I Wonder if Mao Peed Here

As part of our language and cultural training in Shijiajuang, we took a field trip to nearby Xibaipo, where China’s modern government was drafted. The site is essentially a (dirty, dare I say boring) shrine to Chairman Mao. A guided tour consists of repeated “Mao sat here, Mao ate here, Mao wrote something down here,” and even a “Naked Mao was wrapped in a blanket and thrown into an air-raid shelter here” (pictures to come.)

Now, all props to Mao for Liberating the People and whatnot, but two days later as I stood in line after line after line (didn’t someone say they don’t queue in China?) for my foreign expert health exam, I wished the Great Chairman Mao had done a touch more to liberate goodwill ambassadors.

Line 1, which lasted a mere 45 minutes, culminated in me being called into a room to verify that I arrived on UA flight 501 from Chicago and to sign my name confirming the made-up body temperature that the doctor had surmised, presumably by noticing I looked cold.

Next, I slouched in a line for 10 minutes, only to be informed that the forms I was holding were not completely filled out, and I needed to get out of the line to do so. Unfortunately, five days of oral language training didn’t make me an expert character artist, so my waiban (foreign affairs officer from Chengde) had to fill it out for me anyway.

Line 3: Bloodletting. The scene: A hallway, two nurses sit behind what looks like a ticket booth, accepting veins through an opening in the glass. I watch two strangers get stabbed, then offer my arm (clean needles, no worries). I don’t get a bandage when it’s over, only a cotton ball I’m instructed to hold in place for five minutes.

Which proves impossible, because the next station involves hugging an x-ray machine for a chest x-ray. My open wound lines up conveniently with the spot where everyone in front of me has hugged the same un-sanitized machine post-bloodletting.

Although they do this exam under the pretense of scanning for infectious diseases, the next stations I suffer through are 1) an ultrasound. You know, in case I’m carrying the contagious disease called pregnancy. And 2) An EKG, which involved being topless in a doorless room. A man actually came to the doorway while the nurse was hooking me up to the machine, which was straight out of 1960, so there was literally a curtain between half-naked, electrocution-prepped me and some strange man. I hope the nurse was saying, “Get out of here, perv, this isn’t a free show.”

So I’ve had a pretty serious cough since a few days before I arrived in China, and the filthy city of Shijiajuang did nothing to alleviate my symptoms. I went through half my store of Robitussin and Sudafed in my first week. Naturally, I was dreading my visit to the “EENT” office, where I felt sure they would look in my throat and notice the most-definitely contagious, infected lump in the back of my throat. Lucky for me (unlucky for China) they dropped the “ENT” portion of the test and only checked my eyes (you know, contagious glaucoma and whatnot.) This test consisted of the doctor asking me to take my glasses off, then laughing at me when I finally successfully conveyed that, “No, really, I cannot see anything on the opposite wall.”

Finally, the most dreaded portion of all physical exams, I had to pee in a cup. As I squatted over a hole in the floor, attempting to hold a teacup-sized receptacle under me without urinating on my hand or falling over, I recalled Jason’s glib comment as we departed Xibaipo. I wonder if Mao peed here.