The hospital got all gussied up for the occasion:

The dragons guarding the entrance:

The flowers were beautiful:

So were the girls, and this is their friend, Nura, from Libya:

Some of the staff got dressed up as well:

The staff were all in good spirits:

The girls gathered up some of the flowers after it was all over:


And the next day, the flowers were carted away:

For those of you who have not heard, Simon has finished the first of his films documenting our Chinese exploits. Make sure you plug in your headphones or TURN UP the speakers, because it’s rockin!!!
Click here to watch it!

Things around the new hospital are shaping up quickly. The staff have been working almost non-stop in readying the building and grounds for the grand opening ceremony on Thursday. Sod has been laid, flowers and trees planted, great amounts of dirt moved around; and today decorative red banners have been hung on the entire front of the building from the roof to the ground.
I have been asked to be the honorary spokesperson for the patients. Ok, I’m the only one who’s first language is English, so that’s why they picked me. I have prepared a speech for the visiting dignitaries and whomever else will be attending. I am not nervous about this speech since I figure only about 5% of the people will understand me fully and maybe only another 2% will have a general idea of what I’m saying. Everyone else will have no idea what I say so I can totally screw up! Ha! A translator will speak along with me for the remaining 93% of the people. I am trying to add a bit of humour, but this is a very difficult thing to do cross-culturally. Another patient, who was a media attaché for the US-Kuwait embassy for years gave me a suggestion. He heard a popular song here titled, “I love you as the moth loves the rice”, so I am going to work that into my speech. It will be a regular laugh riot. Hopefully the guests will know the song and not think I’m some weirdo talking about loving moths. Stay tuned for photos and an update of the event in a few days…

Now that we’ve been here in China, we are not so much gawking at everything in amazement or incredulousness (is this a word??), but we are relaxed with the daily routines and occurences of a Chinese city. We are beginning to see and understand some of the nuances of life here. Women carry umbrellas wherever they go. You can buy quite fancy ones, with beautiful beads and organza and lace on them. Obviously not suited to a monsoon-like downpour. The reason they carry them is that they use them for the sun. Ok, I thought, that’s good, a little personal shade, after all, it is over 35 degrees most days. However the REAL reason is that Chinese women do not like to get a suntan. It is considered unfashionable since the labourers, farmers and ‘peasants’ that work in the fields all day are deeply tanned. Chinese women spend a fortune on ‘whitening creams’, probably as effective as those that promise to erase wrinkles. The funny thing is that, in our culture, it is the opposite. A tan is a sign of opulence, for those who spend their days in leisure; golfing, playing tennis or other outdoor pursuits, instead of in an office cubicle. I am speaking about urban North Americans in particular, and making broad generalizations, of course.
So what to do if a genteel Chinese lady has left her umbrella at home, and is suddenly inundated by the bright sun? She has to find something to cover with, and quickly. How one forgets their umbrella at home but manages to remember to bring a plastic washbowl is beyond me…

Another thing that I have noticed is that Chinese men have long nails. Not the labourers who are building this hospital, but the doctors do. I have not had a chance to inspect too many men’s nails, but the hair salon was an obvious spot to see men’s nails up close. Mostly it is the index and the pinky fingers.

I am thinking this is partly fashion and perhaps a little bit of a class difference as well. I am not sure, but it is a custom that I do not find particularly attractive. Maybe that’s because I’m a short-ish length nail person myself, but Simon does not have to worry about requests for longer nails!

With temperatures in the upper thirties and high humidity every day, it is tough to stay cool. We, thankfully, have an air conditoned room, but it’s nice to get outside as well. Here’s our new solution…

For a brief hour just as the sun sets, the temperature drops to a mere 30-32 degrees, finally cool enough to venture out for some exploration. Simon actually goes out on his own in the afternoon sometimes, but it’s way too hot for me or the girls, so we stick around closer to home.
At the end of our long driveway is a main road or highway. It is under major construction so the traffic is only going about 40km/h. If we cross the highway we are instantly in rural China.

