This morning, we woke up before the 7 a.m. alarm. Our bodies are still recovering from jet lag which, as a result, is contributing to my drowsiness as I write this.
A requirement to work or study in Beijing is to attend a health examination. The night before, I spent almost 30 minutes trying to navigate between Google and Baidu maps in an attempt to find the location of The Haidian Branch of Beijing International Travel Healthcare Center. I had been warned that many taxi drivers in the city didn’t know how to read maps, but I figured that when given an address, they would have a vague notion of our destination. I was wrong.
After a 45 minute subway ride with one transfer, we stepped out of the Xiyuan station to hail a cab. The first driver waved us away after I showed him the Chinese address on my phone and a picture I had taken of the map and address. Disheartened but still determined, we took the advice of friends and located the neighborhood of the clinic. A second hail of a taxi, this time an older woman driving, brought us better luck. A verbal translation of the neighborhood via phone, a few directional gestures, and close tracking of the route on GPS brought us directly to the clinic. These small successes are slowly building my confidence in navigating this monstrous city.
Before entering the large grey building that resembled more of a Russian compound than a health clinic, we walked across the street to have portrait photos taken. The worker’s photoshop skills were impressive to watch as she quickly changed background color, cropped stray hairs, and splayed six photos to print in less than one minute.
A sign posted near the entrance of the health clinic warned of high customer volumes due to the onset of the school year. Once inside, the bustling atmosphere appeared chaotic at first, but was actually well organized. Each step of the process was indicated by blue signs that hung above a long desk, with labels written in Chinese and English. Once registered (in the registration line, of course), we needed to pay the cashier. After paying the cashier 625 RMB (approximately 100 USD), we were given a sheet of paper that had a list of procedures, followed by a room number, organized in grid format. In order to complete the health screening, it was necessary to collect stamps from each examination room. Instead of waiting to be seen by one healthcare worker who would complete all tests, this scavenger hunt was broken down by individual procedures.
In room 204, the healthcare worker is responsible for checking blood pressure.
In room 114, the healthcare worker is responsible for completing a chest x-ray.
In room 218, the healthcare worker is responsible for…actually, I wasn’t entirely sure of the information he collected after I stood on a scale and he shouted out my heart rate as I left the room.
In room 205 (my favorite and, by far, the most confusing) the healthcare worker is responsible for checking vision. A man seated at a desk used a long stick to slap one letter in the center of an eye chart that looked like it was from the 1950’s. This letter, and a few surrounding it, were worn away by assuredly thousands of smacks by the pointer. The strangest part of this exam was its label: ENT.
The final stamp to be collected was the blood draw. This procedure, out of all of them, seemed to be the most informative. Since Gully gets a little faint-y around needles, he requested we collect this stamp last. He was able to lay down on an examination table as the phlebotomist drew two vials of blood and, fortunately, walked out of the room without losing consciousness.
After collecting all of our green stamps, we stood in the “form return” line and then arranged for delivery of results in the “courrier” line. As we walked around two floors of this building, briefly entering rooms to have our bodies palpated, weighed, and measured, we watched hundreds of other people from at least a dozen other countries, going through the same process. The echo of different languages and intonations that resonated off the building walls created a pleasant buzz. It felt less daunting knowing that there were hundreds of other people on this day alone going through the same process.