The first few days here were a blur. Sabrina, our welfare
officer, took Shegun (a teacher from LA that came the day after me) and me all
over the city to take passport pictures, look at apartments and meet some of
the other teachers, but nothing, I mean nothing, will compare to the health
check I had to complete before they can issue a work visa.
The "hospital", I use this term lightly, because it felt more
like a federal building than a hospital. Everything was starch white and all
the workers had a stoic and unfriendly demeanor to them. We checked in at the
front desk and were quickly summoned to the first room. Two nurses stood behind
a glass window like the DMV. Sabrina ushered us each in front of a nurse and my
arm was grabbed out from under the glass window and without even looking for
the vein, they jabbed my inner elbow with a needle. She neither said anything
nor looked at me during this exchange. After filling up two viles of my blood,
she placed a cotton ball on the hole she created and gestured for me to squeeze
it tightly. Apparently AIDS and STD's have been a concerning problem in China
so they made it a law to test every foreigner that arrives in China. She then
handed me a plastic cup and a plastic tube. Again, through gestures only, I
came to the realization that I was to pee in the cup and then pour a set amount
into the tube myself. The sanitary aspect of this portion was apparently of no
concern to the nurses. I rounded the corner to the bathroom to assume a western
style toilet awaited my arrival. I was sorely mistaken. Lo and behold, an Asian
squatter toilet was etched into the ground. For those of you who are unfamiliar
with this type of toilet, it's exactly what the name suggests, a place to squat
and relieve yourself, like camping. But I was not camping, I was at a hospital
being forced to pour my own urine from one receptacle to another like some sort
of science experiment. I gave the nurse my flask of urine and off Shegun,
Sabrina and I went.
At this point, I thought for sure the health examination was
complete, but I was beyond wrong. With our paperwork in hand, Sabrina bobbed
and weaved her way down an outdoor hallway to another room. The nurse was patiently
sitting at her desk and quickly stood up when I entered the room. She took my
height, weight, body temperature and blood pressure.
Within moments, I was running to keep up with Sabrina as she
signaled me into the next room; an eye exam. Again, with little to no verbal
commands, the doctor flashed some lights into my eyes and pointed to the chair
sitting across from the other doctor. He handed me a stick to cover my left
eye. Now, eye exams are nothing foreign to me, but in America the reading board
typically consists of series of random letters. The reading pane in China is
made up of what seemed like a series of E's turned every which way. He pointed
to a line and I struggled to understand exactly what it was that I was to be
reading. All I could come up with was, "E? 3?". He looked at me with disappointment
because I was clearly not fulfilling this task properly. Then, through broken
English, he spit out the words, "left, right, upside down". Of
course, how could I have been so ignorant?
After the confusion was cleared up, I passed the test with flying
colors.
Like an assembly line we were on to the next room. Here, a
quick teeth check was followed by what seemed like an examination of my head
shape. The next room was a little more cozy, as there was a window and plants
lined up against the wall. The nurse gestured for me to lay down on the bed next
to a large TV. She pantomimed for me to lift up my shirt. By this point, I was beginning to get exhausted
from the constant unknowns that awaited me but I tried to hold in any emotions
I may have had. I did as I was told and laid down on the sterile brown bed.
With ice cold hands, she began with a breast examination. After that was the
ultrasound. Something tells me that with the "one-child" policy in
China, they don't want surprise foreigners coming in two's. She squeezed jelly
onto the wand and jabbed it into my ribs, stomach and lower abdomen. Once she
was finished, she threw some tissues at me and I wiped away the thick layer of
gel that lined my stomach , lowered my shirt and carried on with the poking,
prodding and pushing.
Every examination up until this point I have experienced at
some point in my life, but never all in one sitting. To be honest, I was starting
to feel violated but what awaited for me
behind door number seven was beyond anything I expected. As we climbed a set of
stairs I noticed a sign that said "Gynecology - Floor 2". My body instantly seized up because
I was not going to allow them anywhere near my lady bits, I didn't care if it meant
deportation back to America, I wasn't going to do it. I dodged a bullet because
we bypassed that floor and continued
onto floor 3.
As I approached the nurse in the next room, again, I was
summoned to lift my shirt and lay down on a brown cot. Lying next to her were
swarms of cords with little contraptions on the end that looked like flying
saucers. With my chest exposed, she began to clamp the snake-like mechanisms to
various parts of my body; breasts, stomach and lower abdomen. She fiddled
around with some buttons as I lie there like Sigourney Weaver in Alien, my
beady eyes dodging every which way trying to figure out what the hell was going
on. After what felt like hours of assuming
I was going to be electrocuted, she pulled the suction cups off of my
body which left small welts all over my body (that's a little dramatic -- they
vanished after a few minutes). I lowered
my shirt and with shaky legs left the room not understanding how this whole endeavor
could get any stranger. When I walked out of the room, my face of sheer
confusion and horror was clearly communicated to Shegun, who was up next in the
execution room. All that came out of my mouth was, "I don't know what the
hell that was but good luck". He swallowed and slowly entered the room to
face his own fate. Later on, I was told it was an EKG, which tests the heart
but somehow something so routine seems so foreign when you're outside your
comfort zone.
At this point, you must be wondering, "Jesus Hannah,
when does it end?" Well, to that, I tell you there is just one more door. The
doctor behind door number 8 was a very smiley, short and warm man. He was the
first and last one to greet me with any form of kindness. He was also the only
one to treat me like a human rather than a lab rat. He escorted me to wall with a large dashed cross in the middle.
He modeled how I should stand which was chest to the wall, neck turned to the
left and my cheek pressed against the wall. My hands and arms were spread out
at my side. With a smile, he gave me the "stay" gesture one might use
to train their dog; a little demeaning but he got his point across. He backed
out of my line of sight and I heard a door slam. Except for a square of light
that flooded over me, the room was completely black. Like a criminal on the
show COPS, I held this position for about 30 seconds while he x-rayed my entire
body. He flicked the lights on but I stayed in the same position so as not to
disrupt any further cavity searches that might ensue. He tapped me on the
shoulder and I quickly released myself from the wall. I craned my neck to relieve the tension that
had built up from the previous 45 minutes of testing. Still smiling, he ushered
me out of the room where Sabrina and Shegun waited.
Mission accomplished:
dignity stripped.
