A TYPICAL CANTONESE EXAGGERATION

Oldest brother is in the hospital, which means I get to hear all about sick Cantonese Americans. And little weird cheapnesses. The sick Cantonese are something I'm already quite familiar with, having been a patient of SF Chinese Hospital for over six years and also spending nearly a week in the ICU ward there, and little weird cheapnesses, well, that too. We Dutch are known for that. So it's a matter of "professional" curiosity in a way to hear about how other cultures manifest their weird little cheapnesses. If they have that.

What I also got to hear about was foul smells. The passengers on several of the city bus lines. There are reasons why I seldom venture out of this quadrant; I don't like people, the entire rest of the city is filled with them, they dress funny, smell bad, and eat too much.

Oldest brother is NOT at Chinese hospital. I don't know which hospital he is at, but to get there takes public transit in all its nightmarish glory and splendour. See, the main reasons why I chose a healthcare plan (CCHP) which allowed me to choose the clinic in SF Chinese Hospital as my primary care provider was that A) it was easy to get to, barely over six blocks away, more or less, and B) there is tasty food right outside the door. I've heard enough tales about people carting food into the hospital and patients escaping for a pork chop and some fried chicken to know that half the hospital battle is working up an appetite again.

I mean, roast duck and roast pork can be found in three directions in one block of wheelchair running away. Plus fried noodles and cake and hot milk tea.
All of which are aides to recovery.

And I can buy smuggled-in ciggies (no tax stamp) within spitting distance. So I'm guessing oldest brother isn't a smoker, which is why he's in a hospital elsewhere in the city.

He'd have to venture into the badlands for a smoke. Some sleazy liquor store two or three blocks away. They'd spot him immediately in his hospital garb, and probably charge double for the desperation. Back in the day, there would actually be a news and candy stand with a wide variety of cigarettes and cheap stogies in the lobby of most hospitals, and in larger institutions they might even have three or four kinds of pipe tobacco. The old days.

It's a complete jungle out there now. Gangs of elderly thugs in wheelchairs roaming the wards, threatening to run over your toes unless you give them all your lunchmoney. Frail invalids in pajamas, with crutches, running craps games in the parking lot. Decrepit old fossils right outside the emergency room passing cigarettes to each other.

Rabid tamanduas and pangolins lurk in dark corners.
Tribals raid each other for heads.


The ghost of famous poet Su Tung-Po roams the nearby hills, sent there because he had fallen into disfavour at the court and it was hoped he'd get malaria or typhoid and die.



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