THE DOCTOR'S APPOINTMENT

One thing we can conlude from this morning's doctor's appointment is that little Miss Mak looks kinda cute with a surgical mask, and has a forehead like a Bartlett pear. Very smart looking. No, I had no dealings with her today, someone else took my blood pressure and temperature, as well as checking my weight and finger-tip oxygen saturation with the little clampy thingy.
And gave me the flu shot and the second jab of the shingles vaccine.

The good doctor himself didn't bother asking if the old reprobate (老重蹈覆轍者) was still smoking, because I was twiddling a pipe in my right hand as if it were worry beads.
It was obvious that I had not reformed, wise reprimands to the contrary.

By ten thirty I was out of the clinic again, and bought some bittermelon across the street at Gold Mountain Grocery before lighting up. The clinic is on the first basement level (地下一樓), and can be accessed through either entrance to the building.
BTW: if you show up significantly early for a medical visit, it pays off.
I was supposed to be there at ten thirty.
Got seen first.


The other thing to clarify is that the use of Chinese terms is within the parameters of this visit to the clinic, because my doctor, the office manager, Miss Mak, and the nurse who proved adept with two hypodermics, were all Chinese, though English and Mandarin (a Sino-Tibetan tongue from the wild lands north of the wall) were also fluencies they possessed. Miss Mak had a long clarifactory discussion with another patient on the phone in Mandarin, clear diction, to the point.
Of course I'm mighty impressed.
As well as envious.


My conversations with the grocers, the counter clerk at Walgreens, the woman who rang up my purchases at the general store and market, and the lady at the dim sum counter, as well as two people on the bus, were in Cantonese. Much briefer talk, because I am not as fluent as Miss Mak and Joanna at the clinic in any version of Chinese.
As a stereotypical Dutchman, I have failed.
Not as multi-lingual as I should be.



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