March 24/00

cont. from page 7

Dalian
chronicles

(part 2)

As February draws to a close, the
campus where I work increases with
activity every day. Students are
returning carrying their suitcases and
moving back into their dormitories.
About 200 boxes of new computers
arrived at the main entrance hall of the
library building. There are several new
computer labs and they will all be
ready for the new semester. On Friday
afternoon, upon returning from lunch,
there was a thick cloud of black smoke
coming from the side of one of the
buildings. It seems that the cleaning
staff could not or did not want to cope
with all the Styrofoam packaging from
the new computers and simply decided
to set fire to it all. No one seemed to be
alarmed by this or even take notice.

It has finally warmed up a bit and
today it actually seemed spring-like
with no strong winds and temperatures
in the 4 C —6C range. I decided to go
hiking in the nearby hills this afternoon
because of the nice weather. I walked
for about an hour north of the city and
soon was in a rural area of small
fishing villages by the sea. The clusters
of small brick dwellings were all
nestled in ravines that lead out to the
sea. On the hillsides above them are
well-tended fruit orchards, mostly
apples I think. Each small house is
surrounded by a brick wall enclosing a
small garden and a few chickens.
Ladies squat in the sun shucking
oysters while men in groups diligently
work producing new cages for growing
the shellfish. Everywhere I look I see
small mountains of shell and men with
donkey carts shovelling loads of the
shells to be hauled away.

It was Friday evening and I was just
cleaning up loose ends in preparation
for Gail Keary and Charlene Hill’s
arrival the next day. I was in a bit of a
hurry because my wife would be
arriving the next day as well and I

needed to do some house cleaning in
preparation for that event. Allen
answered the phone at about 6 p.m. and
when he finished talking he told me Bill
Inkster was in the hospital. He was
going over to see him. “He climbed over
the wall behind the university and I
think he has sprained his ankle,” Allen
said. I hardly paid any attention to what
he said as my mind was elsewhere. Bill
had been in the hospital here before
when he had the flu and also when he
broke a tooth a few weeks earlier. There
are no private practices here for doctors
and it is not unusual for a person to go to
the hospital for very minor injuries.

Half an hour later as I was turning off
the lights in the office the phone rang
and it was Allen. He said I needed to
come to the hospital and bring some
money from the office. The hospital
required a deposit before Bill could be
admitted. Apparently, he had badly
damaged his knee joint and broken his
leg.

I knew where the hospital was and
walked over quickly. There seemed to be
no indication of which door was the
main entrance, but fortunately Miss Ma
was with me and knew where to go.
There was no reception area, no
directional signs, and all the halls were
dimly lit. Miss Ma somehow knew
where the surgical ward was and took
me there and then ran off home not
wanting to see Bill in pain. I guess Allen
had warned her how bad things were.

As I entered the room, Bill was lying
on the bed ghostly white as a doctor cut
his blue jeans from his leg. We were
escorted to a large room where a group
of doctors were consulting about the
injury. They showed us the X-rays and
talked about the surgery needed. They
were drawing pictures on paper of the
bones involved and recommended
surgery. Many ideas had already been
discarded on the floor.

There was obviously some
disagreement amongst them. Eventually
the plan was developed to insert pins
into the shattered bone, but it would take
a few days to a week to get the parts
from Beijing. They said he would
probably not be able to bend his knee
ever again.

The hospital itself was like something

out of the ’60s though the building
couldn’t have been more than 15 years
old. Patients and their visitors were all
smoking, even in the patient’s rooms.
There was no evidence of high-tech care
equipment in these rooms. I just kept
thinking, we must somehow get Bill
home. The doctors were reluctant to
perform surgery on a foreigner. Bill at
that point just wanted to get the surgery
over with and be out of pain.
Fortunately, Charlene and Gail arrived
on Saturday and the decision was made
to take him home.

Wher I broke the news to Gail at the
airport in Dalian, we started thinking
about the program and how to replace
Bill for the classes that started on
Monday. In the afternoon I flew to
Beijing to meet my wife. She was on the
same flight from Vancouver as Charlene.
I informed Charlene about the events of
the last few hours and with hardly the
blink of an eye she came up with a plan
for Bill’s replacement and the
continuation of the program without
interruption. I escorted her to the
departure area for her flight to Dalian
and was finally able to greet my wife.

Ann-Louise (my wife) was jet-lagged
and I was exhausted. We stayed
overnight in Beijing and the next
morning I gave her a whirlwind two-
hour tour of the city before boarding a
noon flight to Dalian. Five days after her
arrival we moved to a different suite that
is a little bigger and has a few extras
such as two kitchen cupboards and even
a small bathtub in the bathroom.

This week the students are driving me
crazy as they try to complete their visa
applications before the deadline. They
want me to check each of the 12
documents in their application while
they stand by my desk. Usually the
mother and father are also present and
hover around waiting for my nod of
approval after reviewing the paperwork.
I am frequently presented with a gift to
thank me for my help. I am not sure how
I will be able to bring all those vases
home.

After all the months I have been here
there has not yet been one uneventful
day.

Bye for now, Barry

@nformer

ae