Chinese medicine / Dumplings = Education

After several days of "normalcy" finally something interesting happened. In line with my noble resolution of increasing daily amount of sport I decided to play basketball on Thursday. Of course as usual, my clumsiness prevailed and after three long minutes of hard on-court action, my head met with shoulder of an opponent I was supposed to guard. Bottom line of this are three stitches over my eyebrow. Hereafter follows the description of days and events that followed.

I have to admit that the cut on the eyebrow was deep and initially I was bleeding like a pig at hog-killing (or slaughterhouse). Opposed to my wishes (lazy by nature I did not want go through stitching-it-up procedures as any amount of stitches would require multiple visits to doctor and hospital) doctor from our university clinic insisted on my visit to hospital and seeking out stapling job. Maybe it was post-traumatic shock or endorphins released into blood which was still inside my body, but all the way to the hospital I was happily chatting (more precisely attempting to learn new words by wildly pointing to things around) with the cabdriver. Considering his zero knowledge of English and my trickling blood problem we had to look like really odd taxi. I think he had more fun than I had as he almost caused two accidents while vigorously attempting to explain proper pronunciation of bicycle, three-wheeler and other means of transportation in Shanghai.

Visit to the hospital was quick and efficient as I was pointed in the right direction or showed by nurse to the proper room like complete idiot. Ultimately I ended up in the room with doctor whose English was to my surprise almost flawless (seriously - hands down her English was better than English of some of my professors at University back in Prague). On my second visit (healing progress check up) she disclosed that she recently spent three months on some training/internship/whatever program in the US. Ultimately three stitches cost me only 50kuai (local currency) plus 30-something kuai in "hospital hospitality visit charges". Considering local stitch-job prices and fun I had during my encounters with the staff in white dresses, I am not only strongly inclined towards playing basketball again but also towards exploring some more adrenalin forms of self destruction (e.g. with my friends we might undertake indoor climbing exercise next week).

Anyway, as my little brother put it nicely, this patch up job might only help my face and I might finally look like Bruce Willis at the end of Die Hard movies (he took great pains in pointing out that I am bald enough already). That no harm was done to any of my motoric functions was proven next day when four of us played badminton (losing a bet - tickets to a cinema - I blame entirely on limited vision from a patch I was wearing that afternoon). Note to the fellow badminton players in Prague; beware - the beast downhere in Mordor is gathering it's strength again :)

Over the weekend besides usual parties (this time with the hiking club who had it's annual dinner) I have visited 7th Shanghai Biennale in Shanghai Art Museum taking full advantage of my student status (5kuai instead of 20 :) ) and my host for the day (I got from her also my first traditional Chinese breakfast which are little too heavy for me :) ). Surprisingly the exhibition was very nice and some of the pieces were worth every mao we paid. It is obvious that I still do not understand Chinese culture and way of thinking. One of the pieces showed collection of c. 20 T-shirts with various quotes including "dumplings = education". First hand explanation was that without eating nobody will survive and thus he cannot educate himself. If you can come up with the better one please let me know :)

Enjoy!