TTM travels

not happy jan

Just back from market where i saw among other things, otter skins and an old man selling bear paws. The realities of this country are sometimes a little too real.

last day

It was a lovely, busy and little bit sad day.

Firstly we had to run around and take all new pictures of everyone because I have had camera gremlins and all the photos that I had not yet put onto memory stick have been wiped through some mysterious means. It is more annoying than anything else, but there is no real point in getting upset, gone is gone.

Then I had to give my thanks and goodbyes to the administrators before going out for lunch with all my lovely doctors. The hospital has given me a fancy little official document recording my month of training, in Chinese and Tibetan, but it looks nice. And I have a standing welcome to return at any time and I should feel free to contact any of the doctors I have been working with if I need help in the future. Which is a very kind offer that I was very happy to receive.

My main worry is that my face will be all over the electronic screens on every floor of the hospital with footage from the filming the other day ... not good!

Although I had invited the doctors to lunch I asked them to chose the restaurant. So we went to what they call a family restaurant, Tibetan, which is an eating place in a home. The main area, what we would call the living room is the restaurant area. The room is very beautifully decorated in Tibetan style. It is very private, only one group at a time, and blessedly quiet. Chinese restaurants are so noisy! Although that seems to be a universal thing, not just Xining! The two Ku Nye doctors had ordered the meal and it was very nice and very traditional Tibetan food.

We had a lovely time, of course they all know each other well, and chatted away. They really appreciated the gesture and made some very kind comments to me about my work and how they honour me for coming all that way to study with them, and hope I will be a very great doctor. The only area of disappointment is my ability to eat as much as they do! I do not have an Amdo stomach capacity!

Later on when I was talking to Pema and his friend Tserang, they told me this is a very private establishment and not many people get to go there, it is mostly for high ranking Tibetan officials. So I was happy to have taken them to somewhere really good and a bit special.

Its funny, after a while, anywhere, you stop thinking about the local currency compared to your own and start to see it at its own level. When I paid for the lunch I thought oh, 500 rmb, thats expensive. I did not mind and I had put the money aside, but the thought flashed through. And then I had a reality check, lunch, a very good lunch with more than twelve dishes, for seven people for about 70 of  my dollars! Where could you do that in Melbourne in an equivalent place...

So the weekend is for resting and gathering up all my stuff from around the apartment. Monday I decide where to go next, but Lhasa is most likely. But either there or Mahlo is fine, I can choose. there is a bit of paperwork to get through for the Lhasa permit and checking flights. I am not going to sit on the train for 26 hours and a sleeper costs more than flying. I have a box of books and stuff which I am going to mail home on monday rather than cart them all over the country.

The boys have also taught me how to cook the meat nomad style in big pieces. So watch out for that treat when I get home. Still haven't learnt to eat the big lumps of fat however, next life maybe.

As I was leaving in the afternoon the two Ku Nye ladies kept chasing me for one more hug. And I had to promise to really study hard my Tibetan so next time they can talk directly to me, without a translator. They talk so fast, I don't think I would ever be that good. They are both named Tserang, they have worked together for more than 20 years, share the same birthday, and never stop talking to each other, they are delightful. Since my first trip they have always been so kind, welcoming and happy to share all of their knowledge and experience. Also true of all the doctors I have had anything to do with here. Lucky girl, me.

Just dont know how I will go next week without my daily song from Aku Pema though...

last day tomorrow

at Xining hospital.

But first a Bus Note, after I posted the other day I had a vision that could make it all crystal clear. It is EXACTLY like the night bus in Harry Potter, just without the hags and werewolves, well as far as I could see anyway.

Anyway, tomorrow being my last day I will take my last photos, take the Doctors who have been helping me out to lunch, give out some gifts and go on a long round of goodbyes around the hospital. It really has gone in the blink of an eye and I have seen and learned so much. A lot of the medicine stuff I have not written about because I realise its not of interest to everyone ... learned that the hard way talking about urine analysis, but oh well.

Today was one out of the box however, as I am now a movie star. We all ran after Dr Nyima to watch a Golden needle treatment, as you do, only to get there and find a film crew as well. That was not so good for the man getting the treatment, i felt a bit sorry for him sitting there having something quite painful and all on full show.

