The day I lost my voice…

started with a phonecall from my friend:

F: Hi Tam
T: [croak]
F: Hello? Are you OK?
T: [croak, again]
[pause, filled with much muttering at my croaks]
F: You’ve lost your voice?
T: [croak]
F: Are you kidding?
T: [indignant croak]
F: Are you sure?
T: [laughing croak]
F: Oh my God. Is there anything I can do to help you ?
[pause while her brain catches up]
F: Don’t tell me. OK. Text me, text me. Don’t speak!

*****

My friend was characteristically kind in her offbeat Chinese way.

What do I mean by this? I asked (by writing on my notepad) my Chinese friend to help me to buy some “zhōu”, soft rice porridge perfect for eating with a sore throat. She expressed shock that I couldn’t make it myself… well, actually I can but I couldn’t write fast enough to tell her that…and insisted on coming to my house to show me how to make it…I wasgrateful but some other time when I wasn’t ill… Still, I was looking forward to a honey and dates concoction, only to be frowned on in disapproval for suggesting (even in writing) that my “zhōu” should contain fruit. We will use EGGS, she told me.

She marched me to the clinic, for clinic re: tiny roadside ”shop” where the doctor wears jeans, washes her instruments in the sink of the shared toilet and treats the patients in full view of passers-by. The usual magical, cure-all drip (x 2 bottles) was prescribed and my friend left.

Minutes later and I thought I was reasonably happily hooked up to my drip, when I noticed a sharp pain in my left hand and looked down to see a lump, the size of an egg, where my wrist should have been. A little panicked I started croaking savagely.

The nurse scurried over, took a look and frowned (Chinese disapproval again) at me. She hoiked out the needle, muttered “méiguānxi ” at my new lump. Well, it may not have mattered to her, but…

She didn’t give me time to panic further before she got a new needle and was tying the rubber band around said wrist and trying again. I let out a pathetic croak, but it was in vain, and so was the new needle. It seemed my poor veins had retreated and the nurse was tutting at me again.

I turned to the old lady next to me, eager spectator that she was, and croaked.

Without missing a beat my right, and hitherto unscathed hand, was next commandeered for acupuncture. I was willing my veins out, dreading the last resort of having it stuck in my foot, as had just occurred with a poor, and maniacally screaming child just a minute ago.

Considering my usual needle avoidance techniques, I was somehow punctured for the 3rd time in 15 minutes. This time it seemed to be OK and the nurse gave me a little glass bottle of hot water to keep my hand warm. The drip ticked.

2 hours sat on a wooden chair swatting at flies and wondering just what was in those brown drips later (well, one bloke was on his 3rd!) and my friend returned to take me to buy some eggs (for the afore mentioned porridge). I just wanted to go home and languish in self-pity. No such luck.

Making porridge cookery class commenced. I watched and blinked. Sometimes this is all that is required. She cooked enough porridge to feed the city and urged me to eat it all, get some rest and wear more clothes. I nodded.

*****

I’ve emerged from this encounter unscathed, apart from a couple of bruised hands and with another new friend, the clinic’s doctor who, mid-diagnosis, now yells “hello” at me whenever I walk past.

PS: Essential Chinese phrase for overwintering laowais:  我敢冒了|wǒ gǎnmàole|I’ve got a cold