I sometimes like to boast that nothing bad ever happens to me. Usually I make this claim when about to embark on a questionable venture that others are warning me against.
It’s not that I believe that I have more than the usual share of good luck. Rather, I happen to believe that bad things just aren’t that likely in general, at least not the kinds of bad things that people spend time worrying about.
For example, I’m probably more likely to choke on a fish bone than I am to be abducted by Maoist guerrilas. But no one ever gets in my face when I go to a seafood restaurant, and I still have to hear about it when I contemplate a trip to the Golden Triangle.
Nevertheless, I am not blind to statistical reality, and I may have to modify my claim in light of the fact that four of my last five trips to the developing world have resulted in hospital visits.
Yesterday’s visit had a fairly mundane cause. I was sick. Not garden variety gastrointestinal sick. Running-for-the-door-spewing-fluids sick.
After a few hours of this, the owner of the guesthouse offered to help me navigate the local hospital.
On the walk to the hospital, we chatted. Hsin quit his job and moved to the western edge of China last year to start a new business. He is young, friendly, proficient in English, and in every way emblematic of the economic freedoms that have blossomed in China in the past ten years.
Hsin has friends all over America, people he met through the guesthouse. He particularly likes Americans. “We have good chemistry,” he said. “Because you are American, I will help you.”
This warmed my heart to hear. I like Americans too, not for any self-serving reasons, but simply because most of them are good folks.
“But if you were Jewish, I would not help you.”
This didn’t warm my heart to hear, and I let Hsin know it. Of course, I knew what Hsin meant. He meant that he doesn’t like Israelis. No one likes Israelis, the holy terrors of the gringo trail. As much as it pains me that this is the case, I am not going to say anything more on the topic.
So I provided a happy little civics lesson to Hsin on the difference between religions and nationalities, and how for a variety of reasons he would be better off not going around telling people he doesn’t like Jews. For his part, Hsin was profusely apologetic.
The hospital was fun, as hospitals usually are. I like being fussed over by experts, particularly when there is nothing desperately wrong with me. After a consultation with a doctor in which we all huddled for warmth over the heating element of his tea kettle, I was handed a prescription. Hsin loosely translated. “You need more power. So we give you power medicine.”
Power medicine? Please don’t let this be some bark to restore my chi, I thought. No need to worry. Power medicine was an IV drip to replace some of the fluids I had lost after a day of fasting and barfing.
I also picked up a medicine cabinet’s worth of treatments. Two blister packs full of blue and white lozenges; a brown glass jar of herbal pills; seven ampules of a clear liquid; and a small box of plastic vials filled with a sinister brown liquid that I brought back up thirty seconds after ingesting. Total cost for consultation, IV, and meds: just under $4.
I’m feeling better today. To paraphrase Britney, I’m not sick, not yet healthy. Food poisoning is the likely culprit. Two more days of R&R and I should be ready to hit the road.
