I’ve been away in South Sudan
Sorry I wasn’t here for a few weeks and I fell behind in my posting here.
I was lucky enough to be sent, together with two colleagues, to South Sudan to train social workers there. It was the most exciting adventure of my life. I got back home exactly two weeks ago and I’m still on cloud 9.
Here are some things I wrote after getting home:
Spiritual Lessons from South Sudan
The Intrepid Tourist in Juba, South Sudan
And here is an article on the project I was involved with:
Hope to be back in shape quickly for continuing this blog.
Charming Chinese Wedding in White and Red
1 October 2005
I was invited to the wedding of the daughter of one of the hospital directors. A car took some of the staff from the hospital, plus me, to the restaurant in which the wedding was held. The restaurant was in a building called the Civil Aviation Building. Second floor. We were a bit late – the ceremony had already started. All the tables were filled and people were standing. Jiao and I tried to find a good spot to see. There were five people on a small stage – the bride and groom in the middle, flanked by a young man and young women who I took to be maid of honour and best man. And the fifth was an older guy who was obviously a professional MC.
Within seconds of us having placed ourselves where we could see, the bride’s father got out of his seat and waved to us to come forward. The MC announced that a special guest was here from Israel and that everyone should welcome me. That was in Chinese, of course, so before Jiao could tell me what was said I couldn’t understand why everyone was staring and smiling at me and the video cameras were focused on me. We had two seats saved for us at the front of the bride’s relatives table.
Getting Married in China
The first part of the ceremony is jokes and fun. The MC tells funny stories, has other people tell funny stories, and the groom told funny stories as well. The bride was very shy. And beautiful. I didn’t understand a word, of course, but the atmosphere was light and fun and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Having a front-row seat helped. When the groom’s boos came to the front to make a speech, he welcomed me, came to shake my hand and then grabbed me in a bear hug to the thunderous applause of the entire hall.
When that part of the ceremony was over, the MC did the actual marriage ceremony – a double ring ceremony – with bowing in all directions, to the audience, away from the audience, to each other.
In turn, the parents came forward – they had their faces painted red and black with theatre make-up that members of the family dab on them happily throughout the ceremony.
Father of the groom
Then the groom tries out various ways of addressing the bride’s parents (mama, ma, mommy, papa, etc) until each parent agrees to what he will call him/her and the bride does the same with the groom’s parents. When they agreed to the way they will be called, they said “yes” in English in honour of my presence and to the merriment of all.
When the bride’s father came to make his speech, he was sad and talked about how sorry he is his daughter will now be leaving their home. She started to cry (and so did I). Everything else was happy and funny. In pairs, the bride and groom and made of honour and best man interlocked arms and drank a glass of wine. Then balloons were stepped on, the groom lifted the bride in his arms and carried her out of the room.
The food started. More new foods I had never tried before. The MC sang some traditional songs. A wedding guest came to take my photo.
Bride and Groom after Ceremony
Soon after, the bride and groom reappeared – she dressed in a red Chinese traditional dress (red means happiness) and they went around to everyone to drink a toast with each and every guest. The parents did the same. I learned to say “congratulations” in Chinese and had some Chinese wine.
Soon after that we were driven back to the hospital. Another adventure.
I told Jiao that when Wenyan gets married I will come back to China to celebrate with them. He was very happy at that thought. Then he said he would try to find me a nice Chinese man who speaks English and would be happy to move to Israel.
HotPot Restaurant
1 October 2005
I was invited to the most fascinating restaurant I have ever been to. The head of the mental health unit at the hospital took and and his staff (Wenyan) and another young psychologist who was at my lecture, together with his wife (a nurse working in the army) and son (age 13 and learning English) out to dinner.
HotPot Meal - Endless Food
The place is so popular that people line up, but not outside, like I am used to – there are stools at the entrance to the restaurant and the people waiting are given soy milk and soy nuts to munch on while waiting. We had a reservation so did not have to wait.
