Foreigner Physical Exam Day

Moving to another country, especially a carefully and strictly regulated country such as this, is an entirely different ballgame than visiting another country.

Thankfully, because I get bored easily, China is keeping me on my toes! Or at least that's how I'm choosing to see it this evening.

People keep telling me things change on a dime here. Like with my visa, the main problem was the law changed so quickly that certain places didn't know the law had changed. (That and I was told to send in a wrong document. BUT we don't have to talk about that.)

I experienced this changing on a dime thing in a funny way a couple weeks ago for my health exam. Not so funny for the lady with me.

Having never moved to another country prior to this, I don't completely know but am pretty sure most countries do not make you go to a special foreign hospital (only ONE in the entire city of 25 million people), undress, and walk around the whole building in nothing but a robe! Okay, so nobody told me not to wear a dress. Us ladies who didn't get that memo were walking around a bit more, shall we say, free than the rest of those with pants on under their robes. I was jealous of them.

The lady who took me to the hospital had been there seven times in one month. She had this down! Alas, we waited in line for an hour ONLY to find they had moved my passport processing place to a different building. We waited in line there and found we were told the wrong building and need to go to another one.

We waited in line there and suddenly I was taken to a private office with four cubicles. A lady pointed to things in mandarin for me to sign and motioned for my passport. Once all the documents were in order I was told to wait. Then I was told to go to room 203. (Btw, I'm super thankful written numbers are the same in mandarin and in english.) That was when I saw the robes. 

I was given a key and a robe. Suddenly every story about Hitler's Germany passed through my mind. But I trusted my place of work (or so I kept telling myself) and I knew all the other teachers had done this as well. Why did no one mention the communal robe sitting part?

I locked my things up, holding onto my phone of course. Because although I still didn't understand how to get it to work properly here (I've got it figured out now!) I just felt safer with it.

I went to the first room where I was abruptly motioned at to lay down. The nurse started pulling up my robe! The Chinese do not mess with such trivial things like tact and making you feel at ease. Suddenly that walking around free part seemed even less glamorous. 

At first I wondered if it's because I had to write I'd broken my pelvis in my history and they had to check? But how on earth could they check? (You guys, I was still jet lagging okay? That's my excuse!) Then I realized that's their faster way of getting your chest bare. Why bother with ties when you can pull the WHOLE thing up? Miss I-Mean-Business was NOT a fan of me when I protested and took the excruciatingly long five seconds to untie! Oh well. She lived. 

I'm pretty sure she gave me an EKG. The next room I had a sonogram done. That was odd.  My blood was drawn in another room. Then my eyes checked in another room.

Ummmmm, let's pause and discuss the benefit of having and English speaking American at a foreigner's only hospital taking an eye exam that looked like this:

I laughed out loud at the absurdity! Thankfully she was more gracious than the robe pulling nurse. This lady thought I couldn't see so she went to larger letters. I kept saying, "I can see! I can see!" All the while laughing because I couldn't believe this was happening. I mean, even though there weren't a ton of Americans there, the vast majority of those I heard talking could at least understand pinyin. It's a foreign hospital for Pete's sake!

She got out a big pointer object and gave me a lesson: "M," "Three," "Double E." Seriously?

Then it was back to the eye exam. Apparently I'm a slow learner because she went to the super large ones near the top. I resorted once more to saying, "I can see!" Finally she gave up on me. It's a miracle I wasn't told to go see an eye doctor.

Again, I was told to go to another room. Here they took my blood pressure. One last time I was told to go to another part of the building and wait in line to get x-rays. Basically I'm pretty sure I got a mammogram.

When I got back to work I relayed my hysterical surprise. They apologized to me for not having been warned. Apparently everyone thought someone else had filled me in! Fabulous.

THEN....wait for it.....I was told to be thankful I'm not a substitute teacher.....because..............

.......they do a rectal swab for those poor souls!

Watch out Obamacare, China is way ahead of you....