Tráfego de Shanghai

Eu recordei dois fenômenos de viver em Richmond, B.C., para twenty-seven anos.
 
O influx de Orientals de Hong Kong, de Formosa e de Mainland China mudou a mistura da população entre o Caucasian, para o leste Indian e chinês.

Os excitadores chineses alcançaram logo excitadores das mulheres como esses para beware nas estradas. Seu unpredictability, ignorance de cortesias comuns da estrada, seu inattention parecendo a dirigir entre as linhas e em velocidades normais, etc.

Eu fiz exame destes preconceitos com mim a Shanghai. O tráfego era horrific! Os carros, táxis, barras-ônibus, caminhões, camionetes, motor-scooters, bicicletas todas dirigiram em velocidades break-neck realmente perto de se. Não havia nenhuma linha da tráfego-pista e as luzes de tráfego foram ignoradas.

Lovy, com seu aluguer novo na vida e zest para o excitamento e a aventura, stride confiàvel, purposefully, e com segurança através do maze.

Eu hesitated, tentando calibrar minhas possibilidades de sobrevivência, procurando o momento direito para cruzar-se. Em China, o tempo direito está sempre “agora.” O chinês pode dizer quanto tempo os estrangeiros estiveram em Shanghai por quanto tempo nos faz exame à cruz da rua. Mais rapidamente você se cruza, mais longo você foi em China.

Os Newbies hesitam, giram sobre um eixo suas cabeças que tentam ansiosamente passear o fluxo, fazem começos falsos e dart repetidamente para trás à segurança do sidewalk. Veterans move across confidently knowing they are safe in the midst of all the noise, horns, and vehicular mayhem. They meld with the flow.

People in the West jump off cliffs tied to a kite, kayak turbulent, white waters and jump out of airplanes for thrills. I could never do that.

But every time I crossed a street in Shanghai I got the same shot of adrenalin a skydiver gets. It provided me with my thrills for the day.

One day, while leaning on the balcony rail of our apartment and watching the passing scene, I became aware of the traffic pattern. It was full-bore traffic, and yet there was a pattern in the chaos: without lanes, lights or stop and go order, everything flowed. Cars, taxis, trucks, vans, buses, carts, scooter, people were all flowing. I didn’t see many accidents, which was unbelievable to my Western eyes. The few I saw usually involved bicycles and buses. There were accidents and traffic deaths reported, although I never saw any. For a city of twenty million people there had to be, but I would say that the incidence was a much smaller ratio than in a North American city.

My paradigm shifted again: from the Chinese being the worst drivers in the world to being the best drivers, subject to driving in their own city and country. Again, this was another example of going with the flow.

Whenever there was an accident, no matter how minor, immediately a crowd gathered and everyone had something to say. Even if they had not actually witnessed the event, they had an opinion just from viewing the situation. The policeman would make his decision based on the group discussion. This is consensus making of the Confucian way.

Here’s another personal vignette about getting my Shanghai driver’s license. I was impressed with the full battery of tests I had to take, which involved written and many machine/computer tests for spatial acuity, depth perception, etc. I had difficulty with language comprehension and reaction slowness. The middle-aged female monitors were most helpful and made sure this gweilo passed. I knew I really hadn’t, but here is where saving face, even for a foreigner, paid off. Hey, I am a nice “round eyes” and they sensed I had crossed the bridge from judgment to trust and respect of all things Chinese.
I also received the license, without a driving test, Thank God, albeit, in a godless country!

Chinese Medicine

The left-brain, right-brain dichotomy showed up again in the field of medicine. The Western, left-brain approach is to go until we get sick. We see our doctor. Quick, Doc, fix me up, I gotta go! I’m busy!
He prescribes a chemical pharmaceutical or takes a knife to our body.

The Chinese approach is a preventative, natural, long-term approach. They take herbs (natural plants), practice tai chi, yoga, attend daily church in the park, have acupuncture treatments to prevent sickness and they drink gallons of green tea.
 
They smile when they say we in the West pay the doctor when we get sick. There, they stop paying the doctor when they get sick.

And they do get sick. In the hustle-bustle 24/7 beat of life, getting run down, burnt out is quite common. I know that getting sick is usually God’s way of telling us to slow down, to take a rest. When I first arrived, I scoffed at and criticized a common practice. When a person got run down, they went to the hospital (doctors don’t have offices, they all work in hospitals) and received some mysterious sort of intravenous injection for three to four hours, for one or two days, depending. When I asked what the injection was, no one seemed to know or care. It just worked.

I also got caught up in the race and from time to time got burnt out and stressed out. After I was open to things Chinese, I, too, went to the hospital for my injections. An extensive battery of tests was taken and the blood analyzed. Elements of what my blood showed I was low in were concocted, plus appropriate antibiotics into an injectible mixture tailor-made cocktail for my condition. Within six to eight hours, my blood was replenished and I was on the go again.
 
Most ex-pats don’t trust Chinese hospitals and go to foreign clinics with Western-trained medical people. They charge exorbitant rates, because nearly all the patients have corporate benefit packages. The leading, Chinese teaching hospitals have outpatient departments specifically staffed for foreigners. The fee is ten times or more what the Chinese native pays, but a fraction of what you would be charged at a Western medical clinic. Once I learned the system, I got my acupuncture doctor or Michelle, my Chinese wife, to register me under my Chinese name, Tianen, and I would be charged native rates. Several times she called on a school classmate who was a physician and I received red-carpet treatment, moving quickly to the head of a long line. While seeing a doctor in a Chinese hospital registered as a Chinese (nobody noticed or cared that my eyes were the wrong shape) they would search the hospital and hustle up a student nurse who spoke English.
 
I found the Chinese doctors competent and open to suggestions. The Confucian philosophy is about consensus, not one-man rule. They usually worked with a younger doctor or medical student and were polite and attentive in receiving, and acting on the others’ ideas.

When I was diagnosed with a prostate cancer, which had metastasized to my lungs, I began a massive comprehensive program that covered all fronts: West, East, and spiritual.

Western medicine, hormone injection

Reduced my consumption of red meat

Ate more fresh vegetables

Began yoga

Began acupuncture treatments for energy balancing

Started drinking green tea

Started drinking soya milk daily

Began ingesting traditional Chinese herbs

Had a special Chinese tea for prostate cancer mixed

Affirmed, visualized and believed in a miracle healing

Prayed

The Prostate Specific Antigen test (PSA) is the most commonly used screening tool for detecting prostate cancer. When I was diagnosed, my PSA reading was 28.6. My prostate biopsy slides had cancer cells on ten of the eleven slides and my right lung was covered with cancer nodules.

After the first three months, when my PSA reading dropped from 28.6 to 0.016 and all the cancer nodules on my lung had vanished, the Canadian specialists could not believe my results. They even questioned the diagnosis and didn’t see the humor in my scientific assessment that “Doc, maybe this is a miracle.” I dared not add that an element of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) could also have contributed to my cure. They failed to see any humor in such unscientific, frivolous comments.

Today, five years later, with complete testing every three months, I remain free of cancer.

Next week: Dining in China.
Ernie Tadla www.odysseychina.net