New kid on the blog

Ok, I swear if I’d thought of that title earlier I’d have posted this sooner.

Or maybe not. Many, many apologies for the long hiatus, but as most of you know by now, it’s been nearly a month since Baby A exploded into our lives, a full two and a half weeks earlier than we expected him. One minute I’m waddling around with nothing to blog about because I’m so big I can hardly get off the sofa, and the next there’s simply not a spare moment which isn’t being literally eaten up by a very small person with a very large personality. Amazing how things can change in the blink of an eye.

Babies share so many characteristics with the typical Chinese. Both sleep a lot, make a lot of noise, have no consideration for others, and never do what you want at the time you want them to do it. But you can’t help loving them for their hilarious wide-eyed innocence and cheek. So perhaps China is the best place to have one – at least you get some practice. On the other hand there are a number of aspects which I’d recommend taking into consideration, should anyone out there ever, ever contemplate such a thing themselves.

1. Medical. Ok so this isn’t anything to do with China but I had to get a moan in. Far be it from me to break the conspiracy of silence which seems to prevent those who’ve had children from warning those who haven’t just how bloody awful childbirth is. I mean, I suppose the future of the human race might be at stake. But let me just say this. You know the scene in ‘This is Spinal Tap’ where they realise they’ve put the measurements for Stonehenge in inches instead of feet? Well, I imagine something very similar must have happened when God, or the elves, or whoever designed people, first saw the prototype for a baby’s head and the area from which it has to emerge. You can just see the guy’s face when the awful realisation struck that he’d made a mistake in the blueprint which nobody had noticed, and it was too late to change it. You can hear him thinking ‘Shit. Oh, it’ll be all right’ (without much conviction), and hurriedly deleting all the relevant files so that no-one would realise it was him that had screwed up.

Well all I can say is, I still can’t walk after 4 weeks, so I hope they caught him and fired him. Also, as bad luck would have it, my, er, issues coincided with one of Peter's mosquito bite episodes. He's violently allergic to the little blighters and swells up in suppurating buboes which throb, pulsate and pustulate with a life of their own, usually in several places at once. All in all the two of us spent about a fortnight looking - and feeling - as though we'd been in a car crash. Judging by the size of me, in my case I can only assume the other vehicle involved was a lorry carrying a large consignment of cakes and chocolate, all of which I felt compelled to eat while I lay by the side of the road waiting for the ambulance.

2. Logistical. Getting to the hospital at 3am while in labour was supposed to be organised in advance. Big Boss was going to lay on a car. Drivers were to be primed and ready to rush to our assistance. Did this happen? No. Peter sent Big Boss an email the week before to remind him, but BB was away and by the time he got back, Baby A had decided enough was enough and popped out. I think the email is still unanswered. So we had to flag down a taxi. At least it wasn’t raining.

Actually there was no problem and I don’t think the taxi driver even realised what was going on. Not so the SECOND taxi driver who had to take us BACK to the hospital late at night after I’d been discharged, in some pain from a bladder infection and muscle spasms in my hip. We had the baby in a car seat but I don’t think the driver noticed, so we were convinced he thought I was in labour, the way I was groaning and clutching my (still somewhat large) stomach! At any rate he raced through the Shanghai Friday night traffic at a pace befitting Starsky & Hutch and looked mighty relieved when we arrived. Thank goodness Baby didn’t suddenly wake up & make a noise; I think the poor bloke would have had a heart attack, thinking I’d just delivered on his back seat!

3. Social. The Chinese love babies, especially western babies. It can get rather annoying to be continually cooed over, and when the baby gets older, people apparently demand photos all the time. However, the most irritating thing is that they also have very strong opinions when it comes to baby care. Chinese wisdom recommends, among other things, not leaving the house at all for the first three months, keeping their feet covered at all times, even on sweltering hot days, and dressing them in bizarre crotchless trousers rather than using nappies. Expat mothers regularly complain of being stopped on the street by Chinese wifies offering advice and admonishments. So far though my main gripe is that everyone seems to think he’s a girl, for reasons unknown – even when he’s wearing a manly blue babygro with a picture of a digger on it.

