Today I had the pleasure of having the medical examination required by the Chinese government for people making long stays in China. Papa Dumpling had his last month, and thankfully The Paying Customer and aka The Works are exempt. For those of you who don't know, I am totally basket case when it comes to medical exams, so I was REALLY not looking forward to this. I had a million excuses: I just had the entire family checked out before the move, the pets are coming tomorrow and I don't have a litter box yet, and of course, we just moved yesterday and the household is still in chaos! (Can you believe we left almost all of Evan's non-school clothes at the hotel? Thankfully his uniforms, socks and underwear made it, but guess what I'm doing tomorrow?)
Anyway, it was off to the medical center I went today. Thankfully there was a Chinese guide assigned to meet me there and help me through the process. First thing I had to do, after waiting an hour because I arrived during the lunch break, was have 7 passport photos made. Then my guide stood in about 4 lines to deal with paperwork and payments before I was given a form and taken to the medical hallway where I was provide a very nice gown, and a nurse directed me from one exam room to another. It was very busy and crowded, but I managed to move through all of the stations very quickly. I had a vision screening, blood pressure check, surgical history review, EKG, blood draw, ultrasound and an xray. Mostly painless and now it is OVER!
One thing that is curious about the Chinese is how they wait in line. It's an odd thing, because in many places there don't seem to be any rules for waiting in a line. A Chinese person will often think nothing of just pushing past a crowd of people and cutting to the front of the line. It is accepted as the norm here. I have certainly had people cut in front of me a waiting for a public restroom or at a service counter. In some popular restaurants, you can pay extra to hop to the front of the line. However, at the cell phone office and again at the medical exam, I noticed another line practice that I find more amusing than cutting. If seats are available, everyone takes a seat in the order that they arrive. When the person in the first seat is called, everyone gets up and moves over one seat closer to the front of the line. At least my thighs got a good workout today, but I think it probably would have been easier to just stand!
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