Managing Your Plague in China: Brief Notes on my Stupid Cold
So I finally made it in to work today, after two days spent under cover, barking my lungs out at home, destroying entire forests with my nasal detritus.
I packed a little baggie with 2 boiled eggs and 2 small oranges (plus a massive coffee) to meet my most basic nutritional needs and dulled appetite. Aside from cookies and beer, I’ve craved no actual food since sometime around Saturday. Marvellous for my waistline but not so great for my general well-being.
Eggs and oranges are good, right? Protein, vitamins, etc, etc. Plague food.
Apparently not.
My colleague, the lovely Victor (not his real name, since he’s Chinese), recoiled in horror at the sight of my two innocent little boiled eggs.
“Not with your illness!” he declared. “Do NOT eat eggs when you have a cold!”
“No eggs?” I meekly asked. “Why no eggs?”
“In university, I study to be doctor. When you are cold, you must not eat eggs!”
So now you know.
Apples, apparently, are fine. Also, flower teas.
Victor handed me a sachet of tea mix from his hometown in Ningxia, far, far away. I should brew it up to three times using the same bark and twigs. It would help.
For the record, those large crystallized lumps on the right of the jujubes and beige golf ball are rock sugar, not crack cocaine or bath salts.
A pity, really.
So I brewed some up.
Victor was the one who also ran out on Monday night during my class with the kids to buy me medicine. I am now the proud owner of some very effective cough syrup that tastes like mildly caramelised burnt twigs and some rather miraculous cold pills that turn all phlegmy crud in your body into easily disposed of solid crud.
For further Sino healthcare needs, check out the Mrs Mu Home Shopping Network.
Being sick sucks! Sounds like you’ve had one of those nasty neverending only-in-China colds for a while now. Is your flat heated? If not, an electric blanket may do wonders for your morale.
It’s been a few weeks now, yes. I do this every year. This year isn’t as bad as previous years- when I was teaching at the university, I got laryngitis 2 years in a row, both times in November. Those were my only sick days (mainly because 1. I was the only teacher in the program so didn’t have much leeway for lesser illnesses, and 2. can’t exactly teach with laryngitis, can you?).
I’m trying to take it easy, and luckily this job is kind enough to let me work from home- and by home, I mean bed. With big thick fluffy socks, thermals, sweater, 2 duvets… We have those wall mounted heaters but they aggravate my asthma so they’re turned on when it gets much colder.
You forgot to mention the coffee along with the eggs and oranges! Crucial component. I’m with you on the eggs — whenever I’m almost entirely out of groceries, eggs are usually the last thing in my fridge, and I’m like “SWEET I have one healthy thing left.” Good to know that’s a lie though, at least in terms of having a cold.
Jackie D recently posted..Places: The Travel Section in Barnes & Noble
Yes, the coffee! But I did mention it at the beginning (the massive coffee I’d packed), though I should have elaborated on my experiments to determine if 5 cups a day can keep the plague at bay. Also successful (kind of): Coopers Sparkling Ale and Hobnobs (chocolate dipped). I actually somehow gained a kilo during my 10 days of being sick. Probably from lying in bed and only eating cookies, drinking beer and pounding back coffee.
Your blog is funny…hope you feel better soon.
I’m moving to Beijing next year. Obviously you don’t have any internet/censorship problems blogging?
No eggs? I never knew that one! Hope you feel better soon 🙂
Ashley of Ashley Abroad recently posted..Saturday Snapshot 8