MBBS Year One Complete

I suppose now having survived first year of Medical school, I should share my ‘wisdom’. Nothing could have prepared me for what I have gone through this past academic year, from moving across country to live in a new city, new language, new people new dynamics, saying goodbye to new friends & letting go of the little piece of home/hope I had made for myself in Jinan. Most of it was a struggle, it took months for me to adjust to the changes that had happened. So here it goes…

• First year of Medical school doesn’t make sense. But still study & try pass everything.
• You will go around campus telling people that you’re doing Medicine but attend the same courses as your Medical science laboratory major students along with half the campus students.
• Not all lectures are worth attending. Relax, you’ll be fine, work on the material yourself. You’ll make it.
• You will feel like you’re drowning in this small town & that Life feels like it’s on a standstill.
• After getting over the ”I study with diverse people, from all over the world” crap, you will realize that some fellow ex-pats are mean & inconsiderate to other people’s culture & feelings in general.
• Natives are mostly ignorant, especially in a small town with little to no foreign exposure. Deal with it. AND there are some good one’s, I want to write about them on a separate blog post. They deserve that much.

I’m glad to say though, I’ve survived a year of Medical school & Life as an ex-pat. For my Summer break I’m going to Africa, haven’t seen my parents in almost two years. I’m stoked about that. But before that, I’m traveling for a days. As Stethoscope & Hanzi tradition, I’ll be sure to keep you updated.

I would like to thank the blogging community, they have been a huge support system for me. Following and Reading your blog posts religiously has kept me sane at times when I didn’t want to go on, whether it be attending Anatomy lab session, to waking up & study and to even just being here. I follow Medical students, junior doctors to Consultants from all over the world and get a glimpse of their reality and struggles. What I have realized is that their struggles are not as different from mines ( well some of it is), and the best part is seeing that all can be conquered & achieved.

I still don’t have a complete hang of how I should be doing Medical school & living in a foreign country. What I do know for sure, is that I’m a year closer to making the dream a reality.

”the carousel keeps turning” – Dr Alice Grey

The Infamous Beijing

I realized I should put myself out of my pseudo-misery and write on my experiences of Beijing. Formerly known as Perking, it is the center of nation’s Political, Educational & Cultural arena. The most well known city in China, actually people know more about Beijing the city than the country, China (If that makes sense).

There’s no way of putting it mildly but Beijing didn’t live up to it’s expectation for me. I was disappointed. I have heard so much about it and thought ”yeah I finally get to live all those tales”.

First of all, before I get on to the adventures of sightseeing I got up to during my four night stay in Beijing. I have to commend on how efficient the Transport system works in China, but more specifically in Beijing. With a landmark of 16,410.54 km² , saying Beijing is Huge is an understatement. It would probably be more fitting to call it a mini state/province. As it is after all, the third largest city in the world. Navigating through the city would prove to be both frustratingly long & costly on a student budget, so the convenience of a world class Transport system made even a below average experience somewhat enjoyable. The subway was able to connect me from one district to another in just under an hour. Cabs prove to be less convenient, as Beijing being as ridiculously big as it is,this also meant it was more populated and a taxi seemed to not be the best option for navigating.

Great Wall of China –

It needs no introduction, since it’s been named one of the wonders of the world & arguably the most visited historical monument in China. But what people don’t know (well I found out on my arrival) about the Great Wall is that it has four parts, the Badaling (the most visited), Mutian Yu (most preferred apparently), Jian Kou & Huang Hua Cheng . All of these sites afford you a different perspective of the wall, although I climbed Badaling, it’s still a memorable experience and one which you will treasure forever. Part of the climb is very steep and involves careful steps, and high sights are not appealing to everyone. For those a cab drive up to the top is recommended, for a fee of course.

View from the top of Badaling

The Ming Tombs –

Spread across eighty square kilometers acres of land. It is the cemetery of the thirteen Emperors of the Ming Dynasty during 1368 – 1644.  It’s not possible to travel to all the sites by foot, luckily enough our cab drive on our return from the Wall snug in a trip to the Tombs. This may not be a worthwhile trip for most people, but I’m a sucker for Ancient Chinese culture & history. And it was just on way back, it wouldn’t hurt passing through. There’s different parts to it, but the place that stood out the most was the Underground Palace which housed the Emperor & he’s two Empresses. The palace look scary and seemed as if would collapse at any moment. I am very much still amazed at how of the Chinese history is still conserved and how we mere mortals can get to witness it all.

Temple of Heaven –

Built in 1420, used as a sacred site where Emperors of the Ming and Qing dynasties went to worship heaven and offer sacrifices to pray for good harvest. The site which was also built on a large scale of land, but considerably smaller than the other sites, had other, particularly more fascinating was the Burning stove which reminded me of a traditional three legged pot in my culture. The stoves were used to burn sacrificial offerings which were brought to the Emperors.