This being a fancy restaurant, my chop sticks were not crooked and I managed to pick most things up. The noodles were still a challenge but they are to the Chinese as well, as I could see last night. Unless, of course, they purposely drop the noodles back into the pot so as to help me save face. Anyway, after awhile, they ordered the special house noodles. A noodle-twirler comes to your table and does the final stage of noodle preparation by the table – he spins them around his head and body and he seemed like one of those ribbon gymnasts in the Olympics, if you know what I mean. My new camera has a video option so I taped him doing it. (The video can be found on my squidoo lens - see the link to the right of this).
Later, they invited one of the waiters to come over and sing for us. They sing some old traditional songs. He sang a romantic song about a man far from home serving in the army singing to his wife, telling her to look at the full moon at that moment just like he is and in that way they can be together. His voice was beautiful and it was so moving.
I was enthralled the entire evening. In another world. I cannot even begin to describe how I felt.
HotPot Meal with Friends
However, to my great delight, in this place, they put jokes in a frame on the backs of the doors just at reading height while squatting. I wonder if the jokes are replaced every once in awhile for frequent diners.
HotPot Meal with Friends
By the way, as we were leaving Jiao’s office to meet the others to go to the restaurant, I saw the floors in the hall were remarkably clean. I exclaimed to Wenyan – “The hall is so clean today”. She said after she saw what I wrote about Xi’an’s toilets that she knew I’d write about the hospital and told the admin to clean up their act!
I’ll write about the hospital in another mail.
First Professional Lecture in Xi’an, China
30 September 2005
Hi Guys|
I’m after the lecture. In about an hour, a bunch of us are going out for dinner. Surprise menu – Chinese food AGAIN!! But the variety of foods here is so vast that it is never boring. For lunch I was at a near-by Moslem restaurant (they had photos of Islamic sites with Arabic writing on them, but none of the workers speak Arabic and they all look Chinese) One thing for sure – there was no pork or frogs on the menu, so no worries.
They had Druze-type pita and we had a soup that was sweet and salad with what I first thought were American baked beans but turned out to be peanuts – and they were delicious.
First Lecture in Xi'an
Anyway, the lecture – There were about 30 people there. The hospital vice-director gave the opening address in Chinese (he doesn’t speak any English). Jiao’s daughter translated the lecture into Chinese as I went. She did an excellent job. I started off with a beautiful photo of the Bahai temple and gardens in Haifa and then went into the material. There were some very good questions and after the lecture, some people came up and asked me for copies of the slides. That’s a good sign, isn’t it?
At the end, when the head psychiatrist was thanking me, my room-mate brought me a bunch of flowers. She is so kind. She delayed her trip back to her home village for the holidays in order to hear me. I was so surprised. What a nice ending to my first lecture in China. Some people also asked to arrange a workshop to go into greater depth and they want to learn from me how to do therapy with sex trauma survivors. Halleluya! I will actually get to teach sex trauma therapy here. There were some therapists who have more experience who were anxious to know more. So I guess it went okay.
It was difficult to present a lecture in a language that the audience largely does not understand. Some people could speak English and I knew that because they asked their questions in English. But to say some things and wait for my words to be translated and then go on – that is not an easy way to lecture. Those who have seen me lecture know me to charge ahead and get excited about what I say and to be very associative. I couldn’t do that here, because Wenyan is not a professional translator and could not keep up with me at a faster pace.
Anyway, my virginal speech is over and it will be easier from here on. It feels really good to have this way to communicate with you all and to know that I can run back to the office and write my friends and family and not be alone. I think that if there was no email, I would be very lonely here. Having you all to talk to (even though you don’t all write back to me often enough – hint! hint!), I know you are all listening and that feels good.
Next week, Wenyan and I are going to Baoji, a town nor far from here where Medecins sans Frontiers runs a foster home. We were going to go to Jiao’s hometown just south of Mongolia, but there were no train tickets left because of the holiday. Next visit here!
Keep well, everyone.
Prof Jiao, Pediatrician and Great Guy.
