The old man looked at me and said, "Lift your shirt."
I complied, sucking in my corpulent gut. I didn't want him to think I was too slovenly, what with the multiple folds of flub decorating my midsection.
Rubbing his pudgy hands along my back, applying pressure here and there, he cooed, "Hmmm, looks good. My, you have wonderful skin!"
Embarrassed, I forced a sigh and a giggle. "Thanks."
Pointing south with his gloved hand, he asked with a playful smile, "You want me to check out what's going on down there?"
I politely declined, but he persisted. "You suuuuuure?"
"Yes, thanks." It was a little too early for me to get fingered by an old man. It wasn't Saturday night and I was quite sober, so this could only mean one thing. Yearly medical check-up time!
My old friend was clearly disappointed by my rejection, but there would be other soft-skinned foreign boys for him to bugger with his geriatric digit. He scribbled a note onto my checklist near his "Internal Medicine" section: "asshole and genital exam refused." He gestured for me to confirm with my initials, lest I come back later to sue him for missing my enlarged prostate or elephantitised testes. Breathing a sigh of relief, I exited his office and moved on to the next station.
A few minutes earlier, I was jabbed by something significantly less fleshy.
I had spent the previous sleepless night dreading that 0.4 second instant when the soft fleshy crevice of my elbow-pit would be pierced by the sharp glimmering needle, but it wasn't so bad. Even as my blood was being stolen from my very veins, I gazed calmly down at the pierced dermis, registered the foreign agent penetrating my life force, and didn't even faint or feel terrified. Never in my entire life have I been able to meet the gaze of a hypodermic needle, much less one rammed into my arm. How on Earth was it possible on this day? Because Mr. Bean was there to help me.
All I NeedShanghai's Mei Nian (MN) Healthcare is one of the coolest clinics I've ever had the sweaty panicked fortune of visiting. From the outside, the all-glass surface of the cubical building gives it a modern edge that is further exaggerated by the dirty and dilapidated old hospital building next door. MN is just for check-ups, conducted in classic Chinese fashion: like an assembly line.
In the past, upon arrival, we had been given a piece of paper -- the checklist -- which we would carry to room after room, getting poked, prodded and examined like animals, just nameless faces in a steady stream of endless patients. One doctor in each room, one check-mark for each exam. When the hunt was finished, we would return the wrinkled paper to the front desk and go on our way with a hard-boiled egg and steamed bun as healthy rewards. At MN, we were given a clipboard with our checklist and an electronic sensor card. Then the fun could begin.
For the first time in my life, I could see the benefits of simple technology applied to such a routine task. Once I had my eyes checked, the doctor input some incomprehensible Chinese into her computer, swiped my card to save the data to my file, and instructed me to the next stop, the ears-nose-and-throat check. Above each exam room doorway, the name of the next patient in line would scroll across an LED screen, listing out all those pending in the queue for that particular exam. In such a furiously hectic and confusing country, this is a giant advance in common sense and convenience. I nodded to myself in delight and sat down on the brown patent leather sofas filling the central waiting area, waiting for my turn to check my blood pressure.
Everything about this place was designed to comfort and soothe. As Mr. Bean made a complete fool of himself on the big HD screen near the blood test area -- a perfect distraction for weak-kneed wussy boys -- quiet music was piped through the hall. Potted plants and flowers rested silently on clean glass tables. There was no rushing, no pushing, no commotion of the sort that I had experienced at past medical check ups in comparatively more outdated, Soviet-style settings. Everyone knew where they were supposed to be, everything spaced and timed for efficiency.
Even the urine test was a breeze. Often my favorite part of the day, simply due to sheer nastiness. At my last visit to a hospital in the suburbs, I emerged from the bathroom with a plastic cup of clear amber brew. The proud smile on my face (no spillage!) was shattered into a million bits when the piss-collecting ayi started to yell at me. "Too much! Agggh!" Then she grabbed my cup with her sticky-dried-piss hands, spilling some on the floor and my wrist. She ripped off the cap and dumped the excess into the garbage can, splattering my essence onto the filthy tiled floor, replacing the plastic cover and tossing the more-manageable specimen onto a table of samples stacked ten-high and five-deep. The smell could make a lesser man faint.
Shuddering at the memory, I was smarter this time. As I approached the bathroom, for one, it didn't smell like used baby diapers. The pee auntie sat at a desk patiently with a pair of tongs. I watched as she delicately lifted a cup of piss between those metal tweezers, pouring out the extra into a designated piss bucket. The splatter spray almost got me, but I nimbly skipped back to avoid the flying droplets. The rest was gently dribbled into a test tube with the patient's name on it. This was actually clean. Questions of sterility can't apply to anything in this country, so you take what you can get.
I hovered over the urinal with the plastic cup in my left hand -- there was a convenient indent on the edge just for our holding convenience -- and deposited just the right amount that I had seen her pour into the other test tube. I just wanted to make her day easier. Happy with the clarity and color, I slowly walked my properly-hydrated self over to the pee auntie, making sure not to spill. Instead of assaulting me with dirty pee hands, she smiled and received my cup. She seemed happy to avoid that communal bucket.
Apple Juice or Wee-wee?
(Hint: it's drinkable)
The ultrasound goo gave me a tingly little chill as it was smeared across my abdomen, providing ample slide for the sensor that would confirm that all my organs were still in the proper location. Check.
The snapping pop made by the EKG suction-cup sensors as they were pulled off my chest made me giggle, as did the firm fondling I received by the doctor charged with examining my torso. Check, check.
After many times down this same road, I was delighted to finally have an experience that I would not need to disclose in therapy sessions 10 or 20 years from now. The only issue raised by any of the dozen doctors that had seen my quivering flesh that day had been that I need more exercise, as if I didn't know that already. Overall, a clean bill of health.
And really wonderful skin.
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