Sunday, May 1, 2011

Lost in Translation

In Korea all Dr's offices are hospitals. I first learned this when hearing from my elementary aged class that one of the students was absent because they had to go to the hospital. Naturally I was instantly concerned for the poor little guy, given that the first bus I ever took in the country had crashed... and in the few weeks I had lived there I had witnessed around 8 collisions, I immediately thought he could have been in a car accident. Further questioning confirmed otherwise. He had a headache. I was confused... a headache??
Turns out Koreans go to the hospital the minute they feel a little under the weather... sick days are rare so rather than wait to see how a cold, cough, fever will turn out they head straight to the doctor. They generally prescribe you a medley of drugs. I say medley cos I have never had less than 5. They are given to you in little tear away packets for you to take however many times per day. I have only once been told what my little bag contained... on that occasion it was an antibiotic, a vitamin, a pill to stop the antibiotics hurting my digestion (I think), a painkiller and I am pretty sure the blue pill was to keep me in the matrix.

The reason I decided to discuss Korean doctors is due to the fact that M has recently had an ear infection. The doctor noticed it when he went for his routine vaccination so it didn't have a chance to get too bad although naturally he had a grumpy few days. The paediatrician we visit is the one attached to the maternity hospital that both the babies were born in. She speaks NO English whatsoever...she speaks Korean at lightening speed.... and she LOVES the sound of her own voice. Most of our interactions consist of her chattering away at me, while I stare back blankly. I stopped trying to hide my ignorance long ago... I shrug questioningly...  I don't laugh at the jokes she seems to find so funny. I don't answer the questions I presume she must be asking... I even say 'I don't know' in her native tongue but still she is undeterred...she just keeps chatting away. I feel bad that my command of the language isn't better but then my Korean friend said she couldn't follow her either. She can write in English though so if there is something wrong I just have her write down the diagnosis and Google it later. We continue to try find an alternative but have yet to find anyone who can speak English and is within walking distance of our home.  Also occasionally she throws in some charades.... the breastfeeding act was particularly amusing. 

As a communication tool I cannot praise charades enough. If you are willing to lose a little dignity you can usually get by in any country you should find yourself in. (The dignity part is often most affected when dealing with medical issues... miming diarrhea in a busy pharmacy is just one such example). There are the rare occasions, however, when this is not the case. In my pre-baby days I was lucky enough to travel to China. My friend and I decided we were going to travel through China and SE Asia over land, however given that South Korea is a peninsula bordered only by its infamous northern neighbour we had to resort to other transport to reach China. I suppose we could have donned our camouflage gear and attempted to evade enemy fire, land mines and prison but it just seemed a little too risky. Instead we opted to take a ferry from  Incheon in Korea to Weihai in China. The ferry ride itself was comfortable enough- we had opted to treat ourself to a first class cabin which, as swish as it may sound, was more akin to a caravan but it had comfy beds meaning we could wake up fresh in China in the morning. We were the only non-asians on the entire ferry so already we felt adventurous!  Weihai is not a big city (well by Chinese standards) so our plan was head straight to Beijing. We opted for a night sleeper bus which meant we had a few hours to kill so headed off in search of food. After walking around for a while we found what we were looking for.. a restaurant with pictures. We pointed to a couple of 'safe' looking dishes and sat waiting for our food. After living in Korea we were accustomed to being stared at.  It was clear we were quite a spectacle to the family running the restaurant, and also the family eating their meal next to us. The lady running the restaurant was so excited by our arrival she came to sit with us... she didn't speak English, we didn't speak Chinese, so we sat awkwardly smiling at each other for what seemed like a lifetime until she suddenly dashed off. A few minutes later she was back carrying a plate full of dumplings. She started pointing at the dumplings, of which there were two kinds, and miming an eating motion. We were touched she wanted us to try her food. We picked up our chopsticks and attempted to eat. Our hostess started frantically waving her arms and shaking her head. We were confused.. perhaps we weren't supposed to eat dumplings with chopsticks.. maybe it was a Chinese thing. We put our chopsticks down. Again the sweet lady started pointing at one dumpling, then another, then motioning to eat. We picked up one of the dumplings... the lady smiled..  moved it towards our mouths...again with the flapping and head shaking. By this point we had the undivided, highly amused attention of the table next to us and were feeling very confused. We guessed we had failed whatever test we were being subjected to when the hostess swept away the plate and disappeared. Still bemused we laughed it off and ate the food we had ordered. Roughly 5 minutes later our dumpling lady was back... again with her plate of goodies... although this time they were different...this time they were hot....this time they were REAL. It would seem we had been trying to tuck into the plastic imitation food often used in asian restaurant window displays. The pointing was evidently her way of finding out which ones we would like her to cook. On this occasion body language had failed us, but at least our travels had started with an amusing tale.  

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