Category: Moving abroad

The Horrors of War

I grew up during the Cold War era. For you younger folks, it meant dealing with the threat of a nuclear bomb being dropped. And the threat was real. In my English class, we had to watch The Day After and I remember my dad not being happy about that. (He ruled the remote, and because we were poor, we only had one televsion set.) Nena’s 99 Luftballons was supposedly about nuclear destruction.

I haven’t thought about this in a while, but someone I stumbled upon Barefoot Gen on YouTube. I’ve been spending hours watching all sorts of clips, but this one was particularly horrifying. I’d never heard of Barefoot Gen before, but it is loosely based on a survivor’s memories of the Hiroshima bombing. He’d stayed away from this topic. But after his mother was cremated, her bones turned to ash, because of all of the radioactive cesium that was there. The creator of the manga series, which eventually had three films made plus several novels and movies of his work, was so upset about his mother’s bones that he finally decided to write about it. It ran in several magazines from 1973 to 1987, maybe not exactly the height of the Cold War fears, but pretty damn close.

The brief clip I saw was from when the bomb actually dropped and the few minutes after it. It has to be one of the most disturbing things I’ve ever seen. And I’m not easily hurt by watching “disturbing footage.” I was raised in a time where “trigger warnings” didn’t exist. We watched and read all kinds of stuff and had to deal with it.

It was just unbearbly sad. But to me, art needs to stimulate something in me: disgust, hatred, sadness, joy or make me think. The worst thing I can say about someone’s art is that it doesn’t do anything for me.

And that’s the worst thing you can say about my writing or photography. That it doesn’t do anything for you.

The brief clip was a reminder that in war, eveyrone suffers. And you can argue all you want about the moral implications. If we hadn’t dropped it, more people would have been killed, the war would have dragged on, yada, yada, yada. It’s heartbreaking to see two little kids looking up into a blue sky, seeing an airplane…

But what was really fucked up was A-bomb survivors were looked down upon. Can you imagine surviving that, and facing discrimination after that?

Another Really Hot Day…

I needed my meds, so I went for a walk and hit up two pharmacies that had what I needed. I stopped at McDonald’s, and feel sort of guilty about it. Then I walked to the grocery store and picked some things up. But for the most part, it was a relaxing kind of day.

I still don’t feel particularly motivated to do very much. I feel a bit depressed about that, but whatever.

I’m a bit worried about my local grocery stores. The one down the block, which I seem to visit at least once a week, is looking pretty bare. I used my translation app to ask the guy who runs it if he was closing the store, but his response? Demolition. So I don’t know if the entire building is going to go (other stores were closed) or what. Then, the Bravo which is about a 45 minute walk away had a huge sign out front. It looked like the one in front of another Bravo that I saw months ago that underwent a renovation. If both of them go down at the same time, I think there’s another grocery store I can go to not far away. But it’s not nearly as big as Bravo, which has a lot of stuff that I want. The other choices are Walmart (yuck) or Ole, which is a great store, but expensive. I use that store to get the Granny Smith apples and blue cheese to make my fake Wendy’s Apple Pecan Salads, something that seems so delicious to me this summer. I suppose I can nose around Sam’s Club, which is a bit further away, but the problem with that is the quantity. My refrigerator is a bit small by American standards. I’ve often thought about getting a chest freezer and buying a lot of meats and fish and freezing them.

But I usually figure it out. The novelty of being able to walk down the street to the store is something I never had growing up where I grew up. Sure, there’s a Walmart a 20 minute walk away, and a Dollar General 45 minutes away, and a Kroger if I feel like crossing a very busy street. However, I always drove my car to the grocery store. That’s one of the good things about China. No real subdivisions; but plenty of “neighborhood” businesses that you can walk to.

Hong Kong Diary 2!