29 September 2005
Well, let’s move on to other subjects. Today is raining – again, still – pick one! The sky is dreary and grey and not even the flocks of colourful rain ponchos flowing past me on the street can brighten up the scenery. I want sunshine! An Israeli without one day of sun in a whole week is a very deprived Israeli indeed. Besides, my cold has turned into a cough and today my host has supplied me with a new selection of Chinese medicines. I can’t tell what they are because everything is written in Chinese, but I trust him. He gave me a syrup for my cough, pills for infection and another syrup for my asthma which has reappeared in this polluted city in which people are still allowed to smoke everywhere.
Prof Jiao Fuyong at his desk
Let me tell you today about my host: His name is Prof Jiao. But people just call him, Mr Jiao or Jiao. No doctor, no professor. This is a Communist country, after all. Jiao is one of the smallest Chinese men I have seen. He is short and, like most Chinese, anorexically thin but not anorexic. You should see how much he manages to eat – how much they all manage to eat.
Yesterday, my room-mate made me breakfast, some healthy concoction her mother introduced her to. It was good and satisfying and I thought, great! That will hold me until evening. Then at lunchtime, Jiao and his daughter invited me out to that place that serves the paper-thin pancakes and after that I thought, great! That will hold me till tomorrow morning. Then when I got home, to my great dismay, my room-mate who never cooks had cooked a dinner for the 2 of us! Today, I picked up some yoghurts on the way to work and showed Jiao that I had brought my own lunch, using the rain as an excuse for not wanting to go out.
Anyway, back to Jiao. He is a very impressive individual. About ten years ago, he treated a young girl who had been violently raped. For the first time, he was unable psychologically to just treat the physical injuries without paying attention to their cause. When he went to Australia soon after that, for 6 months advanced pediatric training, he took an interest in their child abuse unit and determined to introduce child abuse prevention into China. That he has done!
Since then he has run countless national meetings attended by professionals across the board – doctors, educators, lawyers, police, government officials – to spread awareness about child abuse and neglect. The doctors in his unit pay attention to suspected cases of abuse and report them. He has opened a hotline for parents and others who can inquire about abuse and report suspected cases. Nurses in his department “man” the line.
He works very hard, Even though he is head of the pediatric ward, people beat a path to his door with sick kids at all hours and without appointment. They even call him at home or knock on his door at home at all hours during the night. He complains to me about this, but I think the Chinese culture won’t allow him to say “no” to any request for help.
Personally, he is very modest, has a good sense of humour. When he found out I like/need coffee at lunchtime, he made sure there was a bottle of coffee in his office. Coffee is very hard to find in this country.
To see him with his staff and other colleagues is to see a man people like very much. He is so kind and gentle, so caring. He can laugh at himself – and he sometimes even understands my weird sense of humour. He invites me to see a patient with him if he thinks it may interest me. He asks my opinion – such as when a mother brought in her autistic son (6 years old) and he asked me if I thought they should have family therapy.
Think about this: you are allowed one child and if that one child is autistic, how do you feel? The father is very angry. The mother can’t work because there are no special ed schools here. I asked if there is anyone who can volunteer to spend time with the child to free up the mother a bit and he asked if I thought something like that should be organized. On the other hand, I read in the paper yesterday about an initiative in another province of 13 mothers who got together to volunteer to spend time with teens from broken homes to help them overcome their difficulties.
Wenyan, Jiao's daughter.
Jiao’s daughter, 25, is a psychiatrist who does psychotherapy. She is also very kind and joyful and a pleasure to know. She will be translating my lecture tomorrow because not all the psychologists here can understand English.
That’s today’s installment.
Sheri
World Toilet Organization – There Really Is Such a Thing!
28 September 2005
I kid you not – I never made any comments about the toileting situation in this country. I am not one to insult my hosts. But suddenly, it seemed to occur to the professor that the loo around the corner from his office is not good enough for his distinguished western guest. He asked one of the nurses to show me where the relief station is in the new building. So she happily took me to the new building and I excitedly awaited my new discovery. She even went into the nurses’ station and took out a huge ring of keys and I thought – a locked private bathroom for staff! This is going to be good!
So as she unlocked the door and gave me an inviting nod to enter, I went in. Lo and behold! to my surprise I found a bathroom in very much the same condition of every other one I’ve seen so far in this fair town. The only difference being that you could lock the stall. But why does one need to lock the stall when the outer door can be locked and only one person can enter at a time anyway? Oh well! I’ll just stay at the corner bathroom.
On my way home, I developed a new habit.I take a short break at the Xi’an Hotel – the only hotel in this city in which anyone speaks English, it seems. I sit in the lobby reading a day-old copy of the China Daily newspaper. It’s about the same length as newspapers in Chinese – about 12 pages long. When I think about our Israeli papers that are far more than 12 pages per section with about 6 sections to them, it makes me wonder what newspapers say about a nation.
Anyway, the hotel has a real bathroom with sparkling clean toilets that flush and a supply of toilet paper so that you don’t have to bring your own.
But the killer was, that in the paper yesterday, there was a report on the World Toilet Summit in Belfast!!!! The World Toilet Organization was set up in Singapore about 5 years ago and last year the meeting was in Beijing. For your information: (I had the link for the 2005 summit – let me give you now the latest and please note that the 2011 summit was in China – I just must go back there and see the improvements: http://www.worldtoilet.org/wto/index.php/our-works/world-toilet-summit).
I never knew that staying in a country for a month as I am doing opens up vistas the regular tourist can never even imagine.
The Streets of Xi’an
27 September 2005
On my way home, I realized that there were so many things on my walk to work that I didn’t include. I paid special attention on the way back and then again, on the way here this morning. But I won’t tell you all the details because I don’t know how interesting it ALL is. Just a few more impressions.
A not-so-main street in Xi'an.
You know that the only side of the street that exists is the one you’re on. Walking on the main roads is like walking along the Israel-Jordan border – the other side is close enough you can feel it’s there, but it’s like another world. The main streets here are so wide and have such a huge island in the middle that the other side of the street IS almost like another country. Anyway, there’s so much to look at on the side you’re on that there’s no energy left for anywhere else. And I think that no matter how many times I walk to work I will probably not run out of new things to notice. (I will apparently not get the bike I asked for because my host’s daughter refuses to let me have a bike out of fear for my life. She’s 25. A 25 year-old kid is telling ME what I can and cannot do!!!)
Anyway, there’s a famous temple on my way to work. I haven’t yet gone in to see it because it is still raining. Yesterday I opened CNN.com to get the weather forecast to see how long the rain is going to last and CNN told me it was sunny out in Xi’an at the moment. I looked outside through the window in the office and could still see drops falling from the overcast skies so I don’t know where they got their information from. Perhaps Xi’an is so big that it can be raining on one side and sunny on the other.
In the morning, many of the shops are still closed. What is open are the kiosks selling deep-fried foods (for breakfast yet). Grungy little restaurants with a take-out corner at the front and cheap tables and chairs inside along the walls, filled with people eating breakfast with two little sticks that are apparently not crooked like mine were/are. And as I walk by, heads look up and stare. This morning three middle-aged women were standing beside a kiosk in which there were about 5 packages of cigarettes and 3 cokes for sale. They glared at me with what looked like anger. I am used to this already, so I smiled at them and said “Ni hao” (hello). Their faces immediately crinkled up and they hid their mouths behind their hands as they looked at each other chattering in their incomprehensible jabber. One woman lowered her hand and let me see her large smile with her eyes finally looking at me openly.
Breakfast on the Street in Xi'an
There are foot massage parlors. In Beijing, the massage places had the signs in English as well as Chinese. Here not. The only thing that let me know that it was a foot massage place was the furniture inside and the maps of the human body with pressure points highlighted. There are other stores that are a mystery to me. There was one place selling solar water heaters with interesting boiler designs and one place with shelves and shelves of police-care siren lights. The same blue and red as our traffic cops here in Israel. But most of the shops are restaurants that only open up later. I’ll write about them when I write about my walk home from work, which is a different experience; first of all, because it is then dark outside.
