5. Sid gets sick

or

Professor Wang obliges a foreign friend

After our Beijing adventure, Sid and I were going to spend the remaining days of his stay in Shanghai. Sabine, who had one of her ecologically sound friends visiting from Germany, invited us to the Italian Consulate for lunch. Even as we set out from the YMCA, Sid seemed strangely monosyllabic. He grew quieter and quieter throughout the meal and hardly ate anything. Knowing him to be endowed with a hearty appetite, I started wondering.

'I think my stomach is off', he managed to get out between clenched teeth. 'Look, we'd better find a taxi and get back to the hotel.'

I wasn't too worried as most foreigners I knew had suffered from tummy upsets at one time or another. The best thing to do, in my experience, was to drink lots of tea and sleep it off. On one occasion,  I'd been to see the company doctor. I entered his consulting room, pointed to my stomach and groaned. He looked me briefly in the eye, then sent me away with a box of little yellow pills. By the time I got home I'd forgotten the doctor's instructions and, unable to read those written on the box, ended up recovering without benefit of medical science. Now, at last, the pills were going to get their chance.

'I need a doctor' moaned Sid, who back in the hotel room had collapsed on his bed. '

Why don't you take one of these?' I suggested, handing him those yellow pills. 'They sure straightened me out.'

'What ! No, I want a real doctor. This could be something serious. You don't know all that I've read about the bugs you can pick up in places like this.' That was certainly true. But not unlike Alice through the Looking Glass, I also had some experience of the practical difficulties attendant upon seemingly straightforward courses of action. Getting hold of a doctor was bound to entail all sorts of logistical and linguistic complications - like, where to start looking for one. Then again, what if it was something serious? Sid was doubled up in pain now.

'I suppose I can go down to reception and ask them to send for a doctor' I mused.

'Out of the question!' Sid protested as firmly as his bowels would allow, 'I have to have a Western doctor, right away. I'm not taking any chances.'

'Sid, how on earth do you expect me to find a Western doctor?'

'Phone all the goddamn consulates!'

'It's Sunday. You know what civil servants are.'

'You mean, you'll let me die just because it's Sunday?? It'll look very bad, you know.' There was tension in the air. Suddenly, a possibility struck me. I phoned the Consulate. I had to let it ring a long time, as Sabine and her friend had probably gone out, the Corellis weren't in town, and the Chinese secretary had his day off. At last I heard a peevish voice anounce the Italian Consulate. I recognized Scampa.

'Ugolino, what luck! How good of you to be in! I need your help. You remember the reception at the consulate the other day? There was this Dr. Wang. Lively little chap in his seventies. Supposedly quite a capacity in his day.'

'Oh, everybody knows him. He's Professor Wang, by the way. Used to be something big in medicine at Cairo University. Why do you ask?'

'Do you think he could be persuaded to come to my hotel for an emergency? I've got this Canadian friend visiting. He's got a tummy upset and thinks nothing short of a Western-trained doctor will do. So I need Wang's address and phone number from you.'

'I'll see if I can find them for you. Yes, I think he might be willing to come. Of course, you realize, he has to be picked up at his home in a taxi. You also have to find and pay him a taxi back - in fact, I suggest you keep the driver waiting outside the hotel. It'll be quite expensive, of course, but well worth it. It's so difficult to find taxis on a Sunday, especially to go to out-of-the-way places like the professor's home. And you have to pay him in foreign exchange certificates. None of this Renminbi business.'

'But I only have local money. I'd have to cash a cheque. Today is Sunday.'

'Oh I hadn't noticed,' said Ugo sarcastically. 'Why don't you go to Piss hotel? I believe their counter is open every day. Look, the professor is not just anybody. He's spent years of his life abroad, even if it was Egypt, and speaks beautiful French, fluent Italian and passable English, in addition, I am told, to flawless Mandarin, Cantonese, Ningbonese and Shanghai dialect.'

'Ugo, I don't want him to speak to me in Ningbonese. I want him to make my friend well, that's all.'