4. Administrative. My feelings regarding a certain international medical insurance provider are on record, so I’ll refrain from repeating them here. I’ll say only this. It took fourteen (international) phone calls, plus several emails, to get a policy set up for Baby. Fourteen. And even then he’s barely covered for his vaccinations and well-baby checkups. It’s a bloody scandal.

The other amusing/frustrating aspect of having a child abroad is that you have to get it a passport and visa more or less immediately. Someone hasn’t thought through the implications of having hormonal women turn up at offices to fill in forms with short deadlines. I almost shouted at the British Consul for not having something suitable for me to lean on. But the fact that our son will have to endure THIS Photoshopped marvel

not only as his passport photo for the next five years but as endless humiliation potential for the rest of his life just about compensates.

Granny is due to visit from the UK on Thursday for two weeks, so the blog’s maternity leave may last a little longer yet, but fret not – we’ll be back in full force before you know it.

Just when you thought it was safe...

…WATER reared its ugly, pointy-toothed head again this week. Peter, back in Harbin for the week, went home from work on Wednesday to find there was absolutely no running water in the flat. He called Kevin to find out what was going on. Kevin phoned building management and came back with the response that it was switched off for ‘routine maintenance’ (nice of them to warn us) and that it would be back on ‘hopefully before Saturday’.

‘SATURDAY???!!!!!!’ shrieked Peter (who was flying back to Shanghai on Friday and didn’t fancy leaving toilets unflushed and taps in a dubious on/off position). ‘I’m sorry’, said Kevin glumly. ‘I don’t know what to say to make you happy’. Poor lad, he always takes it personally. In the event, it was back on by the time Peter got up on Thursday morning, but not before he’d texted me at 10.30pm saying he was going to bed because he was ‘so depressed about it’.

Then on Friday morning, I tried to turn on a tap in Shanghai, to find that the water had gone off here too! It had been fine half an hour earlier so I suspected it was somehow connected to the loud drilling, banging, and overpowering smell of solvent which had all been emanating from the flat upstairs since 8am. I went back to bed and by the time I woke up we were back on tap. What is it with these people though? Back home, if your water is scheduled to be switched off for five minutes you get a note through the door a week in advance. Here, the notion that they might be inconveniencing anyone simply doesn’t seem to cross their minds.

The chief species of water inconveniencing me at the moment, however, is that which I’m lugging around in my belly and my legs. A couple of Sundays ago I looked down to find my bump had undergone a sudden growth spurt and seemed to be sticking out several inches further than it had done that morning. At 33 (or is it 34 – they can’t decide) weeks pregnant, I am now the size of a house – no, make that a largish hotel - and need a crane to levitate me off the sofa most nights. Not much fun when the temperature is already hovering around the 30 degree mark – although believe it or not, Harbin was actually hotter than Shanghai this week. This – coupled with the frustrations of an internet connection which is becoming increasingly slow for unknown reasons – explains my lack of blogging recently. It’s a long walk to the computer these days, and this desk ain’t big enough for the both of us!

The size of my tum caused some consternation last time I visited the hospital. ‘You gain too much weight!’ ‘Too much eat!!’ (charming), ‘You have big baby! We must check!’. One ultrasound later, and Baby was revealed not to be a monster - apart from the head, which was already 92% of the size of a full-term baby’s! – nor was chocolate the culprit, or not the sole one anyway. No, my problem, it appears, is ‘too much fluid’. (Bloody water. I’m telling you.) So now they want to do another ultrasound tomorrow to make sure the fluid levels have stabilised. ‘But if your belly suddenly get bigger, call us and come in STRAIGHT AWAY!’ They certainly know how to stress me out.

The trouble is that having grown up with the NHS, to me the words ‘I’d like to run some further tests’ strike fear into the heart. British doctors only ever say this if they think there might be something seriously wrong with you. Otherwise their standard advice is ‘Take two paracetamol, go to bed and ring me in the morning’. So I’ve been having some trouble adjusting to the ‘We test because we can’ approach of private medicine, especially that practised by American-trained doctors and aimed mainly at American patients. I finally understand those episodes of ER where the storyline involved the docs haranguing some poor unfortunate who needed an arm transplant or whatever but couldn’t afford it because their insurance didn’t cover it.

In fact most of my preconceptions about private medicine have been turned on their heads. There are no hushed, white rooms or smiling nurses gliding about offering you biscuits. On the contrary, it’s all a bit like ER really, minus the shouting, the shooting and the helicopter crashes. Time being money, the doctors seem to see about six patients at once and scurry about between multiple consulting rooms. They run vast swathes of tests for everything under the sun, with no apparent consideration of the cost to you or actual probability that you might have the condition concerned.

When, in my naivety, I tried to refuse a certain test on the grounds that I didn’t think I needed it, it was too expensive, and, hey, actually, wasn’t I the ‘customer’ and therefore had the right to decline anything I didn’t want, all hell nearly broke loose. It became apparent that they had never encountered such a response before. The nurses were highly confused, the doctor embarked on a quite unwarranted prophesy of doom, and in the end I felt so bullied that I backed down, on the understanding that this was ‘absolutely the last blood test’ they would perform on me. Not so, as it turns out – but being Chinese, of course, they won’t tell you in advance what they’ve got up their sleeves for you in the future, preferring to spring it on you when you go in for what you think is a routine check-up. And nobody has the time or, apparently, the inclination, to consider the psychological impact of all this, or indeed to acknowledge that there might be an emotional side to pregnancy at all.

So, caught between Chinese vagueness and American hyper-efficiency, I sometimes find myself longing to wait three hours for a doctor who’ll say ‘Well that all looks ok to me, but come back and see me again if anything actually drops off.’ But I suppose that the standard of care I get here will be ultimately much better, the medical staff are more likely to speak fluent English, and at least I won’t die of MRSA. I just wish there was a fast track for this baby business. Nine months is a long time.

International events

So, the 24th Winter Universiade has been and gone. The closing ceremony – a pile of boring speeches and lots of people in white floating around, mainly - was last night. We couldn’t get to Pizza Hut because of it! It’s an outrage.

Anyway, as promised to myself I went to one event last Sunday, namely some figure skating (ice dance original dance and pairs free skating to be precise). A bit girly, I’m afraid, and not my first choice as I prefer more exciting events like short-track speed skating or that thing with the tea-tray that I mentioned before, but needs must when you’re short of time and Chinese language skills and the pavements are all covered in ice and snow. Still, apart from an office outing to the races I’d never been to a live sporting event before, so I reckoned it would be an experience.

It was.

You know how I told you Harbin was hoping to bid for the 2014 Winter Olympics? It turns out I was wrong and that should have been 2018. Well, sorry to break it to you, my dear Harbiner friends, but maybe you should make it, like, 2068? Perhaps that would give you enough time to work out what’s actually involved in hosting an international event.

The key word here is ‘international’. Now I’m the first to admit I’ve been lazier than a narcoleptic sloth when it comes to making any attempt to learn Chinese. In fact I’ve made none. I can say more or less the same things now as I could 6 months ago, namely ‘Hello’, ‘Goodbye’, ‘Thank you’, ‘Receipt please’ (very important!), ‘Here’ (to taxi drivers), ‘Where is it?’ (not anything specific, so not that helpful really), and occasionally if I really put my mind to it I can manage ‘I don’t understand’, which we’ve proved is more useful than Peter’s ‘I don’t speak Chinese’ said in perfect Chinese, because they never believe him! This is entirely my own fault. I know this.

But you’d think, wouldn’t you, that if you’ve got several thousand foreign athletes and their entourages coming to your city, and you’re therefore expecting some foreign spectators, and you’ve gone to the trouble of creating an English version of the website for the event, that there might have been some attempt to make the thing accessible to non-Chinese speakers? I’m thinking along the lines of maybe some signage in English? English-speaking volunteers to assist the confused, à la Beijing Olympics, that sort of thing?

No.

And you’d probably imagine that if said English website appears to have a booking facility on it - albeit one without any means of payment, but that’s understandable in a cash-based economy where few people use credit cards – that you would maybe inform the ticket office that people might be turning up with order numbers taken from this website, expecting to collect pre-booked tickets, as promised.

No.

And you might even, in a radical move, make the location of said ticket office prominent, or at the very least let your staff operating in other parts of the venue nearby know where it is, in case anyone asks. And make sure these staff speak English, in case ditto.

No.

And indeed make the entrance to the venue itself obvious. And have concession stands selling food (western as well as Chinese, maybe – you know, just hot-dogs or something, I’m not asking for the moon here). And a well-signposted – no, let’s say several well-signposted – souvenir shops or stalls, with English-speaking staff. Oh and have English-speaking staff in the ticket office, just in case the non-Chinese-speaking would-be spectators should ever stumble across it.

No, no, no and no.

Here’s how it went.

I go on the website and book a ticket (so I think), at the end of which transaction it gives me an order number. We’ve never got around to buying a printer for the house here so I write the order number down on a piece of paper. I am told to bring this order number, and my passport, to the ticket office at the International Conference Centre to collect my ticket. I had planned to do this in advance of the actual event, but as the skating was to take place at the same venue, and as Peter pointed out that the Chinese don’t expect to plan anything in advance, I was persuaded to wait until the day of the competition itself before venturing forth.

So last Sunday afternoon I duly tramp through the snow to the place where the Conference Centre is (next to our supermarket), only to realise I don’t actually know where the entrance is. I search for signs either to the event or to the ticket office. There are none, but some red LCD lettering above a couple of doors indicates that the adjoining hotel is indeed something to do with the Winter Universiade. Avoiding the one which appears to be for delegates only, I approach the other door. This is blocked by several security guards, none of whom appear to be older than 14 as is the norm here, larking around in the doorway. On seeing me, they look at each other and after a moment’s whispering they laughingly push forward the only one who can speak any English. (This is also quite a common reaction we get.)

‘May I help you?’ he says haltingly.

‘Yes’, I reply. ‘Could you tell me where the ticket office is please?’

‘Ticket office…’ he repeats wonderingly. He thinks a moment, then points towards the ‘delegates’ door. ‘This way please’.

‘Here?’ I reply in some scepticism, but he seems adamant, so off I go.

It only takes a second to work out I’m in the wrong place. There’s a red carpet, security screening, a desk with information packs, uniformed attendants with security passes around their necks. This is clearly not the place for Joe Public.

One chap springs forward and says in apparently fluent English, ‘Good afternoon madam. May I check your card please?’, indicating his security pass.

‘No, I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘I don’t have a card. I just want to pick up a ticket. Could you please tell me where to go?’

‘Ticket….’, he repeats, just as wonderingly as the first chap. He looks around helplessly for a minute, then urgently beckons a colleague across. This chap really does speak a little English, so I try again.

‘Ah,’ says Chap 2. ‘You go out of this door and you turn, ah, right? Yes, right. You will see hotel called the Hua Ha Hotel’ (turns to friend) ‘Hua Ha Hotel?’ (Friend shrugs). He continues, ‘You can collect ticket here’.

There is now only about 10 minutes to go before the skating starts. I repeat these instructions and thank him. Retracing my steps past the first door, I go round the corner and come upon an obscure and unlikely-looking door, with a very small, indistinct and ambiguous sign which could possibly be interpreted as meaning one can purchase tickets inside. The door is virtually impossible to open but I fight my way in.

Now maybe I’ve been spoilt by living in Edinburgh, but when I’m told to go to a box office to collect a ticket booked online, I imagine something like the Edinburgh Festival Fringe Box Office. A long but patient roped-off queue; banks of computers manned by hyper-efficient staff calling ‘Next’ and turning over thousands of customers in an hour by printing off tickets in batches thanks to their state-of-the-art computer system.

Guess what? No.

This ticket office turns out to be one tiny, dingy room with one tiny, dingy computer, manned by one harassed girl and a bloke who looks like he doesn’t work there but has just dropped by to chat to his pal and is watching with interest while she does her job, and occasionally trying to help despite not having a clue what he’s doing (another common set-up in Chinese shops). A group of excited Chinese are gathered around Girl with Computer, one man waving a bunch of tickets and all shouting.

I hang back and attempt to wait while they resolve their dispute, but after a minute or two, Girl with Computer’s Helpful Friend spots me and beckons me forward. I present my order number. He stares at it in some perplexity.

After a while, the excitement of there being a westerner in the shop distracts the shouting group from whatever other excitement had been preoccupying them, and the hubbub dies down. Helpful Friend shows my paper to Girl. She grabs it with both hands and stares at it. She starts to follow the numbers with her finger, muttering under her breath and shaking her head in utter incomprehension as though I had given her a scroll in ancient Aramaic. I attempt to explain. She asks me something. Not knowing what else to do, I present my passport as instructed by the website. She checks this with a little more confidence, thanks me and hands it back. Having thus, apparently, concluded our business, she returns her attention to the shouters. We have reached an impasse.

After a couple of minutes, seeing I am still waiting, Helpful Friend tries again to decipher my paper but is hampered by the fact that he has taken it from me upside-down. I turn it round and try again to explain what I want. Eventually a woman from the shouting group leans on my shoulder and asks me something urgently. I shrug. She runs into a back office and drags out a young woman with long, highlighted, fluffy bunches in her hair which exactly match her long, highlighted fur coat. She has her arm round this girl and is laughing and shouting something at her in an encouraging manner. She pushes her forward.

‘Can I help you?’ says Fluffy Bunches.

‘Oh yes please!’ I exclaim in relief. ‘I booked a ticket on the computer. This is my order number. I just want to collect the ticket and I was told I could get it here.’

She, too, grabs the paper with both hands and stares and stares at it. ‘Online?’ she says.

‘Yes!’ I cry, ‘I booked it online!’ but still she stares.

‘But, what is the date?’ she asks eventually.

‘Today’, I say in some desperation. ‘Now!’

‘Now? Figure skating?’

‘Yes!’ I reply. At last we’re getting somewhere.

But she’s still frowning and staring at the paper. ‘But, how much do you want?’ she asks.

I think for a minute. How much do I want? Not much really, just the love of my husband, the assured safety and health of those I love, world peace, enough money to live on comfortably without ever having to work again, maybe a big house in the country, a cat would be nice…before I realise what she means is How many do I want.

‘Oh’, I reply. ‘One. One ticket.’ I hold up one finger for emphasis and smile pleadingly.

She turns to Girl with Computer. ‘Blah blah-blah blah blah blah blah’ (indicating me) ‘blah blah, blah, blah blah blah-blah’ (indicating computer and waving vaguely in outside direction), ‘blah blah blah blah. Blah.’ (facial expressions clearly implying, ‘Go on, go on, go on, just do her a favour, for me, eh?’) ‘Blah-blah. You pay cash?’ (Me, startled), ‘Yes, I’ll pay cash’, ‘Blah blah blah blah-blah. One hundred and fifty. Here is your ticket.’

‘Oh thank you!’ I say. ‘But, where do I go?’

‘Please, follow me!’ she says. The woman who fetched her seems to find this highly amusing and embraces her again, repeating ‘Follow me! A-ha-ha-ha-ha! Follow me! Ha ha ha!!’ Meanwhile I’m attempting to pay for my hard-won ticket while she tries to drag me out of the door, saying ‘Let’s go, let’s go!’ I just about manage to hand over my 150 RMB to Laughing Woman, who hands it to Girl with Computer, and thank everyone, whereupon they all happily resume shouting and we make our exit.

It turns out that by pure chance Cassie (for such is my new friend’s name) is also going to see the figure skating. She leads me outside and down the steps into the shopping centre, which seems to be the wrong way, but I dutifully follow. We are accompanied by her friend who walks the whole considerable distance backwards in front of us taking hundreds of photos of us both, even after Cassie asks her to stop. She pauses to buy some Chinese flags, and gives me one. We go through the shopping centre and walk up the escalator which is never switched on and appears to go nowhere, at the top of which we meet up with Cassie’s boyfriend, bearing bags of bread.

After about a half-mile trek we join up with the entrance where the rest of the public (99.99% of them Chinese, I wonder why!) are filing in from outside. A guard lifts a barrier to let us through. We go through security like at an airport. After about another half-mile we reach the auditorium and Cassie tells me which area I can find my seat in. I thank her profusely and tell her, truthfully, that I could never have found it without her. ‘It is my pleasure,’ she replies in great seriousness.

My issues did not end here. There was the health & safety issue (trailing wires everywhere, a large wooden ramp half-covering a staircase for no apparent reason and over which I had to climb, thus nearly pitching head-first onto the ice rink), the seat numbering issue (that in which I was told to sit bearing no obvious relation to the number on my ticket), the lack of food & drink issue, and the souvenir stall issue, which involved queueing to get a number which you then took to another desk to get your goods, but not being able to find out the price of anything before joining the long queue – it seems the Chinese can queue to get in a queue, but not at any other time.

But the skating was good, if a little riddled with falling-over mishaps. It turned out that everyone had come to see two particularly good Chinese pairs skaters who were streets ahead of everyone else and won by miles. The crowd were the most partisan I’ve ever heard, cheering wildly whenever anybody Chinese did anything, and pretty much ignoring everyone else. After the Chinese Pairs pair had won, everybody left (including me, it must be said, but mainly because I was cold and hungry and Peter was due home from a business trip), leaving the unfortunate male solo skaters to compete in front of a virtually empty auditorium.

So a fun time was had, but not quite in the way I expected. And the Winter Olympics? Maybe next century.

Stop Press!

Talking of international events, we have a little one of our own to tell you about, for those of my readers who haven’t yet been privy to this information. In July we will be bringing a new small international person into the world. Yes I’m 21 weeks pregnant, and planning to give birth in Shanghai – hence our frequent visits there for the past couple of months, for me to attend a western clinic.

Being pregnant in Harbin has given rise to some interesting experiences, such as trying to buy a pregnancy test in a Chinese chemist (I ended up drawing a fat stick-person with a question mark over their head!) and a scary visit to a Chinese state-run maternity hospital. So we opted for Shanghai where you get English-speaking doctors and we know lots of people who can help us out. We’ll be decamping to live there for 6-8 months from the end of March.

Which leaves me with a dilemma, blog fans. My blog is called ‘From Scotland to Siberia’, and I’ll be deserting Siberia for much warmer climes for a while. I wish I could do it the other way round – summer in Harbin and winter in Shanghai would be SO much more pleasant, weather-wise – but Baby (and airline regulations) won’t let me.

So can you forgive me if I write about Shanghai instead for a bit? Peter will still be making frequent visits up north so he can report back. And with my blogging friend at Living the Hai Life about to return to Blighty, maybe I can fill her gap a little. So don’t desert me, please. Shanghai is fun. And we’ll be back in Siberia in the autumn!

Hong Kong pooey

Well, this has been one of the weirder and least pleasant weeks of my life so far.

As you know, we flew to Hong Kong on Monday from Beijing so that Peter could have his operation. My purpose was to be hospital visitor, helpmeet, and carrier of heavy items.

So what do I do instead?

I go and catch gastro-entiritis, probably from some dodgy salad on plane or in hotel, though I can't be sure. I was ok in the morning and up until Peter's surgery, which was at 1pm, but suffered progressive stomach pains after lunch while sitting by his bedside. By 5pm I was projectile vomiting and being taken downstairs to A&E in a wheelchair, and by 9pm I'd been admitted.

So at the time when I was supposed to be tending to the patient's every need, bringing him grapes and so forth, I was in fact lying on a bed two floors below him IN THE SAME HOSPITAL, attached to an IV drip and generally puking my guts up! He'd had his op and was fine, if a bit tender in the nether regions, while my nether regions were making a bid for freedom. So he mostly ended up visiting me.

Fucking fantastic. You couldn't make it up.

So we both spent Monday and Tuesday nights there, which at least saved on taxi fares. They were nice, and everything, but even so. Nuns visited us (it was a Catholic hospital - a fact we didn't discover until we got there). Nurses took our temperature and blood pressure about every hour. Peter was in a semi-private room with a guy who hawked and snorked every few seconds and snored like a rhinoceros. I was in a general ward next to the Amazing Human Sheep, who bleated loudly all night. Peter has a sore bottom. Actually, so do I. And a sore stomach. And two sore hands. I was, I repeat, on a drip. An actual drip. I've never even been in hospital before. It was horrendous.

We were both discharged today and keep telling each other that 'one day we'll look back and laugh' about 'that time we both ended up in hospital in Hong Kong'. We came to China because we wanted an adventure, but there are limits!

Anyway, hopefully we'll be heading back to Harbin on Friday, as THE GOOD NEWS is that our 19 boxes of stuff, which we last saw when it was driven off from Edinburgh on a rainy night in August, has finally arrived in China and cleared customs, and is ready to be delivered to us on Saturday if we're there to receive it. Hooray! I must say there were times when I gave it up for lost.

But I'm afraid I can't tell you much about Hong Kong, having seen very little of it. They drive on the left, and have British plugs. It's hilly. It's hot.

And, er, don't eat the salad.

The robe robbers

Bit of a drama this week. Just when you thought everything was finally starting to settle down for us following the visa debacle, Peter had to go to hospital for an emergency procedure under local anaesthetic to treat an abscess in his colon. I’ll spare you the details, but it wasn’t pleasant. What might be described as a major pain in the arse.

He happened to be in Beijing for the first of three launches which he’d organised for his company. After arriving in considerable agony, he made some fruitless entreaties to BUPA International, who seemed to find the task of locating an English-speaking doctor in China’s capital a little too challenging. Hmmm. Had he consulted the local guidebook in the room, he would have found there are many hospitals to choose from, such as the Shunyi Hospital, the 2nd Shunyi Hospital, the 3rd Shunyi Hospital, or the Longwinded Town Hygienic Service Centre. In the end though he managed to track down a fantastic western hospital who sorted him out. He’s ok now but needs to have a further operation on Monday under general anaesthetic to remove the remainder of the nastiness which they couldn’t reach. However, on the recommendation of the doctor we are flying to Hong Kong for this.

It’s not the ideal way to see the world. Poor Peter has spent the last five days trapped in a Beijing airport hotel, which is a pretty grim fate. No trips to the Forbidden City or the Great Wall for him, on this occasion anyway. I joined him yesterday, laden with summer clothes for our non-sightseeing trip to Hong Kong, where it’ll be in the region of 28-30°C. (It was actually snowing in Harbin when I left yesterday morning). It’s quite warm and sunny here (although the locals all think it’s cold and keep telling us to put our coats on), but we’re limited in our attire as the hotel has a dress code which demands that you don’t wear a ‘singlet’ in public. This immediately made my hackles rise. Peter wondered if he could wear a doublet, but I said that would be twice as bad.

The hospital here have been great and have arranged our flights to and accommodation in Hong Kong, although this required complex negotiations between BUPA International, BUPA (which is different, it seems), and his company. They have booked his surgery, and even emailed him a letter from the surgeon telling him what he needs to bring to the hospital and so on.

Which is where the trouble started.

The letter stated: ‘Please bring with you pyjamas, gown, slippers, toothbrush, toiletries and towel’. Now, Peter doesn’t wear pyjamas. Or slippers. His dressing-gown is at home in Harbin. Ditto all his towels (he knew he’d be staying in hotels where towels are provided, so didn’t bring one, and neither did I).

So, ok, we think. A T-shirt and shorts will pass for pyjamas. Flip-flops will serve as slippers. We could ‘borrow’ a towel from the Hong Kong hotel for a couple of days. Then Peter had a brainwave and decided that before we leave here he would buy one of the nice, white, waffle-weave bathrobes which the hotel provide in the room. The book of guest services expressly states ‘Should you wish to purchase a bathrobe, please contact the Housekeeping Office’. Knowing that Housekeeping’s English wasn’t brilliant, we asked a guy at reception how much the bathrobes cost. It took several attempts to get him to understand what we were talking about, but eventually he phoned Housekeeping, and told us they cost 350 RMB (just under £30), which seemed not unreasonable, but we wanted to consider our finances so we thanked him and returned to our room.

The other reason for hesitating was that we couldn’t remember whether the robes had the hotel logo emblazoned across them in a prominent fashion which would be a bit embarrassing in hospital. However, when we tried to check by looking at the robes in the room, we found that the maid had taken them when she cleaned, and not replaced them. There had been one there at the start of the week, Peter said, which he’d used and it hadn’t been replaced for several days. I used the new one this morning and once again it had disappeared, as sometimes happens.

Having decided to proceed anyway, Peter phoned Housekeeping.

P: Hello, it says in the book in my room that it is possible to purchase a bathrobe, so I would like to buy one please.
Housekeeping: Book?
P: Yes, the book that is in all the rooms.
[Silence].
P: It says on it…[describes front cover and title page of book in detail].
H: Yes?
P: Yes, well, if you turn to the page where it says ‘Housekeeping’, where it says, ‘Bathrobe’, it says ‘If you wish to purchase a bathrobe, please call Housekeeping’. I would like to purchase a bathrobe.
H: One moment please, sir. [Slight hiatus, then returns]. I will send someone to your room.
P: Thank you.
H: You’re welcome.

Five minutes later, a knock at the door. Someone from Housekeeping stands silently, then says, ‘May I help you?’ Peter takes her over to where the book is. ‘Ah, book!’ she says. He turns to the relevant page and painstakingly points to the Chinese writing under the ‘Bathrobe’ bit. ‘Ah,’ she says. ‘One moment please’. And goes.

Another five minutes. Then a different wifie appears with three bathrobes, gives one to Peter, and starts looking around the room for our used ones. She looks in the cupboard, behind the bathroom door, on the bed, and casts a slightly accusing eye at our suitcases. Peter tries to explain that the bathrobes were removed when the room was cleaned and that we weren’t given new ones, but that what we want now is to buy a new one. She doesn’t understand, and phones Housekeeping. Peter patiently informs them, again, that the bathrobes were taken away and we have none. He suggests that perhaps now that she has brought three, she could leave them all – two for the room and one for us to buy. He hands the phone back to her for translation. She listens for a long time, then says, ‘One moment please’, and scuttles away, leaving one bathrobe behind.

Approximately fifteen minutes go by. Then the phone rings in the room and I answer it.

Housekeeping: Ah, good evening madam, I am so sorry to trouble you.
Me: That’s ok.
H: I just speak to room attendant, and she say that she put two bathrobe in your room this morning, so perhaps you forget or you put them somewhere different?
Me: No, we do not have any bathrobes. Well, we do, we have one, which your attendant just brought a few minutes ago, but before that we had no bathrobe. The attendant took the bathrobe away today and did not leave a new one. We have told you this several times but you don’t seem to believe us. I rather resent being accused of stealing bathrobes.
H: Oh, I am so sorry to trouble you.
Me: Well, ok, but all we want now is to buy a new one and charge it to our room bill.
[Pause]. H: Ah, you want…?
Me: To buy a bathrobe. And to add the cost to our room bill.
H: Sorry?
Me: The cost. Of the bathrobe.
H: Cost?
Me: Yes, the money. 350 Yuan. To add to our bill. Can we do that?
H: Cash or credit card?
Me: No, put on our room bill. The bill for our room. Our hotel bill. For our room.
[Pause]. H: One moment please. [Hangs up].

I’ve had enough. I phone reception and ask for the manager. He’s busy so I ask for him to phone me back.

Manager: Ah good evening madam, this is duty manager. How may I help you?
Me: Well, we’re having a bit of difficulty here this evening. [I relate the saga to date, explaining once again that we were given no new bathrobes, that we have not hidden or stolen them, and that we would like to buy one as offered in the guest services book].
DM: I am so sorry, madam, for your trouble. So you have no two bathrobe clean?
Me: [having to think a bit about this one]: When? Now?
DM: When you check in.
Me: Well, yes, there was one bathrobe when my husband checked in on Tuesday. He used it and it was taken away. Then later it was replaced with another one. I used it today and then it was taken away too, and we were given no new bathrobe. And nobody in Housekeeping seems to understand or believe us, and they keep phoning us asking where the bathrobes are.
DM: So you want new bathrobe clean? Or two?
Me [losing will to live]: No. We don’t care. [I try a new tack]. Is it possible to buy a bathrobe from the hotel? For 350 Yuan? And charge the amount to our room bill? Is that a service you offer?
DM: Ah, you want to buy new bathrobe? And to give signature and charge to your bill?
Me: YES!!!!!! Yes!! That’s what we want! Please! Thank you.
DM: Ah, sorry, we are confused. [You don’t say]. I call Housekeeping and send someone to your room.

Ten minutes later another girlie appears with two bathrobes. One is wrapped in plastic. She carefully explains that this is the one we can buy, and the other ‘you can use in my hotel’. She hands Peter a chit to sign, saying, ‘Credit card’. ‘No’, he says, ‘charge to room’. She goes to the phone. ‘Phone the Duty Manager’, I say. ‘He knows’. She phones and is quickly given the ok, so Peter signs and gets his bathrobe. This has taken more than half an hour.

The thing is, it’ll be so flippin’ hot in hospital in Hong Kong that I bet he never even wears it.
We quickly hung the remaining two in the wardrobe on full view to prevent any further accusations of robe theft. Thank God we’re leaving tomorrow.