandarin. Constantly.

So, here was the most hilarious part of the experience--I was a little bit stressed out, what with the scurrying and the lubricant, and when they took my blood pressure in the blood pressure room (I think it was room 3) it was a little bit high. I told my Laowai-wrangler Sylvia, who told the doctor, that I check my blood pressure regularly, and that it's normally very good; it was probably just a little high because I was nervous from running around for the examinations. SO, the doctor talks to my Laowai-wrangler saying something I'm not sure about and we continue on to the blood-letting room. While we're waiting on the bench in that room for the spot where the needle pricked me to clot, Sylvia keeps saying to me "Don't be nervous. It's okay. You should not be nervous with the exam," and making sort of soothing hand-motions to me. I thought at the time that this was really nice of Sylvia. She works for my employer and has been helping me out for the past week, so we're sort of getting to be friends. I thought the concern was sweet on her part. THEN she asked me "Well, are you ready?" I sort of blinked at her. Basically, the blood-pressure people told her that they were going to let me try the test again. That's why she was telling me not to be nervous. SO, we go back into the blood pressure room and I stick my arm back into the machine. Sylvia stands directly in front of me the entire time, this second go-round, and says "don't be nervous, don't be nervous, don't be nervous" over and over again. This makes me nervous. But, I eventually got out of there and I think everything went alright. After we left, I scurried over to the building that my employer's office is in and went up to the 11th floor to meet with the woman in charge of the contracts/teaching-jobs, etc.

This leads me to interesting thing-of-the-day #2:

I found out from her that I am going to be teaching American History to groups of Chinese students instead of English grammar, as I previously thought. I am intrigued by the idea of this, even though I am probably not qualified to do such a thing. I will research. I will "bone up" on teaching American History, even though I am full of questions, so that I will do a passable job. How does one teach American History in English to students whom are all under the age of 12? Will we sing "Yankie Doodle Dandy?" Is it appropriate for me to teach them to sing "The Battle of New Orleans?" I mean, I am living in a city that factored significantly in The Boxer Rebellion. Suggestions are welcome. It will all be fodder for poems, or critical essays, I say. This second interesting situation of the day is the reason for the picture of William Cutting. Also, here are the lyrics to The Battle of New Orleans:

Well, in eighteen and fourteen we took a little trip
along with Colonel Jackson down the mighty Mississip.
We took a little bacon and we took a little beans,
And we caught the bloody British near the town of New Orleans.

We fired our guns and the British kept a'comin.
There wasn't nigh as many as there was a while ago.
We fired once more and they began to runnin'
down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico.

Well, I see'd Mars Jackson walkin down the street
talkin' to a pirate by the name of Jean Lafayette [pronounced La-feet]
He gave Jean a drink that he brung from Tennessee
and the pirate said he'd help us drive the British in the sea.

The French said Andrew, you'd better run,
for Packingham's a comin' with a bullet in his gun.
Old Hickory said he didn't give a dang,
he's gonna whip the britches off of Colonel Packingham.

We fired our guns and the British kept a'comin.
There wasn't nigh as many as there was a while ago.
We fired once more and they began to runnin'
down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico.

Well, we looked down the river and we see'd the British come,
and there must have been a hundred of 'em beatin' on the drum.
They stepped so high and they made their bugles ring
while we stood by our cotton bales and didn't say a thing.

Old Hickory said we could take 'em by surprise
if we didn't fire a musket til we looked 'em in the eyes.
We held our fire til we see'd their faces well,
then we opened up with squirrel guns and really gave a yell.

We fired our guns and the British kept a'comin.
There wasn't nigh as many as there was a while ago.
We fired once more and they began to runnin'
down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico.

Well, we fired our cannon til the barrel melted down,
so we grabbed an alligator and we fought another round.
We filled his head with cannon balls and powdered his behind,
and when they tetched the powder off, the gator lost his mind.

We'll march back home but we'll never be content
till we make Old Hickory the people's President.
And every time we think about the bacon and the beans,
we'll think about the fun we had way down in New Orleans.

We fired our guns and the British kept a'comin,
But there wasn't nigh as many as there was a while ago.
We fired once more and they began to runnin'
down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico.

Well, they ran through the briars and they ran through the brambles
And they ran through the bushes where a rabbit couldn't go.
They ran so fast the hounds couldn't catch 'em
down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico.

We fired our guns and the British kept a'comin.
But there wasn't nigh as many as there was a while ago.
We fired once more and they began to runnin'
down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico.