Changwon House
Well, this has been an eventful couple of weeks!
I went to the hospital a couple of weeks ago. Nothing serious. I had a sore throat for a couple of days and it making hard to sleep. I wanted to see if it was the beginning of a cold, or some sort of sinus thing from swimming. But, mostly I really was curious about what a Korean hospital is like. They call it a hospital, but it's really just a glorified clinic with a few examining rooms and maybe 4 beds. I think there are four doctors, a nurse, and some other guy. It's funny...down the road a little there's a sign telling people where the hospital is, but it doesn't say "Chilwon Medical Centre" or "Chilwon Hospital" or "Chilwon Clinic". Nope, the sign says, "Chilwon Sub-health Centre". Hmmm....I'm guessing that the person who composed that little gem wasn't a native English speaker.
Anyway, it turns out I had acute laryngitis and the doctor said I was to have an intramuscular injection of an analgesic for the pain and whatever. Fine, I go into a room and a female nurse comes in and simply says, 'Ondong-ee' which means butt. Bless her little Korean heart! I don't know who was more embarrassed, her or me. Funny thing is that she spanked me as she gave me the needle. They were just little taps, but I was so shocked at being spanked, I didn't notice the needle.
Another funny story...I was having lunch with some friends in Changwon and one of them told me that another friend of ours had misunderstood me when I had an ex-wife. Apparently 'ex' isn't something they teach even at the university level here. So, adding cultural misunderstanding to ignorance of the term, he thought I said, "Sex wife" and that we North American types have a "Sex wife" and a "Non sex wife". Well, he was half right.
One more medical story...the doctor here almost killed me. My laryngitis developed into a case of bronchitis or something. So, I went back to the clinic. . The first time I went the guy on call was a general surgeon from Seoul who proudly told me, "I have saved many lives!". I guess he thought, that I would think he and the care I would receive would be inferior just because he didn't graduate from McGill or something. I made a point of telling him that I am allergic to penicillin. I'm pretty sure he even wrote it on my chart.
Anyway, after school one day I went back to the clinic because I thought I might need an antibiotic. There was a different doctur there that day and after just looking down my throat and spraying some stuff down there, he told me to go into the other room for another one of their needles in the butt. It reminded me of when I was in high school in Ville LaSalle and the nurse would give you "Bromo" no matter what your complaint. The word around school was that you could come in with a broken arm and she'd, say, "Bromo.". Anyway, I'm beginning to wonder if they give all their patients these needles or if they're especially for westerners? After getting stuck in the behind again I went back to the doctor and had him check my ears. I had a bit of an earache. He said there was some
inflammation and said he'd prescribe an antibiotic. I said, "PENICILLIN NO!" and he repeated it. Fine.
I went to the pharmacy to have the prescription filled and the pharmacist fortunately spoke more English than the doctor did. I asked her if he had prescribed penicillin and she said she didn't know. She called the clinic a couple of times and determined that he had indeed prescribed penicillin. Good thing I asked, eh? Otherwise I would have come back home, taken the medicine and almost certainly would have perished.
I'm not sure what antibiotic he replaced it with, but it was stong stuff. It took care of the cough, but It did weird things to my stomach. I was off work for two days.
I still have a slight cough, but otherwise I'm feeling much better. I can thank my friends for that! One day a couple of friends brought me a big pot of ginger tea which is really good for the throat and for nausea. Then, another friend made supper for me and also gave me something I certainly wouldn't have thought of....charcoal powder. It's used as a medicine here. Apparently it's the thing to take if you've eaten something bad, or poisonous. Just as many people have pieces of charcoal in their houses to clean the air, the belief is that eating a teaspoon of charcoal powder cleans the blood. It didn't taste as bad as it sounds and I think it helped.
I made another trip to Changwon House, but this time I brought my camera. Yeah!! I took the bus, but I was sure to hide my camera...I didn't want to look like a tourist. Ha!
There are a number of parks in Changwon. Many of them have some very nice sculpture in them. I like this one!
Guards at the gate of Changwon House
Notice the shirt!
Above is a picture of a game they used to play 200 years ago. I don't know what it's called, but you stand about 6 feet away from this container and try to throw the sticks into it. Getting them in isn't the most difficult thing in the world - the hard part is getting them to not bounce out.
A magpie! They are very common around here.
Unfortunately the cherry blossoms weren't out when I took these, but these are almost as good.
Some typical Korean tools from 200 years ago
The objects in the right side of the picture are pillows that were used in the summer.
After leaving Changwon House we went to a new bookstore in the area. It's in the big LOTTE mall and as I think I've mentioned before, there are an army of parking attendants there. These young people bow and politely point you toward the nearest empty parking spot. You can see the girl dreseed in a grey coat just as she's about to bow to us.
At the ole ' teahouse
Food...
Since being here I've eaten things I never would even consider eating in Canada...octopus and squid tentacles, jellyfish tentacles, and many, many types of leaves, buses, roots etc. All those things proved to be quite tasty as well as healthy. I mentioned the strawberries that I bought for $7.00...here's a picture
And here is a halabong. What is a halabong, you ask? It's a cross between a Korean tangerine, and something called a citron. It grows on Chejudo Island and is pretty expensive, about $3.00 for one. Very delicious!!!
Cultural Notes....
In some ways Korean is a very literal language. For instance, the word for meat is 'kogi' and the word for water is 'mool'. So, guess what the word for fish is? You guessed it, 'mool kogi'. The word for eyes is 'noon', so guess what the word for tears is? Yup, 'noon mool' (eye water). I think it's logical. Certainly more logical than Englsih in many ways.
One thing I haven't seen at all since coming here...homeless people and beggars. Okay, that's two things, but anyway, there just aren't any. Either they're all hiding somewhere or Korea is doing something right.
I decided last weekend that since I'm only a two hour flight away, it would be an absolute sin not to visit China while I'm here. I have to go to the immigration office and have my visa upgraded so that I can leave Korea and come back. With the visa I have now, if I leave Korea, I can't come back. It's one way. I think that's cost me about $60.
So, during my summer vacation in August I'll travel to Beijing for a week.
On Saturday I'm traveling with some friends to Gojeh Island. That should be fun!
On Sunday I'm going to McDonald's for the first time since coming here. It'll be the first non-Korean food I eat in almost 4 months. I don't plan to make it a regular thing, but it'll be a nice treat!
Till next time.
pae
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