With last Saturday in the office Sunday was again a one-day weekend so no typing time amidst bread-making, running, lunchtime nap, dinner and other domestic faffage!
Nana Miao had been unwell last week and a bit with some skin irritation and decided to head to the hospital to get it checked up. White-blood cell count was up and the doctor informed her there were tests that could be done in the hospital for 9000 yuan, but.. he a mate who could the tests for 6000 yuan and gave her a phone number to contact him. Nana was dubious and took her results to a few of the other doctors in different departments to ask, receiving no two similar answers.. great! Ironically, this actually relieved her, the logic being if it was something serious it would have been picked up on and she wouldn’t have been allowed to leave the hospital. Upon returning home and consulting the guru of The Internet, it appears to be a reasonable value for her present skin irritation. Apparently if it had been something serious the doctors wouldn’t dare go off the books and “recommend a mate”, as if the s*** did hit the fan that would game over for them. As such they only do this in situations were they know all is well, and they can pick up a peace-of-mind tax from the patient/customer. What comes to my mind is if this is how hospitals are in Beijing, it is disconcerting to think was goes on in other cities and the countryside. There was a news story from a few months ago (that actually made it to mainstream media!) when a doctor in Shanxi “exposed” the obligatory backhanders going on in his hospital. In reality though, it seems to be rife everywhere, something I experienced firsthand when Zhouzhou was in giving birth a couple of years ago.
My digital bicycle, aka my Ipad, had been on the fritz the last week (apps refusing to boot, lots of crashing and can’t install the most recent system update) so headed out with Arthur to the Apple store. Nearly successfully poured a bottle of water over one of the sample Ipads but managed to redirect the flow to my t-shirt just in time. Upon asking what the issues was likely to be, I was told there were 2 possibilities: either a hardware issue or a software issue.. Thank Genius Bar guy. The should-have-been-15minute journey back home took and hour, with Arthur taking plenty of time to investigate all manner of road side attractions at Guomao.
Off to Dalian next weekend on Saturday for a Go comp! More updates from this week that I’ll try to squeeze in in the next couple of days!
