After seeing my doctor this morning I am forced to conclude that we have a higher proportion of psychological and intellectual defectives than most other parts of the country. Not the doctor, nor the staff at the hospital or clinic. They're quite sane and balanced, and exceptionally patient with people. But just in general.
The rest of the country is not doing their part, though.
Perhaps they're better at hiding them, or killing them. As well as voting them into office and getting them out of sight that way.
Nut on the bus. Tweaky person at the next intersection after getting off. Something gibbering in three boxes slapped together in the alleyway. Angry middle-aged white hippie woman on the street. Consequently encountering sane and balanced hospital and clinic staff was a refreshing breeze.
Half an hour after seeing my doctor, then scheduling a follow-up appointment after the usual tests for my annual physical plus seeing my cardiologist, I've headed down to the radiology department (放射部 '
fong se pou') to request appointments for a CT scan (胸部電腦斷層掃描 '
hung pou din nou duen chang sou miu') and a thyroid nodule (甲狀腺結節 '
gaap jong sin git jit') scan (甲狀腺節結影像掃描
'gaap jong sin jit git ying jeung sou miu'). Holy mother! The entire place is packed. Elderly Chinese folks smoke like chimneys, and if they're Cantonese they've eaten far too much salt fermented dried fish (鹹魚
haam yü) over their lifetimes and hence have an encreased risk of nasopharyngeal cancers (鼻咽癌 '
pei yin ngaam') anyway. Plus they're bored, and might need help. So the wife or husband comes with them.
Perhaps a grandchild of suitable nimbleness and bilinguality.
Or, in the case of an old lady in a wheelchair, a care facility nurse. Because she's eighty or ninety, and doesn't think so good anymore. And sometimes bursts into a red guard song in Mandarin praising the communist party. Her diction is excellent, she sings well. She might not have a clue what the song is about, because in so far as she speaks, she's Cantonese.
Her nurse gently encourages her to not sing. The other people there have that pained look on their faces of "
good lord I haven't heard those damned lyrics since the re-education camp and I don't miss them in the slightest I wish she'd bloody well stop" or something similarly unpleasant hearkening back to the cultural revolution era (they are all of that age).
So, having got my appointments arranged, I threw the cat among the pigeons on my way out.
阿姨，你唱得真好好啊!
"Oh auntie, you sang very well!" ('
ah yi, nei cheung tak jan hou hou aa!'). Said clearly, in my most unctuous manner, which I'm very good at, and because no one there had heard me speak Cantonese yet (Caucasians generally speaking don't do so) tumult ensued.
Which I could still hear while waiting for the elevator.
If nothing else, I am a spreader of joy and light. A middle-aged male 'little Mary Sunshine'.
As someone I encountered later said: "
When you alive do your happy!" Oh I do, trust me.
While having bowl of congee and an oil stick afterwards I got to watch a stressed interaction between an auntie in front of the steamtable with the proprietess behind them.
The latter, though of the same age, clearly had all her marbles.
The same cannot be said for five somewhat younger people inhabiting Portsmouth Square where I enjoyed a post-meal smoke. They were alive. They were doing their happy. The card playing oldsters there have learned to mostly ignore them. This is San Francisco, we have nuts all over the place.
GLOSSARY
胸部 = '
hung pou'; chest.
電腦 = '
din nou'; computer.
斷層掃描 = '
duen chang sou miu'; tomography, tomographic scan.
甲狀腺 = '
gaap jong sin'; thyroid gland.
節結 = '
jit git'; knot, node.
影像 = '
ying jeung'; image.
掃描 = '
sou miu'; "sweep depict", scan.
鼻咽癌 = '
pei yin ngaam'; "nose throat cancers".
咽 = '
yin'; throat, pharynx.
癌 = '
ngaam'; cancer; marmoset.
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