The Chinese Hospital

We head out of the hotel at 7 am and catch a taxi up at the corner. The driver looks at the directions to the National Traditional Chinese Medicine University, written in Chinese, and nods. We ask if he understands – dong bu dong – to which he says – dwei. Yes, he knows where to go. He takes off down the 4th ring road and while he and my husband begin bouncing back and forth in minimal Chinese, he misses the turn-off. Not to worry. He’s off at the next turn and we arrive at the hospital faster than we anticipated. New route to remember.

Already there are hundreds of people sitting on benches, milling around, purchasing needles and medications. We move through the crowd to the hallway in the rear and are motioned down to a room with half-wall partitions. An older man rolls off one of the narrow cots in one section and the nurse motions for my husband to roll on. An older woman leaves the other cot. David removes his outer pants and shoes and lies down, placing his own clean towel on the definitely not clean pillow. This is his sixth visit, and the second one without a translator, but they seem to know him, know what he needs, and how to proceed.

A young man arrives and asks for the needles. Each patient purchases their own acupuncture needles so that they are sterile. With a bottle of alcohol, a swab, and a steady hand, he quickly places about ten needles on either side of the back bone, down the back of the leg, and a few down near the ankle of the right side. He leaves.

A young woman arrives with a wooden box from which is rising aromatic smoke. I surmise that it has a metal lining because I can see hot coals inside the box. She places it on my husband’s back on beside the needles and covers it with a thick padded cloth the color of mud. Smoke begins to waft upward, not unpleasant, but very Chinese and medicinal.

Meanwhile a woman about 40 has come into the little compartment, strips to panties and bra and lays on her stomach on the other cot. Another doctor arrives and places needles in her back. She then gets a similar charcoal box.

The next arrival is a woman with a long narrow face and high cheek bones. She has a dish pan full of glass globes, a bottle of alcohol, and a stainless steel tool with an alcohol swab on the end. She swiftly lifts globe after globe, lights the swab with a lighter, swabs the inside of the globe and slaps it on my husband’s back. Each globe creates a vacuum and the skin inside the globe buldges upward.

Quiet descends over our cubicle but around us are probably ten other people on cots having similar treatments. There is a thin bamboo slatted curtain at my husband's head and I can see the front hall with its mass of waiting people right outside our room.

After a time the globe girl returns and takes the glass globes off and stows them in her dishpan. The lady on the other cot has been similarly “globed” and is sleeping. Another white jacketed young man comes in and removes the needles from my husband’s back and begins a lengthy massage, using his hands, his fists, his elbows alternately. He works for a good 30 minutes up and down the spine, rump, and upper thigh.

At some point the treatment is done. I’m not sure what the signal is but we’re motioned to leave. A tall older woman is hovering for the cot. My husband pulls on his pants and shoes and we exit to the hallway, down to the center door, and out into the hot courtyard where we catch a taxi back to our hotel.

Not a word of English has been spoken. In fact, there have been almost no words at all.