The Medical Assembly Line

This morning I had to go to Nantong (the closest big city) to get my Chinese medical exam done to get my residency permit. And yes, I did just go through the exact same thing in the United States before I left. But the Chinese government, actually, governments in general, seem to be big on redundancy.

It was definitely one of the top 10 weirdest experiences of my life. Generally speaking, I'm not a huge fan of being poked and prodded. But if it absolutely must happen, I prefer to have a detailed description and explanation of what is going to happen, and why, before said poke. Being that I'm in China, where they speak Chinese, and my current vocabulary only extends to greetings, colors, numbers, and food, I was pretty much out of luck in the explanation department.

This is basically what my morning looked like:

I arrived at the Jiangsu International Travel Healthcare Center around 10:00 and my coworker and I stood around awkwardly, being stared at like circus freaks, while our liaison filled out our paperwork. Then we headed upstairs to the exam rooms. We had eight objectives - blood test, x-ray, ultrasound, vision, pee in a cup, ear/nose/throat, dental, height and weight, and EKG.

The best way to describe what happened next was an assembly line of medical exams (with the word line used loosely). Do you remember in elementary school when there would be a Halloween party and all of the different classrooms came up with a special activity, and then you roamed the halls darting in and out of each room? That's EXACTLY what this was like.

The blood test came first, and was a little scary due to its brevity. We stood in line, then stuck our arm through a window, like a drive through, where it was summarily tied up, stuck, and cotton-balled. Then you were quickly shooed off so the next person could sit down (I checked to be sure about the needle disposal, I promise).

After that, there was a lot of running around. I'd come out of one exam room, and my liaison would holler, "JULIE! HERE!" and I'd scamper across the hall to try to beat out the other people competing for the room. There was no privacy or doors, just rooms with a Chinese 'doctor' at a desk and a chair or bed for the patients. Everybody was running around and giggling and staring at the white people. It was a little bit like an obstacle course combined with a scavenger hunt, trying to get your medical form filled out the fastest.

Dental involved opening my mouth for a guy who glanced inside, grunted, "good," and shooed me out the door. Vision was an eye test where I'm not sure she even wrote down my answers. Ear/nose/throat involved having each of my nostrils lifted briefly before being gestured out. The EKG was a little freaky, since it involved approximately 1,000 sensors on suction cups, most of which wound up in awkward positions in and around my cleavage, plus clamps on my wrists and legs, and a paintbrush that was wet with what I hope was water.

Then I got to pee in a tiny plastic cup, in a bathroom with only squat toilet stalls with NO DOORS, and then carry the cup through the busy hallway without spilling it. The cup was then left on top of a piece of paper, presumably with my information on it, on a long folding table covered with hundreds of pieces of paper and little cups of pee.  Not very secure… It would be easy to switch your pee with someone else's if you knew something was wrong with it. Also, Chinese people need to drink more water. There was some freakishly dark pee in there.

The X-rays and ultrasound were unremarkable, which was a little disappointing—I thought they would definitely be weirder. Finally I stood on a scale and got my blood pressure taken, and that was that.

The whole thing was over in less than half an hour.  I wish I could have taken pictures.