'Seven languages! You can't possibly expect him to accept local money. It would make him lose face...' He added, as an afterthought: '...and you'd better buy him a gift as well. Courtesy, you know.'

'What sort of gift? My hand in marriage so he can get a German passport, maybe?' I quipped.

''Don't be ridiculous. You want to give him something useful, something he can trade in for something else if he doesn't like it. Like a bottle of really good whisky from the Friendship Store.'

'I get you', I said wearily. 'And now, can I have the number?'

'Wang doesn't actually have a telephone himself. You have to phone his neighbour, and ask him to fetch Wang to the phone, or take a message.' Ugo gave me number and address, wished us good luck and rang off. 'What gives?' Sid inquired feebly.

'It's a bit of a pain. Wang isn't on the phone. I'll try to ring his neighbour and explain in my fluent Chinese that we need to speak to the doctor.' So I did.

'Please you go ask Wang doctor come to telephone. Important. Please. You understand ?'

'You're a foreigner, eh? From America, right-not-right?'

I thought quickly. Popular prejudice had it that most foreigners were American: loud-mouthed imperialists whose habit of devouring virtually raw chunks of meat made them prone to commiting all sorts of atrocities. Too political. Switzerland, on the other hand, was neutral, but difficult to pronounce. And even if I were to articulate Ruishi correctly, Wang doctor's neighbour had probably never heard of it, and might decide to hang up on me. I discarded Deguo,Germany, because I always ran into trouble with the second tone in De, meaning virtue. I couldn't recall which tone the Ying in Yingguo was supposed to be, so that ruled out England, land of the brave. The country name I knew how to pronouce really well was Riben, Japan. But then I remembered Shen Yi Min's bloodcurdling account of the Japanese occupation of Nanjing. Maybe this neighbour had also been forced to speak Japanese as a schoolboy and seen his loved ones raped and murdered and would therefore refuse to collaborate with the enemy 50-odd years later.

'Italy!' I ventured as a last resort. Thanks to the good offices of Marco Polo, the Italians and the Chinese seemed destined to hold one another in tolerably high esteem, based as far as I could make out on their mutal appreciation of good food. Of course each side knew that they had discovered pasta first and the others had merely copied it, but was apparently willing to accept this as a very sincere form of flattery.

'Ah, Ih-da-lee! Very good, very good. You speak Chinese very well.'

'Oh, not so well, not so well', I replied, as custom required ,' bu tai hao, bu tai hao.'

'Very well', insisted my interlocutor. Unsure whether etiquette commanded me to contradict him again so as to appear modest, or to agree with him out of politeness, I merely repeated:

'Doctor! Wang doctor! Please you help me!'

'You wait-and-wait, I look-see go' the neighbour said reassuringly.

'Xiexie, xiexie ni', I enthused, showering thank-yous on him in typically foreign fashion.

'Hey, what's going on?' Sid wanted to know.

'Hopefully the neighbour has gone to get Wang.'

'What, you think he understood you?' Sid sounded insultingly disbelieving. So I felt almost triumphant when I heard Professor Wang's melodious voice at the other end.

'Hullo Wang doctor. I am Ya-li-shan-da. We met at the Italian consulate the other day. I am sorry to disturb you. I know you are a very busy man -'

'Not too busy at the moment, not too busy ,' he interjected modestly.

'Oh very busy, I am sure' I protested firmly, remembering the neighbour.

'You speak Chinese very well, Mademoiselle Ya-li-shan-da', chuckled the professor. Good grief, I'd had that conversation before. I switched to a disconcertingly direct approach in French, the language of diplomacy. The upshot was that yes, he would come, I had only to pick him up at his home in a taxi. He would be waiting outside. Success at last!

'Listen, Sid, I'm off to fight my way  to Peace Hotel through the Sunday crowds . I can cash a cheque there and probably even find a taxi. I promise I'll be back with an able-bodied doctor by nightfall. Just do me a favour, don't die on me. Have some tea.'