But as soon as they saw me, their eyes lit up and I had to be filmed, interviewed, filmed doing Yuk Cho and then filmed again doing Ku Nye. They were about to go and get a famous doctor to ask me questions and I nearly fled, not fair to be given a test on film at the end of a long day! It will be a documentary film used for promotion of the hospital. I just dont ever want to see it!

more later, time for dinner!

buses, lunch and trivia

Firstly a little rant about buses. I am a confirmed elitist I confess ... I miss my car! Mostly the no waiting, but also its the privacy, and the small injuries sustained. I have had enough of being up close and personal with my fellow humans on the bus.

We are packed like King Oscars, there is a rail to hold and you really need to hold it because the bus comes to a screeching halt at any time without warning. Today I feel as if I have dislocated both my shoulders! I already have one bus injury .. a wrenched knee from trying to stay upright during a stunt stop. And lets not forget the kidney area, so handy for attack from a shoulder bag or an elbow when someone is trying to make their way to the back. Of course while we are all standing nose to armpit it also is a great opportunity for some to have a really good stare at me, I sometimes think they are trying to see what I had for breakfast... hmmm maybe a little tired and grumpy today!

Now in my last week and there are lots of things to do and it seems a bit wrong that just as I am in a rhythym and part of the place that it is time to move on, but move on I must, Mahlo and Dr Machig are waiting! There are a whole swag of new patients, and some still there .. very long stay some of them.

Today I interviewed Dr Padma for a future edition of the TTM Journal. Very interesting, he studied with his medicine teacher for thirty years! He has very strong views on Tibetan medicine and how it should be practiced and taught and feels very happy that western students are taking it up too. He says we study harder! He showed me two really old and tiny photos of his two teachers. I took a close up picture and am having some printed for him so he has a spare, the originals are quite worn.

In between my own patients I taught a small group and then spent time with Dr Padma doing diagnosis then back to external therapies to watch people being stuck with sharp things or being set on fire in some way ... only kidding!

As the hosptial does not provide meals for in patients and there is lots of day traffic there is quite a selection of restaurants to chose from. We go out for lunch because it is easier than trying to make and bring stuff. Also its very cheap and we ... Sonam and I .. can eat a large meal for less than you pay for a Maccas meal. So lunch is the main meal of the day, keeps my energy up and if I am too tired to cook much when I get home at least most of the food groups have been covered! usually rice or noodles and vegetable dishes, sometimes we go to the Tibetan place for momos or soup with momos. Or for a spicy lunch, the Muslim restaurant for noodle soup with beef and chilli. That is really cheap, about two bucks for both of us. Today I felt like some meat and we went to a Chinese place I Iike and had a really delicous braised chicken dish and rice. That was a bit dearer, about six bucks for the two of us. Whenever I look up, the owner grins at me and puts her thumbs up, I am taking that as approval for my mad chopstick skills.

After lunch I like to do like the nomads and lie on the grass under the trees, but it disturbs the doctors and other students when I do that, its not proper for a western lady! so we go for walk or sit and talk inside on the waiting chairs.

Some fun Xining facts:

There are five thousand five hundred taxis, we know this because we had a taxi driver the other day who was as chatty as Sonam, much information was exchanged. If you want to take a taxi to Lhasa from Xining .. you need your head read for starters, and it will cost you 7000 rmb, only 700 rmb to fly!

A box of yoghurt ... containers of .... is the ideal gift for someone like a teacher or an elder. You can give bread too. Or alcohol if you must! But beer is frowned upon in the gifting stakes.

Girls like the chicken feet better than the boys.

The garbage trucks are now playing Jingle Bells, which is oddly cheering.

An assortment of photos below. The Chicken Feet Snak Paks, yes they are there. I had to buy a pair of feet, even though it was a bit wasteful but I had this mental picture of a one legged chook .... and they come in different flavours! Sonam says the white ones are hot, but they are hot in a vineagar soused sort of way. The ones at yum cha have at least had a pedi! The red ones are red cooked, lots of star anise. I bought, I photographed, I tasted, I wont be repeating the experience! The things I do for you all!

http://buttercupchappati.typepad.com/photos/allsorts_but_no_liquorice/index.html

whats going on...

social things.

After a pleasant day shopping ... I was looking for some nice notepaper to write thankyous on ... not possible it seems, we had dinner with a couple of students still here from the group. They are leaving today. They had gone on a little two day trip to Kokonor with Tserang ... Pema's friend who is also a tour guide. Tserang had invited them and me to a meal at his home, which he and Pema cooked. So we had a very multicultural evening with Tibetans, an Estonian, a Malayasian who resides in Singapore, and me.

