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.