Eight Potjie-like pots

The Hall of Prayer for good harvest was magnificent, I managed to get an uninterrupted shoot of it. Which was pretty much impossible with all the tourist going up & down. As the name suggests, it was where the Emperors would pray,worship Heaven and Earth for good harvest.

The Hall of Prayer for good harvest

No doubt Beijing is heavily rich in Chinese culture and history, and the truth of it all I couldn’t have finished all of the sights seeing I had perfectly planned for my stay there. My experiences of Beijing, although below par don’t rule out how breathtaking some of the monuments I got to witness are. But also how these trips across country have shaped my understanding and how I perceive what is the Chinese culture and possibly through Stethoscope & Hanzi, these little pieces of writing have contributed to you seeing it through my eyes.

Xi An

Three months back, I started what I had promised myself ever since moving to live and study in China – to travel all 19 provinces during my six years, well at least one city in each province.

Xi An is a very historical city no doubt, it’s one of the most visited cities in China apart from Beijing and Shanghai. It’s a cute little town, in Chinese standards of course. It put me off a little bit, since it has only two lines of subway routes. Meaning I had to rely on buses and cabs to navigate throughout the city. I was exhausted when I reached Xi An, as I had been back packing for two weeks straight. I was fed up with paying for a cup of tea, I mean tea should be a basic human right you know?! It was Winter, and it didn’t help that I only brought boots with me thinking they would be enough. My feet had never pained so much like that in my entire life, oh I was also limping – I fell down a few flight of stairs in Harbin. Apart from hurting my ankle what was more pleasing to hear, was Mao tao’s overly concern of my camera lens if it was broken or not than whether I was okay.

The Bell tower – referred to as Zhong lou/钟楼 was built in 1384 during the early Ming Dynasty. It is a symbol of the city and one of the oldest forms of history in China. Across the road from where the Bell tower is, was a lively place where hippie natives would gather around, some hip hop dancing, magicians & live music, it even had a Star bucks! Being my last day in Xi An, with lively atmosphere paired with a fitting 8 degrees, Blue sky, the Bell tower is a wonderful place to stroll around.

The Bell Tower – sits right in the city center

The Small Wild Goose Pagoda – Built in 707 AD in the Tang Dynasty. It was initially called ‘Jian fu’ and later changed during the Qing and Ming Dynasty. It was originally a fifteen-storey multi-eaved brick pagoda. Due to many earth quakes, it’s top part was completely destroyed, later on in 1995 the Chinese government decided to renovate it using the same material and techniques used to built it originally. As it stands, you can’t enter and climb the flight of stairs due to safety reasons.

The Small Wild Goose Pagoda

The Museum of Qin Terra Cotta warriors and Horses – no trip to Xi An is complete without visiting this historic monument. It is a form of funerary art, buried with the emperor in the 209 to 210 BC, it’s purpose was to protect the emperor in his afterlife. The area is huge, with three pits spread over the area. It is a mind blowing experience which anyone travelling to China should get to share. The soldiers all looked different with horses and carriage. Pit two even had a distinct smell, which gave me goose bumps. I literally teared up when I saw it all. It is truly an amazing experience to witness history that spans for centuries long.

A close up on Terra cotta warriors

Xi An goes down as one of my to-go to cities in China, for all of the historic sites you get to encounter.

A Year Older : From Salicyclic Acid to Spray paint

Probably the most weirdest Birthday celebration I’ve ever had. Nonetheless we had so much fun!

 

I spent my morning attending lectures, my afternoon extracting Aspirin from Salicyclic acid in Organic chemistry laboratory. To participating in the annual Southern Medical University Color Run event.

I’m the second one on the far left!

Second Semester & Studying Anatomy

I’m actually failing as an individual, as per my resolutions to blog at least once a month. AND I’m yet to write on my Winter break on my trips to Beijing and Xi An, memorable times indeed!

We’ve been back on campus for about three weeks now, the realization that I have too much work to do just recently dawned on me. I am writing this in the Library during one of my ‘snack time’ as we only had one morning lecture today, meaning I could pack my stuff and spend more hours catching up. With moderate breaks in between to munch on rice cakes with strawberry jam of course, the best part of studying at the Library is snack & break time!

Studying Anatomy may pretty much seem like I’m reading script for a role in the Witches of East End. For someone who hasn’t studied Anatomy, it’s terminology is derived from Latin and reading out loud sounds like Witch chanting. We are doing Systematic Anatomy, looking at the Anatomy of all the systems of the Human body. It’s quiet interesting and fascinating – Human Cadavers HELLO!… And the Professor is very interactive & engaged with us, which is a plus since I spend most of my afternoons almost everyday for about three hours on this particular course alone. AND also we would start falling asleep if he wasn’t so.

