Chris goes to China…

Rabies is finished, bring on the JE jabs.. 3 of those too..

I had the first one today, and boy are there some notes in the little box! 25% of recipients suffer some sort of reaction, which is quite high…

Anyway, this baby stings like hell for 5 minutes after the actual jab but at least I didn’t suffer an immediate reaction (30 minutes after the jab) so I was pleased about that… However, I cannot leave the country for 10 days and I MUST be near a hospital for the next 17 days in case I do get a reaction… 17 days?? That seems a long time as I have my second dose in 11 days time!!

Also I cannot drink alcohol for 48 hours  - I’m counting the hours already! About an hour ago I had a vomiting episode, let’s hope that’s the end of any reaction, at least I’m not breaking out in urticaria hives, well… not yet anyway.

The injection is made of mouse brains that are infected with the disease. It comes in two bottles, the brains in one bottle and some kind of salt solution in the other. They are mixed together, shaken and injected. Mouse brains look just like a very fine white powder, you learn something every day!

The nurse was very careful and disinfected her hands several times… Apparently they can also get a reaction if they come into contact with the stuff too!! Oh well, onwards and upwards… Only 2 more of these to go!

Well, I don’t think there ever was a King Rabies III, but I thought if I paid homage to my 3rd rabies jab then I wouldn’t get the reactions I had to the first two.. Today I had the 3rd (and final.. OH YES!!) jab for rabies… The other 2 have given me bad reactions, including talking to God on the big white telephone for several hours! This time I had it in my left arm, and Hepatitis B (Jab 2 ) in my right arm… Maybe that’ll do the trick, huh?

Finally, I decided to have the good old Japanese Encephalitis jab… Of which there are 3. The good nurse told me that there would be a charge for this jab as it wasn’t available for free, unlike all the jabs I’d had so far.. “What’s the cost?” I asked.. “£18″ she said .. “Oh, that’s not too bad” I chirped! “…. “per jab” she continued… “£54 in total” - “Ahhh.. Well… OK, let’s go for it!”

“I need to get this signed by a doctor, you need to wait in the waiting room” .. Well, I was happy overall. All of the other jabs cost me nothing, so I sat waiting…

I could see the doctor and the receptionist in a heavy discussion, and eventually I was called over…. “Mr. Harpham, I’m afraid there is a charge for this vaccine” the receptionist said, almost apologetically… “I know! I’ve been told already” I said brightly in an attempt to cheer her up somewhat for being the bearer of bad news…

“It’s £9 she said, and you need to pay now… ” Well, even if you’re not that good at maths, £9 is way cheaper than £54 and I slapped a £20 note on the counter. I received my change and headed for the chemist to get my goods… At this point things started to go sour..

The chemist told me that there would be a charge for this vaccine.. “Oh no” I said.. “I paid the doc!”

“Yes, for the administration of the drug” he assured me…  Shoot.. I never even thought of that. In the UK we pretty much get all health care for free. For some reason this drug isn’t covered, or even licensed in the UK, so we resort to the “private model” of healthcare!

So, my £9 covers the nurse to give me 3 jabs… That’s £3 per jab, it has to be good value by anyone’s reckoning. So the cheery chemist goes and makes a phone call.. I hear him say “£54″ down the phone. This is the figure I was first quoted. So far so good.

He comes over to me and says “This will cost you £90″

“What??” I replied with some venom, “I was told it was £54″

“Yes, that’s my cost price” he said aggressively. “There is a £20 delivery charge plus a 10% handling fee plus my profit”

I politely told him to go forth and multiply, and to hand back my prescription.. “Suit yourself” he said “If you think you can get it cheaper you’re welcome to try!” So I did.. and I did

Even so, I didn’t save much money but it’s the principle I suppose. I’m dreading this injection, the side effects can be very severe, including death! Yes, that’s right… DEATH is a frigging SIDE EFFECT!! Well, it’s only happened once. BUT.. It’s happened!!

I can just see the leaflet that’s in the box: Possible side effects include nausea, sweating, vomiting and death… If you experience any of these symptoms please contact your physician immediately..

OK, I’ll try…

If this blog suddenly stops after the 6th July please alert every authority you can think of!

So, I’m officially an “Expert”… I’ve never been called that before, so expect me to dwell on it on every post from now on…

So what does it mean? “Foreign Expert” in China? Well, naturally I’ve been digging around on the net and this is what I’ve found out:

• Who can be considered foreign experts working in China?

