What a Long Strange Trip It's Been, pt 9
2005-10-27, 16:00

Exercise in Futility

Next day brought us on a short group day trip to Tengwang Pavilion. The place was built in the 600's A.D. for the nephew of the emperor. He had no interest in politics, so se was sent off to be governor of Nanchang (of course). The nephew had Tengwang Pavillion built to serve as, for all intents and purposes, a party house for him and his friends. Today, it's a tourist trap and historical facility. I'm sure the nephew would be pissed to know that the room he used to score chicks is now being used to house bas relief stone artwork.

Not that the building that stands now has any physical connection with what was built originally. Apparently, the place had been wrecked and rebuild 27 times in its life, until it was burned to the ground in 1923, I assume a victim of the Revolution. The pavilion was rebuilt in 1985 to serve in the capacity it does now. I'm sure the outside of the place is more historically accurate than the inside; I don't think the original designers had space for elevators in mind.

For some reason, we only had an hour to spend there - not much time to explore a museum. We browsed a bit, and then went straight upstairs for a performance on a small stage on the top floor. After waiting in some uncomfortable temperatures, the curtain parted to reveal a group of about 10-15 musicians and a trio of dancers, and they broke into some quality traditional pieces. Because there were Americans in the audience, they did an American song - what it was I can't recall. We didn't even bother taping it. If we'd wanted Western music, we would've stayed home. The whole of the program was quite good, though.

We spent the rest of the time there admiring the architecture and getting some shots of the city from the top floor balconies. As usual, the haze over the city from the humidity gave every picture a gray pallor. I think I was starting to get used to seeing everything that way, since every day had been like that since we'd arrived in Hong Kong.

Something interesting that I noted was that my wrist was feeling somewhat improved. It was still stiff but only hurt half as much, thus allaying my fear that I'd broken something. Suffice to say, it was a dramatic change from the day previous. Could it be that there's something to this Buddha-rubbing business? It had been only two days before, after all...

Too soon we ran of from the pavilion and back to the bus, to engage in another group meal for lunch. I have no idea what the name of the place was because no name was evident anywhere, either in Chinese or English. We got packed into a banquet room with more substandard tea and Nanchang-greasy food. Good food, but typically greasy. I was beginning to regret not being a vegetarian for our stay in China.

Thus ended our group part of the day. Afterward, we made our way to the store for a few things. Then the real fun began.

Six Hours

Maybe it was the blister on the back of my ankle caused by my Tevas that let something in; maybe it was some undercooked food. I was certainly careful about what I drank. Nonetheless, it wasn't long after we got back to the hotel that the fever hit.

It came on fast and hard. I knew I was in trouble when I felt cold, which should have been impossible even in the air-conditioned room. Soon I was under the covers, shivering and dizzy. Luckily, there was ibuprofen on hand--

I forgot to mention one of our most interesting mini-journeys in Nanchang - the pharmacy. Because of my wrist, we were starting to run low on the pain meds we'd brought with us. So while in the Nanchang Wal-Mart, we decided to try the challenge of finding medication without a translator. All the drugs were segregated into a corner, along with a pharmacy counter. After smiling at the counter lady, we perused the aisles, hoping that symbols, pictures and loose translations would lead us to Advil. To no avail. e found something we were sure was aspirin, and something else that was obviously pain medication, thought we didn't know what kind. The counter lady saw we were having trouble and made a sentence that had the distinct tone of 'well, you're not going to understand me, nor I you, but can I help you?' to it. We tried, again without seeming like Idiot Americans (hopefully), to communicate the concept of ibuprofen. It didn't go well. Another pharmacy lady came along, joining in the non-communication fray. Luckily, she had a flash of brilliance and lead us over to a book sitting on the counter. It was a medicinal reference book, which had both Chinese and English translations. Yay! I quickly looked up ibuprofen, pointed it out, and she looked for the Chinese version and immediately knew what we needed. One minute later and we had a box of meds in hand. We would have never found it ourselves, since the packaging made it look like back pain medicine. Many xie xie, pharmacy book, not to mention the lady who thought to use it.

..so luckily there was ibuprofen on hand. I lay there, worrying about whether I'd still be sick in two days for our next flight, whether I'd be sick for the next day's special trip, whether H and the baby would be sick too, whether I'd get bad enough that I would need to seek a doctor (and we all know how I feel about that idea). I fell in and out of sleep, listening to and trying to watch Chinese television.

Another aside, this one on Chinese television:

First things first, Little Monkey loves Cantonese opera. We were flipping channels one morning and came upon a couple telling a story and playing their instruments, very Cantonese in style. From the very first second it was on, LM was rapt, completely absorbed. Eventually the show progressed into full-on opera, with the whiny, nasal tones, the drum banging, you name it. The Little Monkey loved every second of it.

My other comment is, there's either something seriously wrong with the producers of some of these state-run Chinese television stations, or there's a serious agenda going on. Often we'd se the tail end of some children's show, which would segue fluidly into some war program. Seriously, it's like they were dove-tailed together and certainly a little kid wouldn't know they were separate shows. Trying to get all those boys with no prospect of marriage because of the gender disparity into a war mindset? Interesting...

The oddest show we saw there was this competition show, with teams from different countries competing. It seemed like something out of a Nickelodeon show, except the adults involved were taking it quite seriously. The wackiest competition item was one where one of the teammates from each group had to wear this ostrich-like, long-necked bird head over their head, stand on this rotating platform, try to jump up and 'peck off' a giant stuffed worm that was velcroed onto a hanging thing, then, after pecking success, run over to this wall and stick the bird head through a shuttered window. I think the team from Ukraine won that.

Anyway, shiver shiver shiver, sleep wake sleep, then suddenly, "pop" -- the fever breaks and I'm sweating like crazy. I almost felt the fever break, it was that sudden. Either I got a very small dose of something nasty, or a whole lot of something weak. Either way, about six hours later, I was ready for dinner, which we decided to have in the nicer (non-buffet) restaurant in the hotel. Not bad, but not the bet we'd had in China, either.

Thank goodness I was feeling better. We needed our energy and a god night's rest, since we were getting up early the next day for an important trip-- the orphanage in Yifeng.

More to come.

-- End Transmission --