We’ve also started our Histology block this week – I call it the ‘Pink module’, Histology slides are stained pink using Hematoxylin-eosin (for my non-medical friends). This Professor is also cool! One of the student fell asleep during the lecture : I don’t know how you fall asleep during your first lecture of a new course. Sitting at the back, so we had to play tag-the-next-person-behind-you until we got to her,woke her up & concentrated on the lecture.

Life has been pretty much the same here in Shunde. Attended an End of Spring festival International party organized by a non-profit organization, they are doing great things in this small town for ex-pats to come together and mingle. It can feel lonely, especially for me and it’s not that I don’t have friends, but they are also the same people I live with, go to lectures and and and. Here I was thinking we were pretty much the only one’s on campus in Shunde.

Dripping nose and numb toes – Harbin

I arrive at Tai peng airport after a stop over at Cheng Zhou airport. But before that, my journey was nothing short of awkward moments. A couple was fighting just before the boarding gate with the man pushing the woman away from the gate. One of their friend intervened and managed to stop the guy. Minutes later they seemed to be fine, standing in line waiting to be checked in.

 I manage to get a cab with no hassle and request the cab driver to take me to Mai Tian Youth hostel, which is where I spent my four nights at. It’s -17 degrees Celsius, I’m too excited that I don’t even feel the cold.

The minute I settles in my room, it hits me my lap top bag is not with me. Shucks, I manage to get help from Xing Guo on how to go back to the airport by public transport and use the hostel’s desk top to get details of my Airline details, they put me through the branch in Harbin and luckily they had it. I’m so careless. The rest is history.

I didn’t know how to write this blog piece and my experience’s of Harbin, because I did so much, saw a ton lot and had conversations with people which if I say so myself would make for a great book on short stories. From the lady, a Obstetrics & Gynecology specialist I sat next to in the shuttle on my way to the airport to pick up my lap top, Matilda a three year old girl who I met at the train station leaving for Beijing. She could speak English and could sing songs in French & Spanish! To Matilda’s dad, a high school English teacher, we had a chat about the Education system in China & South Africa to Linguistics and he mentioned to me how he’s teaching Matilda Life and English lessons through experiences. My trip has been an outstandingly memorable one.

Harbin Ice and Snow Amusement World – without a doubt was one of the best attraction sites on my trip. I remember when we learned about it in Pre-med, the pictures don’t do it justice. You just have to go and see it for yourself. It’s magnificent, we spent more than 6 hours there… Mind you it’s like -24 degrees inside! The ice sculptures light so beautifully at night. Everything is magical there, you truly get your money’s worth. They even throw in the experience of dripping nose & numb toes for free!

Magnificent Harbin Ice World at Night

Zhong Yang Pedestrian street – the city is very old, the maturity of the buildings and how each crack on the walls would blend & harmoniously fit in with the whole experience. The streets were filled with eatery specifically found in the town, from their famous hot sausage to their Ice lolly pops. Some of the buildings were written in Russian & Mandarin. Of course, Ice sculptures were found on the side of the street. Not only does it offer locally outlets but it also has international brands like Zara, H & M and Start bucks etc.

Sophia Square – A site richly influenced by European presence, from it’s beautifully picturesque architecture to it’s very distinct smell. In the center of it all sits St Sophia Church built in 1907 by Russian settlers. For a fee, inside is it’s history, along with the settlers and the surrounding areas in the square.

St Sophia Church

I took so many pictures, which are on my Instagram page and will later upload onto my Face book page. My favorite picture was when my lenses focused on this lao ren (elderly), observing history inside St Sophia. Personally for me this picture encapsulates what my trip across China has & still is about.

Lao ren observing history

Winter break : A Chinese adventure

I’m writing this post (half asleep with sluggish red eyes) at Dio coffee shop in Baiyun airport, Guangzhou. I booked an ungodly morning flight. I finished my exams on Thursday, I had planned this out perfectly that as soon as I was done with exams I was to leave for travel.

http://www.chinahighlights.com/travelguide

Its winter for us now, and also one of the busiest time in China as the natives are to celebrate their New year (Spring festival), which last for about two weeks. So almost everywhere, from shops, airports to bus stations natives are traveling returning home to be with their families. The Chinese use the Zodiac cycle, with each year represented by an animal. As in the case 2015 is a Goat year. Last year was year of the Horse. There’s a lot of festivities that happen during this time, from eating dumplings to confetti, and written wishes on & lighting up lanterns.

I’ve said this before that I’ve always wanted to travel China. I would like to go to all the provinces, at least one city in each. So this year I start just that.