April 30, 2025

What an emotional day. Stayed up kinda late talking to Ben, my roommate.* He seems like a nice guy. However, when I got back tonight, he was gone. There is a woman staying here now. So I feel a bit safer. Hope Ben has a good life. Hong Kong Disney was good. I was a bit cynical at first, but I really enjoyed it and got emotional riding Hyperspace Mountain, which is a cross between watching the battle scene from Star Wars and riding Steel Vengeance. The theme music was playing and I half expected to see the opening credits roll as we were going up the hill. It was also an enclosed roller coaster, so the ride was in the dark. The lighting effects were really good too. That got me all emotional. The fireworks and light show got me going too. They had music playing and that got me too.

I was thinking about the past a little bit and remembering times when I was little and how secure I felt. It’s weird not having a family. Felt a bit lost and lonely, but hopeful for the future. I am super tired though. I think maybe that is why I got emotional. Felt sick today too. Didn’t eat breakfast and I probably should have. I ate popcorn and it was good. But later on I felt a bit nauseated and I thought I was going to throw up. One girl did, right into the sink. I finally stopped to eat and my first sip of Coke I thought I would vomit but it passed. I slowly had a burger and fries and kept that down. Overall it was a good day.

*Because I didn’t book far enough in advance, the hostel where I normally stay in Hong Kong, Ashoka Hostel in the famous Chungking Mansions, was out of private rooms. However, I love Hong Kong so much, I probably would have bought a tent and set it up in the park in order to stay there. So putting up with a roommate in a 12 foot by 6 foot room was something I was willing to do. To add to the fun, it was a shared mixed dorm situation, which meant I could have either a male or female roommate. Given my bad history with men, it seemed a recipe for disaster, but all three of my roommates, one American man, one Frenchman, and a muslim woman, were super nice and chill.

The only thing that would have made the vacation better was if I had a room to myself, plus an in-room bathroom, but it was still one of the best vacations I’ve been on.

Some Chinese Surprises, Part 7

Pastries are not as sweet as they are back home.

If you are in the mood for cake, you can buy it at a bakery. However, if you want it to taste like home, order the cake or brownie mix AND the frosting from Baopals. You won’t find cake mix OR frosting at the stores.

Forget about finding Hostess or Little Debbie or Mrs. Freshley’s. You’ll find different flavors of Orion Moon Pie. But if you’re craving a brownie, good luck. You’ll have to make it yourself.

Movie theaters do sell popcorn, but it will be covered in a sugar glaze, and not with butter and salt.

One thing to remember. Nearly everything here is the opposite of the U.S. It’s not uncommon to get free stuff here, like bowls, and drinking mugs/glasses, or tote bags taped onto a six-pack of yogurt, or soft drinks. Lots of pop culture tie-ins here. If I wanted one, I could go to Olé and get a Crayon Shinchan backpack filled with bags of assorted Lays potato chips. Just today (1-25/2025) I saw a display featuring red bowls taped on to a food item (sorry, couldn’t remember what it was.)

You won’t find a lot of thrift stores here.

Browsing is uncomfortable here. You can tell the clerks “Wo xiang kan kan” (I want to have a look) but they will still follow you around. And if you pick up something to examine it further, be prepared for a sales pitch.

You don’t tip people here.

My Chinese Healthcare Experience (So Far)

My first year in China wasn’t so great health-wise. I got food poisoning five times, not very far into my working experience. The first day of class, I vomited on one of my students.

So they took me to the doctor. They said I’ve have to go to the hospital, to which I said, “No. I’m an American. I don’t go to the hospital.”

But I went. I advise having a native accompany you. One of the challenging things about China is the language. Each province has its own dialect, which means sometimes people don’t understand each other.

The first hospital didn’t work for some reason or another, so we walked what seemed like five miles (which was probably only a couple of kilometers) to the other one. I was weakening by the minute, and my foreign teacher liaison was 20 feet ahead of me. “Are you okay?” No, I’m NOT okay. I’m DRAINED.

But we got to the right hospital. Doctors are at the hospital, so that’s where you go.

So you’re at this huge hospital, and you line up at a window. I show my passport, and the foreign liaison person and the counter person exchange words. We then go to an ATM-like machine, where I’m supposed to put some money on a card. The card is exclusive to the hospital. So it’s like a pre-payment. Then, you go to the first department for treatment. You get there and check in. The card is scanned for payment. Then you get seen, and a diagnosis for treatment is made. I had to go on to somewhere else, I think. The next office, Through the foreign teacher liaison, it was communicated what was wrong. I had a tube stuck up my nose. Bronchitis, I think it was.