I also have to tell you about this sweet little girl I saw that I thought of photographing and didn’t. Richard told me that if I see something that I absolutely MUST have, then buy it because you may never see it again. That goes for photos – if you see a photo you would like to take, take it for gosh sake – with 6 million people in Xi’an alone, you think you’re going to find the same photo tomorrow or next week? Anyway, there was a little girl walking ahead of me with an umbrella with mouse ears on the top of it, then she turned around and she, herself, had mouse ears. I wish I had taken the picture. It was priceless. People here mostly don’t mind you taking pictures of them and some will pose when they see you and change the whole nature of the photo.
And now professionally speaking:
In two days I give my first lecture. It will be to a group of 25-30 psychologists and psychology students. Not on sexual abuse – I don’t know how much of that I will actually get to talk about because they are not yet at the point where they are ready to really treat it – it’s enough to recognize that it happens and stop it. Anyway, they asked for a lecture on how I would approach treatment of a famous case here in which a young girl saw her mother die next to her in a car accident. The therapist who first saw the girl had no idea what to do and so the girl never came back again, to the therapist’s great relief (and sense of guilt). The story was published on the Internet and many people across the country sent the girl letters of encouragement and support. Not surprisingly, she still shows signs of psychological trauma. It is possible that the mental health unit at the hospital I am at will call the girl in for reassessment while I am here so that we can do it together and I can consult with them on how to help her. In this country, the only therapy they do is psychodynamic psychotherapy. They do not know cognitive-behavioural therapy, nor couples and family therapy. There are few child and adolescent psychologists in the country.
I find the professionals here inquisitive and quick. Even though their English is not good, they are quick to catch onto ideas. And my host even understands some of my weird humour.
Today for lunch, I had the thinnest pancakes ever (out of spinach and flour), onto which we each put a selection of fillings, making our own blintzes. The choices of fillings ordered were eggplant and tofu (not spicy), and tofu and selected vegetables (very spicy) and thin thin slivers of potato. Delicious.
For my cold, my host (the pediatrician) gave me a bottom of sodium chloride (infusion) to mix with war water and drink 4 times a day, and when he saw I was getting worse, he brought me Vitamin C tables. My room-mate made me take honey. Same remedies round the world, eh?
Well, lunch-time is almost over and I gotta get back to work.
Things I Would See on the Way To Work
26 September 2005
Hi Guys:
I just added L to the group – L works at the Israeli consulate in Beijing and has been my home-away-from-home in this strange land. She will be able to attest to the accuracy of my impressions or maybe her experience of China is different from mine.
Garden and Path Leading to Apartment Building Entrance
Gate to Apartment Building
Today, by request, I am going to tell you about my walk to work. The start to the day is quite easy because the 6 flights of stairs from the apartment to the street are, of course, downhill all the way. The challenge comes at the end of the day and I have to climb up the mountain to my cave. So, I go down 6 dreary flights of steps in the old building to the little garden in the back of the building and then out through a fence with a pole about knee-high that must be stepped over. For some reason, the Chinese want you to step high like a Lipizzaner when either entering or exiting buildings. (By the way, that includes the squatting stations – the slats in the ground are always on a high step so when squatting your bum is at the same height above ground as if you were sitting on the throne. You did want to know that, didn’t you?)
So, I go out into the street. It’s been raining here for 2 days. But the rain is just a drizzle. Enough to make the sky dreary and to cool things off quite a bit. Enough to give me a sore throat. Or was that from the dish that was washed or the one the next day that was plastic-lined?
Colourful Rain Ponchos
But one thing about dreary rainy days – it brings out the colour – not only the flowers that abound around buildings and anywhere they can fit dozens of pots of flowering plants, but also in the rain ponchos people wear and the umbrellas. As colourful as India is with its saris. You see bunches of reds and yellows and purples and greens and blues flashing by on bicycles. The rain ponchos cover the front and the back of the bike as well and protect them from the wind. In the early morning, they also cover children being ridden to school. Some of the ponchos have a square of clear plastic in front so the light of the motorized ones can shine through. One mother creatively placed her child under the front part so her child could watch the world as they rode along and still stay dry.