1. Foreign educational, scientific, cultural and medical experts
2. Foreign economic, technical and managerial experts
3. Representatives of foreign experts’ organizations and resident representative offices of personnel intermediary agents ratified by the State Bureau of Foreign Experts Affairs of China and registered by industrial, commercial, administrative departments (managerial, profit-making) or civil affairs departments ( non-profit-making)

• “Foreign experts” is a term for those foreign specialists who are invited to work in China to meet the needs of the Chinese economic construction and social development. Once approved by the departments concerned, they can be employed to work in China as foreign experts.
• According to the ” Civil Lawsuit Law of the People’s Republic of China”, the “Administrative Lawsuit Law of the People’s Republic of China ” and the “Contract Law”, foreign experts enjoy the same legal rights and duties as the citizens of the People’s Republic of China. If the courts of the concerned foreign expert’s country employ restrictions over the rights and duties of the Chinese citizens in their countries, then equivalent restrictions will be employed over these foreign experts in China.
• Foreign experts can enjoy preferential treatment given by the Chinese government and will be praised or awarded for their good performance by the local governments or their work units. The highest award is the “Friendship Prize” given by the Chinese government.

So there you go… At least I will be equal to all Chinese nationals, that’s a great pluspoint! But I’ve heard also that the FEs get a lot of preferential treatment.. I’ll report here if that’s the case, for now I will keep an open mind!

At last! The mysterious (but now angelic) Mr. Gao has finally come good! The postman banged on my door early this morning for me to sign for a “package” - This package contained the penultimate piece of the “working in China” jigsaw… The Invitation Letter! Well.. I assume it is. What else could it be? The problem is that the two rubber stamped pieces of paper contained within are written in Chinese, and Chinese only.. There’s only one thing for it! I had to see “My Mate Jeff” !!

Let me introduce you to Jeff. A few months ago I was in town doing some window shopping. I live in a town of about 50,000 people I suppose. It’s not very big but has some nice pubs, shops and restaurants all the same.. Talking of shops, one of them in the arcade is a Chinese Herbs and Acupuncture Centre, I suppose most towns have something similar. Anyway, I was reading all the literature in the window and I suppose I must have been there longer than I suspected because someone came out and said “Hello!” Well, I just happened to know the Chinese for “Hello”  so I replied confidently “Ni Hao!” and the poor Chinese girl’s jaw nearly hit the floor!

“You speak Chinese??” she exclaimed, and her face lit up like a beacon. Eager to impress further I continued to use up two thirds of my total Chinese vocabulary by saying “yes” or “shi” in Chinese.. Boy, I could tell that I’d impressed her and she invited me into the shop.

By now, I’m on a roll but quickly became unstuck when, in front of the other 2 Chinese employees she rattled off for 30 seconds to me in Chinese.. I’m totally confused by now and naturally didn’t understand anything she’d said. What did I do? Like a fool I used the last word of Chinese in my armoury… “Thank you” or “xie xie” in Chinese.

Amazingly this was greeted with smiles and vigorous handshakes from the 2 male employees… What the hell had she said? I would never find out, but I did figure this was the time to come clean about my Chinese language abilities… Fortunately laughs all round and I was introduced by “Ri” or maybe “Ree” to the other two. One was introduced as “Jeff” and the other as “Dr. Wu” (Yes, really!)

I casually dropped it into the conversation that I was going to work in China later this year as a teacher of English. They were all excited by this and they asked “Which City?” I was expecting deathly silence when I replied “Harbin” as it is really a remote, though large, city and it’s not exactly as well known as Beijing and Shanghai.. Imagine my surprise when the word Harbin was greeted with whoops of laughter and smiles all round… It just happens to be Jeff’s home city! I sensed that I had already become Jeff’s best mate in the UK, and he spent the next 90 minutes telling me all about Harbin! What a result. We exchanged email addresses and I was invited to pop in at any time to discuss anything with “My mate Jeff”.. Today was one of those days!

So I popped in and politely asked if they were busy.. “Yes”, replied Jeff… “OK, I wanted your advice but I can call another time” I replied, turning towards the door.. “No, please! We aren’t that busy!” came the reply in unison from Jeff and Ri.. (Dr. Wu was in the back doing a kidney transplant using acupuncture, probably)

“Ah good! I hope you can help me with these documents I received from China today.”

They read them with interest and informed me that I had a letter of invitation from the province inviting me to work there as a “Foreign Expert”.. I said “Are you sure?” - “Yes! It says here, Foreign Expert” and they pointed to the relevant heiroglyphical  characters which meant nothing to me but I nodded anyway in some sort of acceptance.. You must take them to the Chinese Embassy to get your visa!

“Foreign Expert” I was thinking… That’s a step up from “Foreign Teacher” - In fact, a huge step up from what I’ve read - Experts get a lot more than plain old Teachers.. Watch out for the next post in which I’ll try to explain the difference of an “Expert” from a “teacher”..