On Sundays the city was usually congested with several million people whose quest for a breath of stale air led them to exchange the crowded conditions of their tiny homes for the even more crowded conditions on the streets. That Sunday was no exception. As a rule, my weekend thrill was not to have to leave my hotel room at all, the only way to steer clear of the toiling masses out there - toiling, that is, to get from point A to point B. Or so it seemed to me. The thing to do would of course have been to abandon this absurdly linear Western approach and just drift along, carried by the great flow of life. But in view of the medical emergency on my hands, it seemed ill-advised to rely on the Tao to get me straight to Peace Hotel,  flashing a blue light. On a good day Peace Hotel was a brisk twenty-minute walk away from the YMCA. That Sunday it took me nearly forty minutes. The air was hot and humid and I arrived at Peace Hotel drenched and exhausted. Fortunately, the exchange counter was open, manned by a very young, and obviously very bored, bank clerk.

'I would like to cash these cheques, please' I said, handing him the cheques and my passport. He examined the passport at some length.

'You travel many country. Cost lot of money. We cannot travel, no have money. Why you come here?' he challenged me with an air of resentment.

'To draw some money, please' I said, opting for safety in dumbness.

'What you need lot of money for ? You are 'foreign expert'?' he inquired disdainfully, implying a 'so-called' the size of Albania.

'Definitely not' I was quick to reassure him. Foreign I might be, but no-one calls me an expert lightly.

'So you are German. You speak English quite well?'

'So-so.'

'I study English too. I make list of idiomatic expression. Ten new ones every day.'

'At that rate English is going to run out of expressions pretty fast.'

'I bet you not know this one: naughty pobham.'

This had me stumped.'Are you sure? I think naughty normally goes with ...'

'See! I tell you you not know. I got naughty pobhams on my hands.'

A skin rash, possibly? He grew impatient. 'You foreign expert come here to teach us things. You travel, spend lot of money. And you have no idea what is naughty pobham !'

I felt crushed. My foreign expertise had been found wanting, and probably wholly undeserving of exchange certificates. But in view of the precarious state of Sid's bowels I mustered all my courage and boldly renewed my initial request for cash. At first this triggered a new tirade.

'You foreigners got lot of money. Think you better than us. I will get lot of money too. That is why I study so hard.' Suddenly, in mid-tirade, it must have dawned on him that he had beaten a fully-fledged foreigner at English vocab. He cheered up and graciously decided to come across with the money. Our brief acquaintance thus ended in a truce.

'I admire you very much for studying so hard. I'm sure you'll do very well. And I hope your naughty pobhams will get better soon.' I said, with the hard cash safely on my side of the counter.

'You go home and look in dictionary - that way you learn. That way I do it. Hope you enjoy your stay in China. You must come again.'

I made a mental note never to go near the Peace Hotel exchange counter again on a Sunday afternoon. Admittedly, those naughty pobhams continued to haunt me for a while. Until they stared me in the face one day when a colleague showed me a list of idiomatic expressions that was apparently standard issue for English language students throughout China. Only then did I recognize them for the knotty problems they were.

However, this was only the first step on the road to Sid's recovery. My luck held: the fourth taxi driver I asked agreed to drive me across town towards the western outskirts of the city where Professor Wang lived. I began to feel better.

Until I remembered the gift, that is. I made the driver understand that I wanted him to make a detour via the Friendship Store. He was none too pleased. Taxis were notoriously hard to get hold of. Foreigners therefore tended to latch on to the one they had managed to secure for as long as they could, getting the driver to take them to various destinations and making him wait in the car until they had finished their business at each stop. This infuriated the drivers as it meant having to waste time hanging around without being allowed to keep the metre running. It infuriated them even more when the passengers then attempted to pay the fare in local money. I had heard stories of people left stranded in the middle of nowhere by an irate chauffeur who had been driven to the point of no return, so to speak.

Bearing this in mind, I kick-boxed my way through the shopping crowds, both moneyed Chinese and foreigners, through the royal jelly, bicycles, silks, tea and other export-grade wares, towards the most expensive whisky they had. I think I managed to wince only slightly at the price in dollars. To appease the driver I bought some American cigarettes (which he accepted grudgingly as no more than his due), elbowed my way back to the taxi, and we proceeded on our way. The throng thinned out as we moved away from the centre in the direction of Hongqiao airport. Out there, any stray pedestrians and inadvertent cyclists were fair game for madly speeding cars like ours. I could hardly bear to watch, especially the potholes.