Cigarette Kiosk
Making Breakfast
There are restaurants that are just getting organized, pharmacies in which the drugs are placed in glass display cases like department store jewelry cases with workers behind the cases about 2 m apart. There are kiosks selling pancakes that they make on the spot, or various fried donuts that are long and think and some twisted bun-like thing. There are stationary stores and hardware stores that sell coke and booze as well as rope and tools. There is a dentist with 3 dental chairs with plate glass windows so passers-by can watch the work in progress. I saw a kid having a tooth filled yesterday. Not a sight you really want to see or that would inspire you to get your teeth checked. There is the Xi’an Hotel, a big fancy hotel that pipes out nice piano music into the street. Maybe I should check out their bathrooms on my way to work.
Across from the hospital there are flower shops that announce to me that I have arrived at work. The walk is only 30 minutes long at a slow pace that lets me look around at people along my way.
When I first arrived here, I didn’t walk around with my camera out or with the map in my hand so as not to stand out too much as a tourist. Then I realized that I couldn’t blend in if I tried. My size and my eyes give me away. Here in Xi’an, I stand out even more because the tourists only come to see the terracotta warriors and are gone. Consequently, there are very few Caucasians in town. So people stare at me all the time and some venture a ‘hi’ and smile shyly behind their hands when I answer them.
On the walk home, the main difference is that the restaurants are all set up for the hordes of people that come to dine. Flowers are placed in arrangements marking the entrance to the restaurant and the waitors and waitresses are in costume, greeting customers at the door in pairs or triplets. Very nice. And not for tourists at all.
Well, see you next group mail. Have to start the day’s work now.
Fancy Restaurant Eating as Pharmaceutical Advertisement in Xi’an
26 September 2005
OK, now that we’ve eliminated the previous topic, we can get back to other issues.
I want to tell you about last night’s dinner.
In Israel, I have been to presentations by pharmaceutical companies where they want to present new drugs that they want doctors to prescribe to unsuspecting patients. The drug company brings in a catered lunch – a wide variety of salads and quiches and cakes – and after the presentation of facts and figures, graphs of drug successes, etc., we have a party.
Fish on Ice
Here, they invite the doctors to a fancy expensive restaurant. We were invited to a fish restaurant. Sounds tame, right? Not really. In the main dining hall, the fish are all laid out on ice for the diners to select. There’s eel and scaly fish, squid, snails, clams, lobster. There are fish swimming in tanks as well. But as you walk alongside the counter, it gets worse. There are sea urchins and things I didn’t recognize and probably don’t want to recognize. And then there were these gorgeous green frogs. They were still alive!
Snails and Shells on Ice
So we go upstairs to the dining area where there are two huge halls with doors on each side and behind each door is a large dining space for private parties. We were shown a film giving the history of the pharmaceutical firm (during which everyone talked among themselves) and then the presentation of the drug performance itself during which the speakers talked at lightening speed because they knew nobody really had any patience for the spiel.
Then the food started coming out. Onto the lazy Susan in the center of the table were placed all sorts of (still-recognizable) foods. Everyone picks up stuff with their chopsticks as the lazy Susan rotates round. As each dish was finished a replacement came out and the food at one point became so unrecognizable as to be absolutely unappetizing to me. I would not eat anything I did not know was just normal fish or tofu or vegetable. There was no way I was going to risk getting my teeth into a squid or eel or frog – yuck! But it was amazing. For close the two hours, food was being replaced on the tray and people were nibbling away the whole time.
Unrecognizables on Ice
The Chinese eat their soup last and they may keep eating from the main course even after having had desert. The desert was a really good “thing” (for lack of a better word for it) made from corn and peanuts – yumilao? Is that what it is called? I want the recipe for that one!
Table Set with Various Dishes
Hostesses Who Open Door for Guests Coming and Leaving Restaurant
Gotta start work now. A whole new day ahead of me.
Regards to you all, Sheri
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