Tuesday, August 22
Sunday, August 13
thai ways
while the rest of the world and life-as-i-knew-it toils on outside of china, the rest of banna relishes this sunny sunday.
finally in a web cafe with access to blogger somewhere in an internet cafe in xishaungbanna, or banna for short. life has been treating me rough. but not in an unenjoyable way... but more of a caked-in-mud, sun-burnt, sweaty, dirty, dearth-of-good-relaxation type of way.
since my last post a week ago, time has flown by ever so quickly. my english has deteriorated so very rapidly, so pardon my lack of embellishment. i shall say it all in simple, succinct sentences, ie chinese-style.
on tuesday (1/8) , the 3 of us left alex at the bus station, 3 of us teary-eyed and despondent, eyes blood-shot from the follies of the night before. then, on the most dreadful mode of transport known to china : the sleeper bus.. *shudder*, we took an 11 hour voyage, supine, from kunming to jinghong (capital of banna).
on wednesday (2/8)- thursday(3/8), we took another 2 buses to menghun, from which aiwendan came to pick us up in his jeep. aiwendan, an inspiring altruistic village doctor took us in for 2 nights at his home, where he taught us the experience and knowledge 10 years of being a village doctor has imparted him. it was here that i
- rode on a motorcycle across the rice plains of banna, the sun setting in the distance, emerald hills in the yonder, eyes on the best scenery i have ever seen
- reached the 'whatever' stage of consciousness where there is no longer fear of danger /death despite the perilous circumstances, while riding as a passenger on a motorcycle in pitch-black darkness, down a rocky stone-laid mountain path, headlights revealing only 2m ahead of us, travelling as fast as our china-brand motorcycle could take us.
- hiked for 2 hours up to a pagoda, 1 hour of which was in tropical rain
- did not bathe for 2 and a half days (post trek and motorcycle ride)
friday (4/8), we met up with a bo and team to set out to dadugang. after food-shopping in the bloodiest meat-market in the world. (think fats, guts, hearts, heads, ears of animals - skinned and unskinned astrew EVERYWHERE) we took a 2 hour long jeep ride (love em jeeps) to the tea planatation of mr fu. there, a team of 9 of us (mr fu + wife included) toiled for 3 hours in the hot sun digging trenches for his tea plants. (think mud, mud, rain, mud, muddier）we survived, sweaty, rain-drenched, muddy, muscles sore and sun-baked, and made it back to his humble hut for a meal prepared by a bo...
"HCl! HCl is there for a reason." - jo, on food preparation of the meal at mr fu's.
...will be in lijiang (see map) on thursday. more updates soon..+ photos to follow.
Sunday, August 6
the city in the centre of the world
sitting in an internet cafe in kunming now... around me, i'm surrounded by chinese men shouting at each other, smoking pungent honghe brand cigarettes, spending their sunday afternoon playing internet games with each other...
yesterday was only the 2nd day i have been in kunming, the capital, since coming here to yunnan... we've been to 4 towns and 3 villages in these last 2 weeks, i can't remember the last time i had 8 hours of sleep and i can't remember the last time i wore clean clothes before yesterday... these last 2 weeks have been the the most memorable of my life. i have...
-helped clean a leper's sores
-brushed my teeth on a rooftop at 6am, over a bowl, to the sound of roosters, spitting out over the roof
-eaten twice the recommended servings of vegetables in a day for the last 2 weeks
-played basketball in a village
-inhaled an insane amount of second hand smoke
-spoken more chinese than i ever have since junior college
-shared a village meal with villagers
-touched a TB lymphadenopathy lump in a 7 year old girl who will not receive treatment in the near future
-dangled off the tops of cliffs in 4wd jeeps
-shared a bus with pigs under the seats, roosters on the roof and birds in the front
-attempted and practised handstands on rooftops and basketball courts
-heard the most amazing christian testimonies
-not spared an american endless hill-billy jokes and anti-american slander (all in good humour)
-bonded with 3 other christian chinese medics in a way i have never done so before...
the four musketeers
deserve a whole blog entry on our own... me, a singaporean chinese, alex, a canadian chinese, weiyao, a malaysian chinese, and joanne, an australian chinese. despite only having met alex and jo 2 weeks ago, we are like 4 peas in a pod just now. it's crazy! together, we have.. helped translate classes for the village teachers, fought off deadly mosquitos and 2-inch-long-dung beetles, cockroaches and bees, been packed on china buses together, waded through mud, pushed broken down buses, hung out with lepers, ate yucky vegetables that taste of fish, suffered the aches of china toilets together, got drunk on bai2 jiu3, watched amazing sunsets, trekked through a cemetry, played one too many games of cards, etc etc....
so yes... china has been amazing.. at about the halfway-point of my travels. 2 more cities in the next 3 weeks.. updates to follow soon!