OK, I have 2 photos of the building I will be working in.. this is the languages block as I’m led to believe.. It looks big and scary.. But hey, I’m sure I’ll be fine…

Well I had my 2nd (from 3) Rabies injection yesterday… If all goes as it did after the first one, then the next 24 hours will be spent speaking to God on the “big white telephone!” I was rough after the first one! So far, so good.. I hope it remains that way

It’s weird how things work out.. I was introduced to this university by Vicki, a Chinese recruiting agent based in China. She seemed really keen and I got a phone call from her on a weekly basis. It gave me confidence. All this started way back in January. She liaised with the extremely mysterious Mr. Gao and everything was going great.. I decided to ask her for an email address of a teacher who was actually working at the place, and she responded with Nikki’s email..

Now, as it turns out Nikki isn’t working for the same university, but she will be from September just like me. She is however in Harbin at another school. She is full of praise for the uni setup though..

This girl is very switched on .. I mean it! Although she’s only 19 years old she left Canada to do research in China totally alone! Now, people have told me that I am brave.. Forget it.. She is incredibly brave. I think back to when I was 19… Hmm.. What shall I do today? Go to China for a year! Actually no, it never occurred to me!

But she actually did it, and is there right now! She’s also volunteered to help me, to meet me at the airport, to kick the arse of the mysterious Mr. Gao.. and she has too. She’s a Godsend right now as Vicki seems to have disappeared into thin air. No emails from her. Emails sent to her now bounce back.. Thank God for Nikki!

Hopefully I will get the vital letter of invitation in the next 2 weeks, watch this space!

There are actually no compulsory vaccinations needed to visit China, at least not here in the UK. That’s the good news then! But.. they do recommend a few. Actually, it’s a lot. A very lot. I had to fill in a form at the doctor’s and they sent it off somewhere… Basically they wanted to know which part of China I would be living in, what type of accommodation I would be staying in and crucially how long would I be there… OK, I filled it in and waited for the response..

YIKES! I need what? How many??

A previous post lists the total jabs needed.. I’ve had a few already, I’m almost half way there.. Here’s what I’ve had..

First visit to the docs:

In my left arm, Typhoid, Diphtheria and Tetanus…. In my right arm, Hepatitis A and Polio. Sooo.. No problem there then! Easy peasy.. Except my left arm went totally like lead for 24 hours and when it came back to life I developed ‘flu like symptoms for the next 24 hours. Not nice!

Still.. It was 2 more weeks to the next lot. This time I had Hepatitis B in my left  arm and Rabies in my right arm. Absolutely no problem, after all I’m getting to become an expert now!

24 hours later I’m up until 5am vomiting for the Olympic Gold medal.. I at least deserve a podium placing. This was vile. I assume the Rabies jab was to blame for that one! The Hep B was actually quite wonderful.. As the fluid was going in I became instantly light-headed and uttered the word “wow!” as the adrenalin rushed to my head somewhat.. The nurse said “Ahhhh.. Some people react like that!” Fortunately I have 2 more of those - Bring it on!

I was there for about an hour, with doctors and nurses arguing about what I should and should not be having.. Various other vaccines were added to the list including Malaria, Cholera and Tick-Borne. But the big talking point was Japanese Encephalitis.. Boy, that caused some rumbles! The doc said he wouldn’t bother, the nurse didn’t know much about it, and I was almost insisting on it.. It’s a nasty condition if you get it although I admit it IS fairly rare. (You have to be bitten by a mosquito that’s already bitten a pig or a bird). BUT…

If you are that unlucky then 99% of people have no symptoms whatsoever.. The brain just swells to bursting point by which time it’s too late of course, and 30% of people just croak. The rest don’t have too good of a time for the rest of their natural.. So I’m pretty keen to have it! BUT AGAIN, there are problems with the actual injection.. The drug isn’t licensed, it causes the most weird side effects, and it’s expensive. I can understand the cost, the serum is made from infected mouse brains… WHAT? Yeah, I suppose they are on the rare side, and it might explain the side effects.. Squeak squeak..

Tiling is FINISHED! That was hard work! Tilers deserve all the money they earn.. Never again for for me!

Well.. I was totally immobilised from the previous day of tiling.. My knees are are sore and bruised.. The tiles still look like badly laid tiles.. Tomorrow will get the photos after I’ve cleaned up, again.. Maybe!

Today, I received 4 books I ordered from Amazon about China. 2 translation books plus the “Rough guide” and “The Lonely Planet” - Very interesting reads.. The Rough Guide being the best of the four.. so far at least!

Harbin seems to be split across a river, and the northern inhabitants seem to have the rough deal… Frankly, there’s no bridge! Just a ferry or the cable car! This could be a great problem! Watch this page!