There are so many differences here. On one side of our building are some new townhouses being built, in exactly the same design as we might see in suburban Canada. On the other side of us, is completely traditional, rural landscape. Even within this small village, there are many old wooden dwellings and right beside them are large new houses made of brick and shiny tiles.


New or old, they are both drying their chili peppers out in the sun, and probably produce most of the food they eat.

It was time for our Sunday outing again, so we piled into the van and set off to sights unknown. We ended up at the river’s edge, where we took a boat across to an ancient village. The village had a Buddhist temple at the head of it, that had been rebuilt on the same foundation several times over the past 1000 years. This is the temple gate:

A few of the statues inside, until my camera battery died.


We also strolled around the village, which still has residents. I got to pull the pail up from a deep, deep well that was very, very old. The water was beautifully cool and crystal clear.

The notches are from centuries of pulling ropes up from the well.
Parts of the village were constructed at different times, this gate dates from the 1700’s.

As usual we ended the trip with a dinner at a somewhat fancy restaurant. We like these opportunities to try foods that we would never had ordered, because our translators take care of all that for us. My newest discovery that is quite tasty and has a nice crunchiness is lotus flower root.

It’s been about a week since I’ve sat down to write anything. We (meaning everyone at the hospital) have been figuring out our new routines but now it all seems to have smoothed out. The staff have been moved to an apartment complex about a half hour walk from here, some have chosen to stay in Huaihua, about a half hour bus ride, so our morning routine starts a bit later, but I don’t mind that at all. One of the translators feels she needs to get a bike for her morning and evening commute to the apartment, Simon offered to help her choose one, because she has never ridden a bike before! This comes as a surprise but apparently she is not alone among adults here. This will seem like a huge cultural generalization, but I thought bikes were intrinsic to Chinese transportation! I guess I am wrong on that point. Speaking of which, I had promised the girls something special when we moved to the new hospital, and we’ve followed through…


Emily and Maddie are proud owners of a bike and a trike. They are ecstatic! Emily runs out the door as soon as she is finished breakfast to start riding, and rides until the sun sets (go girl!). We’ve decided to keep the training wheels on Em’s bike while she gets used to the hand brakes, and we don’t have a helmet for her yet. It’s on the list on the next shopping trip into Huaihua. Maddie likes zooming up and down the large hallways on her crazy-looking tricycle. Either that or they get pushed around on a wheelchair by their 14 year old friend, Nura. We are very happy to see them so excited to ride around, and to be able to get some much needed exercise; not so attainable in the middle of a busy downtown setting. Luckily the hospital has only 4 patients, including me, so the girls can ride around to their heart’s content and make lots of noise. The bonus for us…they cost, together, $40.

The girls are experiencing a new and exciting aspect of rural living; more insects and wildlife! We can watch beautiful birds fly by from our large outdoor patio and there are many, many insects that interest the girls. Emily is desperate for a pet, of any kind, so I let her keep a cricket that she caught last night in a jar. She let it out this morning, for humanitarian reasons. The grasshoppers get very big around here, as you can see. Maddie doesn’t mind holding one, but this one was too big for Emily’s liking:

If you’re not paying attention, they’ll keep climbing up from your hand to your head!

Here is a photo of tonight’s visitor, a preying mantis:

So we have finally been moved to the new hospital. It was a crazy day for the staff, getting us and all our stuff to the new city of Zhongfang. Some of us moved in a bus:

The new hospital is finished, for all intensive purposes. Well, actually the main floor up to the 3rd floor are pretty much functional, but the next 3 floors are still under construction. As of today we have a functioning kitchen, with gleaming new appliances and cupboards, about a 100 times better than the last kitchen! Ugh!
Our room is very bright and spacious, and we have been given a full suite for the price of a room. Dr. Ming, the VP, wants to impress us, his first patients, so that we have rave reviews of this new hospital. He treated us to a great dinner, cooked by his mom, on the first evening, he is on the far right side of the photo:

Here are a few views of our room and the girls’ room, I’m sure you can guess which is which:


There is even a proper massage-type table for my treatments:


And here is the view from our doorway and my own private (or I like to think so) tai chi area: