This week Joanne and I had an appointment to get our driver's license. Fortunately, we didn't have to answer any of the renowned crazy Chinese Driving test questions.
Instead we had to give our red cards to a guy; he then gave them to another guy. That guy then drove us to The Hospital of Chinese Medicine. He told us to pay a lady 10 RMB, then he walked us past about 100 Chinese people who were waiting in line, and he showed us to a room. Joanne and I commented on how the room smelled like sickness, and the hallways outside of the room were buzzing with people apparently awaiting some type of medical service. After a few minutes of standing there, our escort walk out of the room, and seemingly went to get the doctor, as they both walked in together just a moment later. The "doctor" entered; he wore a threadbare white doctor's coat which we could see right through - clearly he had no shirt underneath. He also was wearing red slippers. He looked us over as we stood there around the eye chart. We had been told that this trip was for the eye test, but didn't know quite how the process would work. The doc looked at me, then pointed to a colored card on his desk. Our guide, who was now also serving as interpreter, turned to me and said, "do you know what that is?" He also pointed to the card.
"That's a six," I said. "Lio."
"Oh you speak Chinese?" The interpreter asked, making me feel like they had been talking about us the whole time, but only now realized that I may know what they were saying.
"No, but I can count to six: yi, er, san, si, wo, lio."
The doctor looked at our guide/interpreter and asked, "Mei Guo Ren?"
"Due." Correct.
Wham, he slammed the red stamp onto my form and picture; by identifying the number 6 on the flash card, I had passed.
He turned to Joanne, and pulled a second colored card out of his desk.
"What do you see?"
It was a dog.
"Gou," she said. Pronounced Go oh.
Wham!
As we walked out of the hospital, passing the masses of Chinese still waiting on line, the diplomatic escort turned to us and said, "Mei Guo Ren, you very easy; Chinese, not too much."
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Paul Koch (@pkoch9999)
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