But we did arrive at Professor Wang's address all in one piece. No sign of him. After about 15 minutes the entire neighbourhood seemed to have piled up around our car. At last he came skipping gaily out of the rather humble building, carrying his doctor's case and waving right and left like royalty. That explained the wait - a taxi bearing a foreign woman, however unsightly, was a definite crowd-puller, and the Professor liked playing to a full house. He was a sprightly gentleman nearing eighty, of slight build and charming manners. Not unlike a busy little bird, yet aware of his importance. He greeted me with a surprisingly vigorous handshake and a tinkling little laugh. He bent forward to exchange a few words with the driver, then devoted his wholehearted attention to me, pointing out various sights along the way. A delightful companion.

'Hey!' I sat up straight.'Where is he taking us? You have to turn right to get to the YMCA, not left.'Not to worry, Mademoiselle Ya-li-shan-da', said the professor, patting my arm, 'that's quite all right. I just tell him we want to nip into Friendship Store where I need to buy a few things. It won't take long.'He lowered his voice slightly ' I promised you will buy small present for him. A carton of cigarettes will probably do. You understand.' I had opened my mouth in protest but on second thoughts shut it again. After all if we expected the professor to perform miracles on Sid's intestines, a little gratitude was in order. 'But of course,' I found myself saying. Wang and I squeezed into the Friendship Store, which had fillled up even more since my previous visit about an hour earlier. He positively thrived on the crowds and commotion. He hopped gracefully from one counter to the next, spying an interesting novelty here, a foreign delicacy there. All the while he never stopped chatting to me. I was breathless with the sheer physical effort of keeping up with him. We left the shop weighed down with Swiss chocolates, Ginseng, a small supply of royal jelly ('make you very strong', he winked at me), a bottle of gin, French soap and a carton of cigarettes. Having graciously allowed me to pay for the lot, Professor Wang sank into the taxi with a contented sigh 'is much pleasure to go shopping with a friend! Especially I don't get around much these days - is nearly two month since I have opportunity to visit Friendship store ...'

'Oh there you are,' Sid whispered faintly, though not without a tinge of reproach. ' I'd almost given up on you.' 'Yes, Shanghai is big city, take much time. And now, my young friend, please to take off shirt so I may examine you', Professor Wang smiled at him benignly. He then took Sid's pulse, looked into his mouth and eyes, palpated him carefully, took his temperature, pressed his ear against his belly, listened, frowned, listened again. No doubt, he was giving him the works. When he was done he said 'Not to worry. Very soon you will be well. I have here some medicine. You take three a day until box is finished. Important to drink tea and sleep a lot. Cure you very quickly.' And with the air of a magician who has kept his best trick until the very last, he whipped out a small box. It looked strangely familiar. Sid opened it eagerly. It contained the exact same yellow pills that had been sitting in the bedside drawer all day. I shot him a murderous glance.

'Well, I better be off now, long way home', Professor Wang danced away towards the door, only slightly encumbered by the various bottles and other booty. 'Thank you so much for all your very precious help,' I managed to say as I handed him his fee plus the taxi money. 'Don't mention it, don't mention it, Mademoiselle Ya-li-shan-da', he tittered, 'I don't mind going to a little trouble, is always much pleasure to oblige a foreign friend.'

Incidentally, Sid recovered. Whether he did so because or in spite of those pills will remain Professor Wang's professional secret, I guess.

© Alexandra L. Dale 2000

Shanghaied, or The Price of Tea in China
A taste of Confucius: young Zhang grapples with the concept of Western womanhood
Condom conundrum: Cosí fan tutte
Sid and I act like two foreigners in a Chinese restaurant: you can never keep a bad fish down
Six thousand impossible things before breakfast: the trouble with Chinese

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