Becoming a person

One aspect of being a stranger in a strange land is a loss of self-identity. I am no longer a person. Instead of just being the non-descript guy walking down the street, I'm suddenly the 老外, the foreigner. In general this is pretty harmless--it mostly attracts a lot of "hello"s, occasional pointing (by kids mostly), and a stare here and there--a big change from the China of a few years ago where any foreigner outside of major cities would draw crowds of onlookers. Being a foreigner colors everything, however, as made crystal clear by our search for an apartment over the past few days. On day one, we were accompanied by YunFei, the incredibly helpful lady from the provincial bureau of health who met us at the airport. We definitely needed the handholding, as everything is different here. People often don't clean the apartments before they move out--the landlords leave that to the incoming tenants; rent is expected for the entire year up front; and rentals are generally handled by agents who are often only familiar with an area of a few blocks. It seemed that no matter what requirements we stated we had, someone felt they knew what would be better for us, and showed us places that came nowhere close to meeting our expectations. Case in point: That's the squat toilet, that's the state of cleaning, and that's the water heater sitting on the squat toilet, instead of haning from the wall. After day one, we managed to take over for ourselves, having learned some of the local real estate lingo, and managed to find some more appealing places in areas where transportation is more convenient and in neighborhoods where Hyunjoo and Ella will have something to do during the day. Figuring out how to talk with the agents and not just be dragged around has definitely made me feel like more of a real person again. We've finally found a few places that will be acceptable (some very nice), at prices much higher than most people spend here, but much lower than what we'd pay in the States. The photo above is the master bedroom of our top candidate apartment for the time being. It's furnished, on the 14th floor of a nice building, with 2 bedrooms, for about $450/month. I asked the landlord if we had to keep the wedding photo of him and his wife above the bed. He very sincerely and emphatically replied that we didn't have to keep it up as he'd be taking it with him. After I explained I was joking, his mood brightened a bit, and I think I earned a few more person points. But the biggest factor in becoming a bit more of a real person is this: It's the cheapest, most featureless phone we were able to buy, with no monthly plan, just pay as you go. So, I'm nowhere close to being cool, but I am reachable by the real estate agents, and approaching personhood. We are falling into a bit of a routine as well. The residual jetlag still has us waking just before sunrise, which defnitely has it's perks: I've actually been running in the morning for the past 3 days (the most I've done in at least 5 years, if you've noticed the belly in the photos...). Sometimes I run with Megan when our jetlagged awakenings coincide, and we're brave enough to knock on eachother's doors at 6:30. My routine is walking down the 14 flights of stairs from the room, 10 minutes jogging along the river, 10 minutes of stretching, another 10 minutes jogging back, and finally the climb up 14 flights back to the room. Megan and I have both gotten some stares from the people by the elevators as we ascend the old-fashioned way. After running, we proceed to our BufetBreakafase: "It's complimentary in lage's baby" actually translates as 18 yuan for children, free for kids under 2 years. I don't have any clue where "lage's" came from... Ella continues to make friends. She's not suffering from any identity crises. As for me, the other big step in becoming a person is moving toward doing something productive. We had dinner this week with Dr Zhou, who holds many titles, and is a local expert in treating HIV/AIDS, vice-president of an infectious disease hospital, and our local contact who will be guiding us through the process of preparing for the eventual opening of the Clinical Center of Excellence in pediatric HIV/AIDS, which we are here to help establish and staff. Dr Zhou is the one with the Baylor College of Medicine cap--a little gift from Houston, and the lady on the left is Yunfei, whom I've already mentioned has been an invaluable help. Hyunjoo is the one behind the camera... So far we've only met briefly over dinner regarding our plans. Dr Zhou says that there are so few pediatric patients in the current clinic that he doesn't think we'll make good use of our time just seeing children. He'd like us to help see adults locally, as well as occasionally travel to outlying areas where we probably will see some kids. He'd also like us to help with interpretation and education. We still have to meet formally to go over many things and discuss our plans further. I think we'll try to convince him that our primary purpose here is to treat children rather than translating (not really qualified anyway) and seeing adults. So we may need to do some outreach to identify kids that we can bring to the existing clinic and begin ramping up the treatment program sooner rather than later. Our purpose in coming here before the new Center is established is to make sure that kids aren't dying for lack of treatment while we wait for the Center to be built. My guess is that the current clinics aren't short on pediatric patients because there aren't kids with HIV/AIDS, but rather that there isn't a system to get them into treatment. If nobody is treating kids, there's no reason for them to seek care. That said, we're new, and despite approaching personhood, we are still foreigners looking in from the outside with a limited understanding of the situation. We certainly need to get a better feel for things before we go making too many suggestions. We have a lot of work ahead of us.