So then we went to the pharmacy. I produced my little prepaid card, and got the meds. After that I went home. I stopped off at a little store, because by then, I actually wanted something to eat, and had some delicious chocolate ice cream. I took my meds and went to bed.

How much did it cost me? That was years ago, and I can’t remember much. But it didn’t bankrupt me. Maybe $100 or $200.

This last time I got sick, it was after an incredibly stressful time in my life. I was desperately trying to get a stay visa, because my residence visa was running out. My work permit for my new job apparently required a health screening. I didn’t have a current one, so I hurried up and got one and sent the results minutes after the tests went through. Meanwhile, I tried to get a stay permit, but my old school refused to give me one. Somehow, a call from the entry/exit bureau to my old school did the trick, and I got the necessary paperwork. I was literally 16 hours away from boarding a flight to Thailand, because if I stayed past my expiration date, I’d be in trouble, and fined. Read more about it HERE.

Anyway, after I submitted the papers to the entry exit/bureau and I knew I wouldn’t have to leave the country, I laid down in the bureau and took deep breaths for five minutes. I needed to relax so I decided to go swimming that night.

The pool that I usually go to in Xiamen was fairly clean. But that day, I noticed it was rather cloudy. A day or so later, I picked up what I thought was a cold, but it was some sort of bizarre infection. How bizarre? We’re talking SLIME oozing out of my left eye, then my right eye. I went to the little private expat clinic in and paid around $252 USD for tests and meds. The clinic is very pleasant, very western-looking, with an English-speaking staff. I spent the rest of my weeks in Xiamen, lying around the house, trying to get rid of stuff and pack. It was NOT fun. I was a little worried (I was between jobs) but whatever. It was awful but I got better.

Then, just after I moved to the new city, I noticed that the downstairs wasn’t feeling right. Since I was new in town, I didn’t know if there was an expat clinic, so I hopped on the high-speed rail (tickets to Xiamen run around $21 USD or so) and went back to my little private clinic. Turns out it was a UTI and a yeast infection. I still hadn’t been paid yet, but I want to say between tests and meds, it ran around $100.

One thing I want to say about Chinese healthcare is they frown on medicine. They have it, but one of the times when I had bronchitis or whatever, I don’t feel they prescribed enough antibiotics. Fortunately, you can buy them over the counter here. So I got the foreign teacher liaison here to come with me to a pharmacy. I bought two boxes. The liaison thought that was too much, but I insisted. I spent the rest of that month without missing another day of work, going home and night and resting. Weekends I stayed in bed. But the phlegm was epic. Just a day and a half after I’d taken the meds, I had epic strands of snot running out of my nose.

But whether I went to a private clinic, or the hospital, I wasn’t bankrupted. Prompt, same-day care and I didn’t have to wait hours and hours.

Tuesday Night Soup

Ordered some Campbell’s Tomato Soup off Baopals the other day and it came last week. You can’t buy it on store shelves in China. So I’m enjoying a delight can in my nice big cup I bought on Sunday.

I added just a little bit of water because I love a thick soup. To counteract what seems like a shitload of sugar added to this wondrous liquid, I added a generous amount of crackers, salt, and freshly ground pepper. God, this is good.

The text at the very bottom of the cup reads: Making Money=Having Meals.

Heating Your Home in China

Chinese homes don’t have central air or central heating.

So I’m cozying up to a space heater.

It was quite brisk on the way home from work today. We had clear blue skies all day which became clear skies at night. Which means it’s going to be cold. Or it will feel that way.

Tonight at the bus stop, it was 14 C, which for you Americans means it was 57 F. It felt like 34 F to me.

But I got home and cranked up the space heater and ate dinner by it while watching YouTube.

It was nice and cozy.

Hoping you had a cozy Thanksgiving and Black Friday.