Today I went to the Tibetan market to buy some medicines to bring back, but although the doctor was there, his dispensing nurse was not so will have to go back. Enjoyed a walk around the market anyway ... hanging on to my pack, the place is full of midget pickpockets! I was admiring all the coral today, way way out of my price range, but still lovely to look at. It is sold by the gram.

Then I had lunch with Noryung and we chatted and wandered the shops after. She returns to her university in Xian next week so I won't see her again before I go. We went to her faourite restaurant which serves Korean food. It was delicious! I have not had any Korean food before and it was a nice change from the Chinese and Tibetan menus.

We had a rice bowl, which comes in a sizzling cast iron bowl. It is filled with cooked rice and topped with meat of your choice, vegetables and a fried egg. Alongside is a bowl of a tomato style sauce which you spoon into your pot and stir it all about. Also served with it is a spicy soup with tomato and pickled vegetables. It was really good, light, not oily and very tasty. As much as I enjoy the Chinese Muslim food, it is very oily and sometimes that makes for an unhappy stomach!

She is taking care of me and presented me with a bottle of moisturising cream for when I go toMahlo, because it is so dry up there! And then after checking on the hat situation ... I forgot mine, have been using an umbrella when in the sun, she took me hat shopping, again for when in Mahlo. The sun is much stronger there.

It is pageant season, and in the morning hordes of little girls in fancy skirted leotards prance by going to their competitions. They wear more blue eyeshadow than we did in the seventies!

This is quite a thing now, and I have seen it on the tv last year. Sadly,  influenced by the movie Little Miss Sunshine, the fathers all now get up on the stage and perform with their daughters... Anyone winning a medal does not take it off for love nor money, that thing is welded to their tiny chest.

I have just heard the news of Geshe Loden passing, what a sad thing, he will be greatly missed. Really the end of an era, a very great Lama.

And Mathew has bought his ticket for the UK and will be off in a few weeks. Yes, I am crying a bit here at the news. I am very happy for him to have this experience, but it will be very sad coming home without him being there. Sooky mother, I know.

And if you were wondering, in a spare minute or in the long dark hours of a sleepless night, what ever happened to Richard Clayderman. He is busy on the side of buses for the Bank of China. Why...

yay for sleep and the pleasures of english

I love saturday, a sleep in ... well a relative sleep in thanks to the free alarm clock provided by the musical garbage trucks. A day without firm plans and time comittments is a good day. May go to the Tibetan market today.

This week I am especially blessing my ipod, with a whole swag of spoken books to choose from, the delicious comfort of being read to! And to hear english is very nice. It is hard to understand the translators sometimes, so I am always straining to really listen to word, intonation and pronunciation, as well as trying to identify Tibetan words in the rapid streams around my ears. Chinese...I have given up as too hard this time! They speak even faster than the Tibetans! In Mahlo I should be able to practice more Tibetan, and they speak very good Tibetan there.

I have had some more cupping done this week courtesy Dr Nyima, he is fast and fearless, he swoops a large flame into the cup and places it at top speed. So my back is now quite colourful and looks like an attack from a giant octopus has taken place. I have a bit of back pain from leaning over the tables to treat, being used to working on the floor it is not so comfortable for me to work this way.

It was decided that some moxa would also be helpful, so off to Aku Pema for that. Just one spot, on the top vertebra, to pacify the winds in my heart. He uses a small moxa cone on the skin, and yes it hurt, but only for a minute. He runs a stone around the burning cone, the coldness distracts you a little from the pain. He says the stone does other things, it has been used by healers in his family for over one hundred years! It is not a simple stone he tells me. If I want one, I have to go to a cave and find a stone that has not seen sunlight, wrap it well and bring it to my healing place, never sit in the sun. Ok.

When he finished blowing on the moxa and then put his finger on the spot to put it out, I said now you have put your mark on me, he roared laughing. But really, it was so small, there will not be a scar, and already I can not feel it.

Still treating lots of people with the yuk cho, and yesterday afternoon I taught a group of students, which was really lovely. On monday I have another group to teach, from the ku nye department. Still treating the Lama, after each session his wife presents me with a bottle of fruit juice.

Last night we went to a hot pot restaurnt for dinner, and it was HOT! I dont want to think about what colour red my face was as I mopped the sweat. Delicious though, a huge pot of some stock, lots of chili and quite a lot of oil, garlic and ginger is placed on the table and then all the plates come with whatever you have ordered. Beer would have been good, but it was a muslim restaurant so no alcohol.

