Fee collection...er, Health Exam

One of the requirements for residency here in Kunming is a health exam. I went to get mine today. As I suspected, the main purpose is to collect the fee, something less than $50. The test includes a number of faux procedures. In no particular order, they give you an ultrasound of the main internal organs, an EKG, a chest x-ray, blood test, urine test, vision and sense of smell exam and a blood pressure reading. These tests are of course all performed by different individuals in different rooms on different floors. Some of these folks really could not be bothered to even grunt instructions in Chinese. I just sort of wandered around and figured it out, trying to get all the spots on the paper stamped.

The ultrasound was the first test. I came in as the last person was exiting, and the sticky gel that the tech used on her was all over the cot when I laid down. Nice.

Next was an EKG that took about 3 minutes. They need to fully expose the chest so the sensors can be attached. The woman ahead of me was still lying there, fully exposed, as I was ushered into the room. Just one big happy family.

The x-ray tech was busy reading his newspaper and made some vague hand gestures at me. I went into the room with the x-ray machine and stood on the foot marks on the machine. No lead apron of course, but I'm pretty confident there was no x-ray taking place. The sound that x-ray machines make, especially machines as old as this one, was not made, and no lights flashed. Easy to pass that test.

Then there was the urine specimen (no sterility or privacy involved whatsoever), and the draw of 4 vials of blood. It was a new needle, but why do they need all that blood? I need that blood...

Next was the blood pressure test. As a part of this test, I was required to stamp my feet on the floor a few times??? I could not understand the woman, but apparently the foot stamping is pretty basic part of this procedure because she seemed very exasperated when I didn't catch on.

On to the hearing, vision and sense of smell test. I stood in the hall for awhile, and when a cluster of Chinese examinees started to form behind me, the tech was finally persuaded to put her little pink cell phone back in it's little pink case and do her little pink job. I had to identify a pattern of colored dots as an elephant, smell a clear liquid in a jar (alcohol) and cover my right eye (the good eye of course) for a primitive eye test. The fact that I heard her instructions automatically counted for the hearing test.

Finally I was finished and I have to go back in 3 days to get the results. Then I can proceed with the final 5 steps in the residence permit process.

The most interesting thing I saw was on the bus trip out to the facility. There was a guy with a donkey cart and two dogs clipping along the main highway. One of his dogs was standing on top of the donkey , balanced on the center of his back and bouncing along in traffic. He looked like he was really having fun. Of course I didn't have my camera.