Friday, July 21
good as g-old
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
flying off to yunnan this weekend.. it's going to be lots and lots of :
1. rain
2. mud
3. evil toilets that swallow babies
4. chinese
5. first aid
6. marriage proposals
7. rice
there will be none / very little of the following :
1. ipod
2. comfort
3. air conditioning
4. dry socks
so... in an appeal to all of you reading this now... PRAY FOR ME!
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
meanwhile, carol is loving the feeling of familiarity and the underated charm of old things... esp old friends and clothes. but esp the former...
Wednesday, July 19
the depth of my superficiality
the first sunrise after a long time...
serious bumming, reading, guitaring, sleeping, photography, sleeping, deep deep conversations.
listening to myself has never been this therapeutic before.. but it's funny that i no longer think in words: "acoustic #3" - goo goo dolls, "kashmir" - led zepellin, "heartbeats" - jose gonzalez
i no longer think for myself: "name" - goo goo dolls
and i no longer think for today.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
on a lighter note, how to enjoy singapore:
is to take a deep breath, dive in, and leave your thoughts on the surface. "don't ask" - julie doiron
Saturday, July 15
Wednesday, July 12
pedalling extensively
whoever said anything about conflict being bad? for this must be truly what is meant by the apostle paul, when he wrote, "Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known." - 1 cor 13:12. for what is love? what does it mean to be Christian? every day we struggle... for struggling is all we do in this life. but in this gasping for air, in this mad clamour to get there, in all these desperate extensions of our limited knowledge, experience and strength, there in is the search for truth.. and for now, that will suffice. now i know in part....
Humans are one of the few species who survive past the age of procreation.... Wisdom from elders a divine blessing of age that we fail to see the salience of? the recognition of patterns...
the difference between monkeys and man is that man can stand on another man's shoulders... learning from someone else's mistakes. how else is it exponential?
also, the importance of fellowship in the new covenant.
O blest communion, fellowship divine!
we feebly struggle, they in glory shine;
all are one in thee, for all are thine.
- 'For all the saints' by William How
Friday, July 7
the itchy and scratchy
oh for the life of me, i can't get to sleep.. i can only think of a two obvious reasons : it's wayy too hot to get to sleep in this atrocious heat and i'm still on GMT 0...
comment #1
how on earth does anyone get anything done in this climate? if i was ever complaining about the capricious glaswegian weather, i take it ALL back... glaswegian weather gave you hope, at least.. u could get up to a fine, fair morning and come home in the sharp brutality of a hailstorm (but at least it gave u a morning, damnnit!)... now, i wake up every morning to the squelching heat and humidity that whacks you the moment you step out of the air conditioning.. a merciless heat wave that strips you of all energy, motivation and life... immediately coercing beads of perspiration from you... and then the afternoon comes and the sun just shuts everyone up indoors and any attempts to go outside will only bring more sweat, fatigue and hopelessness...
comment #2
i hayyyyteeeeee histamine.. i utterly HAAYYYTTEEE YOU! non-infectious conjunctivitis and sinusitis and heat rash!!! oh for the life of me, you are the plague of the atopic peripatetic in this modern globalised world!!!!! ARGHS.... clarinase... you are all i neeed.
comment #3
some singaporeans have the most embarassingly low standards of their use of the english language... i refer especially to a certain singaporean headlines today on a certain newspaper i spotted this morning at a newstand.. it had something along the lines of : 'she used me for my seed in order to fulfill her greed. and after she had fulfilled her need, she left me.' i kid you not, aaron pan of bloomberg, those were the headlines (in more or less words) on a local newspaper on friday, the 7th of july 2006.
so amidst incessant perspiring, rubbing, scratching, sneezing, blowing my nose and trying not to snigger at singlish-english, i have been trying to have a good time back in singapore. but somehow, i miss glasgow for all its inadequacies. (?#$!#$!@#?????) and i miss my pedantic, sub-standard life as a medical student even more. (!#@$!@$#$%@#$!#$#@^&#%^@#?????????)
but then ask me again after my routine of full body massages, facials, shopping sprees, hawker-food frenzies, late nights, 2am suppers, girly-chats, mahjong-sessions (this is a shout-out!) and i might just have a change of heart... ;)
Thursday, July 6
Friday, June 30
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