Tserang has just come to visit and he tells us the top Geshe from Rongbo monastery in Rebkong will be offering Kalachakra at his home village in a few weeks, this is very exciting for them and they are expecting a huge turn out of people. The teaching will go for 6 days.

Tomorrow I go and apply for a visa extension and then I can firm up my movements from the end of next week. Last week at the hospital here and then off to Mahlo and Dr Machig. It will be so good to be up on the grasslands and away from the dust and traffic of Xining.

yes still here

so here I am in the third week - hard to believe!

It is busy and busy and oh yes, busy! I am a bit under the weather due to eating something that did not quite agree with me, very unusual here. My suspect is some tofu I got from the little shop downstairs one night when I was too lazy to walk to the market. My bad. But that is on its way now, thank goodness.

I have my own room for giving treatments now, and my own entourage of students, it is so funny to me. Give me few more weeks and I will have a receptionist and a coffee machine... maybe!

I have had the honour of treating the Ngakpa lama this week, he has trouble with a shoulder and the yuk cho therapy is very good for pain in the shoulder. So he is very happy, we are getting great results, and I am happy because he is very familiar with the history of this treatment, finally someone who knows what I am doing! So i have lots to share on that when I get home.

He told Sonam I was the only person in the hospital he would let do this therapy on him, so I feel very flattered, being a foreigner and all! When they talk about the Three Great Ngakpas of Rebkong, one of them is him. When Sonam told his father he was in the same room with him, he shouted down the phone "don't do anything bad manners!" I have a picture which I will try and load when the internet gods are smiling, it was a special accomadation for me to allow it because of all the work I am doing on him.

Today the Handsome Doctor showed me how to prepare the moxa herbs for use. The prefered plant here is a kind of eidelweiss but I will try his method on the artemsia as see how it goes. It was really interesting. He loves making the medicines and therapeutic stuff you can tell, and he studied it with Aku Nyima for three years so he must be good at it!

Still treating Dr Nyima as well, again great results. And he actually let me do some cupping on a patient this week, so I am stepping up the ladder. Also have been accepted into his student group, I was invited to stay back for after work watermelon tonight! Makes a change from chardonnay...

Saw a minature chow chow today, not a pomeranian, not a puppy, a real chow that had been hit by a shrinking ray, very odd!

The dogs here are hilarious, spoiled rotten, smiling, very well fed, they are content citizens of their town. There was a nomad guy at Kumbum with a big tibetan mastiff, and for 10 yuan you could take a picture with it. Everyone was very frightened of it, and while I would not go near one up on the grasslands, this was just a big old dopey dog, such a baby!

I had some cupping done myself today, so my back is quite a pciture, fronting up again tomorrow. In between patients and rounds with Aku Pema!

　

up hill and down, no wait

it felt like it was all up hill!

Back from a day of stretching those legs muscles and then some. The Handsome Doctor ... you know which one I mean ... and his wife and Sonam and I had a great day out.

First we went to Kumbum monastery, (not to go in, I have been before, its not my favourite place) but to the street of metal workers outside. I am on a mission for some more Me Bum, the copper cups I use for cupping treatments. We had a nice time up and down the street inspecting all the different ones, making sure they were sound, smooth on the edges and had no holes in them.

As is always the way, the first ones we saw ended up being the best. And then there is the obligatory bargaining ... which I am hopeless at, so Sonam makes me step back, and on no account am I allowed to make a move towards my purse until he has settled the price.

Cups found, to everyones satisfaction, then we walked up and up and up a small mountain to look for moxa herbs. We were probably a week or so late, the ones we wanted were all too dry but I should be able to find some in Mahlo. Anyway it was so lovely to be out of the city and walking among trees, grass and healing herbs. It was probably only a hill for them, but the doctor has long legs! There were quite a lot of herbs he was able to show me, as this area is not being grazed right now, there is plenty growing.

Then a late lunch before we headed back to town. This time I could not eat the food,  far too much fat in the dumplings for me. It is something that Tibetans and Chinese do not understand, our dislike for fat. I guess we have never really starved so don't put the same value on it. No thanks!

And fyi, my lamb/mutton dinner was delicious. An extremely multicultural affair, Tibetan mutton cooked in a wok with Chinese beer adapting a Flemish recipe for Beef cooked in Beer. Needed to cook for a long time but in the end was quite tender and very good to eat. Hooray for beer!

Saturday shopping

Two markets today.

