only 2.5 more weeks and the program is officially over. somehow this entire month has passed without an update on the blog. apologies to the 2 members of my fan club, chris and holly. let me catch you up on a few China happenings.

to answer holly's question - yes! i've been going to acupuncture. my last session of 10 will be tomorrow. and to answer the other question "has it worked" - yes, for the most part. i feel better overall, i have more energy, my back isn't threatening to pop out and leave me paralyzed in pain so - sure, it's working. maybe it's psyco-smatic, maybe it's not, who cares?

if nothing else it has been one of my favorite cultural / social experiences in china - ever. first of all unless your chinese you would never go to this clinic or know how to find it. so it's me and the locals, and since we all need multiple treatments i've made a lot of friends. most of our conversations are centered around the ailments we are all there for, and how i know chinese, how america is this or that, etc.

one friend i have made is 90 years old. when i asked exactly what year she was born in she waved her hand and said "oh, i don't know." she asked if i would show her around the US when she came to visit, i agreed to do so. she lives by herself, her husband died 20 years ago and she doesn't have any children. she walks to the clinic for lower back treatment, which she claims is her only health issue. one day, when i was laying face down unable to move with 12 needles in my back, she went on a long monologue about the benefits of not having to live with one's children - as they boss you around and take away your independence.

for some reason the thought or effort to set up appointments has never occurred to this clinic so on the day you are coming you have to line up for a spot on a bed. (there are about 12 beds that are cubicle style, covered in sheets and blankets that have burn marks in them from the use of moxibustion fire - will explain later). the way one lines up is show up about 5/6am and place your treatment card on the window sill outside the locked doors of the acuptuncture section. the doctor doesn't get going until 8am. it took me about 3-4 appointments to figure this system out. it was then that i figured out that had been getting the "white privledge" treatment.

this means that the doctor who runs the place, Dr. Tao, keeps my card on him, i let him know when i'm coming next and he puts my card down in line - usually before a lot of other people. i had asked how to play fair, but he insisted on keeping my card and cutting me in front of everyone for my appointments. on about the 4th visit everyone started catching on. there i was laying face down with 12 needles in my back and 2 women show up to say things like:

"so, when did you show up to put your card in line this morning?"
"we don't get special treatment from Dr. Tao like you, you must be special"
"we have to wait a long time before we get to see the Dr........., etc"

Dr. Tao was standing right there the whole time, not saying a word as i'm trying to respond to their comments with my face down in a towel that probably hasn't been washed for a month. my responses were to play dumb and say - "i don't know, the Dr. just told me to come to this bed. i'm new here, i don't know how chinese hospitals work." it was an awkward moment of me trying to save the Dr.'s face and as well as my own - even though my face was getting mashed.

the clinic is a communal thing. no one is required to wait out in the waiting area. whenever they feel like it they walk around peeking into everyone's beds, asking personal questions about what the aliment is. if they are next in line for a bed they will sit outside the bed cubicle and as soon as the patient using the bed is finished the next patient immediately moves in and starts setting up shop - even before the person is finished tucking everything in to leave. this has happened to me several times.

i have needles inserted into the lower part of my back (anywhere from 10-12) and then i lay there for about 45 minutes. after that they apply the herbal medicine that Dr. Tao invented by lighting small cardboard tube that it comes in on fire, wrapping it in a wetted rag and massaging it into my muscles. after about 20 minutes of that, they put on the bamboo cups. this means inserting a small torch to draw out all the oxygen then quickly sucking it to my skin. (the torch doesn't stay inside the cup). it all feels weird and sometimes it does hurt when the needles are inserted, but once they are in it doesn't hurt.

one day i was laying there with a bunch of cups sucking my back and i look up to see 2 very old chinese women standing by my bedside counting. "11," one said as she held up her hands in the number 11, "you have 11 cups on your back." indeed i did. (see photos below for cups). they were waiting for my spot on the bed and once those cups came off they nearly pushed me out of the cubicle with my stuff still hanging out.

about 3 times back i showed up at my regular 7:30am time curious to see how it was going to play out this time. that day was particularly busy, and i didn't see my card on the window sill so i started making the rounds to the beds to see if Dr. Tao had placed it on a bed for me. my fellow patient/friends of course noticed what i was doing and quickly informed me that i was in the 2nd round of treatment. (which meant waiting for more than an hour to get to a bed) i got the "ma" (scold) from several of the women, telling me that i needed to show up early if i wanted to be in the first round.

i really don't mind playing by the rules, but Dr. Tao insists on keeping my card and taking care of it for me. since he is older, in charge of the place and knows what is going on i don't argue. i tracked him down (he is super busy all the time cause people are always bugging him to help them next - one thing he says the most is "in a minute..."), and he scurried me to the adjacent room where the moxibustion patients are treated.

MOXIBUSTION - this is a system of inserting the needles into key nerve points, placing wads of herbal medicine on the ends on the needles then lighting them on fire. they idea is that the herbal medicine burns it's way down through the needle into the nerve area and creates a healing of sorts. (see photos below). it fills the whole place with herbal smoke, they close all the windows, one can barely breathe and lingers in my hair and clothes for days after.

i was the first in the moxi-room so i didn't have to breathe the moxi-smoke as the other patients hadn't yet shown up for this part of the day. Dr. Tao got me situated in this room and cut me to the front of the line by treating me first. under his breath he muttered something about "they show up so early! by the time i got here they had already lined up too many to get you in line."

of course they were all observing this so i put my face down into the hole burned blanket so as not to lose it, but not before my 90 year old fellow patient friend wagged her finger at me through the doorway of the other room and ma'ed, loud enough for everyone to hear, "You should be in the 2nd round!" usually i spend about 3 hours for the whole process to finish out. i was out of there in 1 hour that morning, well ahead of everyone else. i no longer have a face, but it was worth the ma.