I wanted to go to one I remembered from last year, it has general goods and a long part with specialist stores selling all kinds of mushrooms, teas, herbs, dried starfish for medical soups, bundles of mystery twigs... and more ordinary market fare like fruit and vegetables. Except maybe the fish part, not so ordinary, which today also had fresh live tortises, toads, eels, and what looked to me like little snakes.

In the general part there are lots of stalls with jewelry and loads and loads of fake turquoise. I dont think I have seen a single piece of real turquoise yet. About two minutes after I got there I felt a tap on the arm, a youngish very serious Chinese man telling me not to buy, "it's all plastic" he kept saying, very concerned that as the lone westerner there today I was going to be ripped off. It was very nice of him.

I didn't buy anything, most of it is from Nepal and India these days, but hey, its saturday, a girl likes to shop. Pema fled to have lunch with a friend, no shopping for him thankyou! Boys...

You could walk around these markets with your eyes closed and know exacly where you are, there is no mistaking the fresh mushrooms, the pickled vegetables wake up your sinus as do the fragrant piles of szechuan pepper. The peaches! Coming each time from our winter, these chocolate box perfect peaches are delicious, it is such a treat to have one every morning with my breakfast. The meat smells fresh, distinct, you know when you are in the pork section. But without a doubt my most favourite smell is the sesame oil stand. Here they roast sesame seeds and process them into oil and paste, it is rich, toasty and gorgeous.

It is puppy and kitten season so there are a few of them for sale too ... alive! not for dinner, relax!

Today I put aside my middle class western woman and bought some meat for dinner from our local market. I am sure it is fine, everyone here eats it and seemingly without any problems. It is just the tactile thereness of it, all outside, no covers, no refridgeration, no nice little polystyrene tray... The big problem was actually getting served, I think the guy thought I was just looking. So now it is coooking away in the wok, I'll keep you posted. Smells good anyway. The meat is much older than what we are used to. Ten years is not uncommon for a sheep in nomad areas. They are a bit shocked with how young our lamb is.

The big selling point for Australia lamb sold here is the thick layer of fat apparently, yum.

I don't want to brag

 

well maybe a little...

Yesterday I treated a man who has been having two treaments a day for a week, pretty aggressive therapies, for bad back pain and lack of mobility - he is bent over like a question mark. So Dr Nyima asked me to give him yuk cho, and lo and behold not only did he have less pain this morning, he could stand up straight!

Full credit to this amazing ancient technique, and of course to Dr Nida for teaching it to us, and maybe a little bit of Aussie mojo - what do you think?

It is always very satisfying when you see such spectacular results.

I treated five patients with yuk cho today and have bookings for monday.

The downside to this is that the students, who were just getting used to me have started to stand up again when I come in the room, sigh, makes me feel about one hundred years old. I took pity on them today and gave them some new sharp acupuncture needles from my stash to practice with.This was after one had put his hand in his pocket forgetting about his practice cardboard and needle and impaled himself right under the fingernail - ouch!

There is a famous Ngakpa coming in for treatments. Dont ask me his name, that will take some detective work, Tibetans are not forthcoming with names! There are people here I have known since 2006 and still dont know their names! But anyway, one of his acheivements is having spent seventeen years meditating in a cave, yep, seventeen! I dont think I could last seventeen days.

Anyway he is a master and next week is going to give me a special transmission for the spiritual aspect of giving moxa. Excited much? Oh yes! It is a rarely given loong, so I am very fortunate, yet again.

Herb gathering has been moved to sunday so tomorrow is a day off which I will enjoy very much.

The usual day is quite long, I am there at 8.30 and we dont leave much before 5.30 usually. And it is non-stop.

Some things to know so you can fit in when you come here:

Always have a really annoying ringtone on your phone, set to maximum volume. Allow to ring for as long as possible before looking at the phone in shock for making that noise. Stare at the screen for at least another minute before answering in a tone which implies you have no idea how this person got your number. Have loud conversation.

When getting in lift, even if you are going to the 34th floor, turn around and stand right in doorway. If you have a friend with you, they should stand right in front of the buttons.

Always bring as many relatives as you can muster when you come to the doctor, it does not do to sit at his desk without a good entourage lounging behind you. If possible they should make the most of the opportunity to get him to look at something festering, preferably on the foot, seeing as they are there.

X-rays are gold, show them to everyone whether they know what they are looking at or not!

Queues are for losers, take your documents right up to the desk and put them on top of the ones belonging to the silly person who thinks it is their turn.

More medicine is always better, he who dies with the biggest bag of medicines wins!

It would be remiss of me not to share...