I really should say "Shopping and lunch," because what is shopping without lunch? I had one important commission to accomplish, and we decided to try the "Number 1 Department Store" at the intersection of Nanjing Road (the premiere downtown shopping area) and Xizong Road. The guidebook promised silk items at good prices, and so we headed in with high hopes. We were not disappointed! Among other bargains of the day, we found this wonderful sweater, which became an early birthday present for Fiona. It was much more fun than Macy's, much more interesting, but still a huge department store. The staff were numerous and attentive. Everyone spoke at least a word or two of English, and with Fiona's Chinese skills, we did just fine. (Plus, written numbers are the same in both languages, so we can check prices very easily. Right now, the exchange rate is about 6 Yuan to 1 dollar.) To make our purchases, we gave the item to the sales person, who wrote up a ticket. We took that ticket to the cashier (no wandering about looking for the counter -- it was right at hand), and the cashier took the credit card, and handed us the receipt, which we took back to the sales person. In the meantime, the sales person had nicely packaged our purchase, and we were ready to go. On the way back to the hotel, Fiona and I stopped at a "Gourmet Noodle" restaurant we had spotted in a huge food court in the truly huge shopping area near the hotel. As I went off in search of the loo (a squatter down a dim passageway -- typical, and perfectly do-able if one is prepared with ones own tissues and hand soap -- which I was thanks to Fiona's excellent advice), Fiona studied the menu. I finally went for something smallish: black beans in yogurt, cold unsweetened soy milk, and "muffins." The black beans were very slightly sweet, and yogurt was just the right kind of tart. It was delicious. And the muffins (pictured below with truly wonderful spring rolls) were little cylindrical rice flour cakes with sweetened red beans on the bottom, and red bean past in the center. Wonderful! The muffins were stamped with a red insignia -- probably of the restaurant. As usual, there were many servers. We have found that sometimes they will just appear to take one's order, and sometimes they wait for you to flag them down. Once again, Fiona's Chinese, elementary as it is, helped immensely. She could answer the waiter's question of whether we wanted cold or hot soy milk, for example. Fiona had a lovely, big bowl of noodles -- way too much, actually. We both think that people who eat a bowl that big (and everyone in the restaurant seemed to have one) probably don't eat another full meal in the same day.
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Fiona was my guide to the Shanghai Museum. Free admission! But a tiny lunch cost an arm and a leg by Shanghai standards. We looked at ceramics and bronzes and carved jade items that made me ask Fiona: "What were our ancestors doing 4,000 years ago?" The scope of this civilization is astounding. A set of 8 stone lions guards the facade of the Shanghai Museum. Each has his own personality, and represents a different sort of protection. They are reproductions from eras that range from a few hundred years BCE to about 900 CE. We had sandwiches labeled "hamburgers" (round bun + ham = hamburger, right?) and hot chocolate for about 84 RMB ($13) - insane to pay such a price, but museum food the world over is high-priced. And the surroundings were beautiful. In typical Shanghai fashion, just as we reached the front of the line, a man barged into line and insisted on being served immediately. The young uniformed man who managed the line could only look apologetically at us. Fortified with food and drink, we headed out to enjoy the galleries The final meal of the conference was at Hai Di Lao Huo Guo, and it was an experience and a half. Into each table was placed this two-part pot. On the left, you see a mild, almost sweet broth, on the right a hot pepper broth. Both include scallions, mushrooms and other tidbits. When the broth was simmering, they started bringing over plate after bowl after dish of lovely things to cook in the broth as you chose: fish, beef tripe, spinach, beef, taro root, lotus root, vegetables I could not identify, mushrooms of various kinds (enoki, shiitaki and tree ears). Many of the items we never did identify. Towards the end, though, there were noodles. The white flour noodles were presented by a waiter who did an elaborate dance during which the noodles were stretched into a long band held in gloved hands by either end, and swirled acrobatically in the air to make all kinds of ribbon-like shapes. At last, the noodle strand was folded over and over until it was just 12 inches long, separated into multiple strands, and placed in the broth. It was seriously challenging to get them out of the broth, though. I needed both a slotted spoon and chopsticks. The last noodles of all were cellophane: but broad and flat and short (6 inches) instead of a nest of "bean threads" such as I normally buy at home. For drinks, we had glasses of slightly sweetened chrysanthemum tea. The flowers were loose in the tea, together with some bright red berry I couldn't identify. One of the best parts was the incredible service. You can't count the servers, and I'm not sure I could enumerate all the things they did, but I'll try: greeters (4 or 5 people greeted us at various stages in our progression from the door to the table); provided hot towels (continuous throughout the meal - I think I received 4 or 5 changes of hot wash-cloths, with which I wiped my face and hands and sometimes the table in front of me -- and even the handles of the spoons when they fell into the broth); eye-glass cloth providers (everyone wearing glasses at the table was presented with a complimentary cloth for cleaning one's glasses); of course, the people bringing the various ingredients to the table, and taking away used dishes; people guiding you through the line of condiments on the sides of the dining room (there must have been 3 dozen various flavorful sauces, herbs, spices, vegetables, nibblies etc.). Plus, people came around and over the coats we had slung over the chairs, they pulled red cloth bags, top-down over the backs of the chairs, so that the coats did not get splashed or tripped over. Likewise, anybody with a backpack got their pack placed neatly in a red bag an placed under the chair. And we were each clothed in a red apron to prevent splashes from getting on our clothes. Peter told us that this restaurant has a reputation of treating its staff so well that they do not want to leave. The whole experience was very high-energy. At the end, when most of the people in our group had gone off to catch their planes, Bill, Peter, Andre (new friend) and another student in Peter's program and I were able to simply sit and chat for some time while our host (Professor Bai Tongdong) was finally able himself to eat something. Good host that he was, he had been too busy making sure everyone else was taken care of to be able to eat until the end. So we had a quiet, low-key conversation for another forty-five minutes. This is a scene from walking down the street to the hotel from the Fudan campus. Sycamores line the street, and two young women walk arm in arm. In the US, you don't see that very often. It's very companionable, as I can attest, having walked in that fashion with Fiona today on the way back from the Shanghai Museum. In our case, it was mainly so that we didn't lose one another in the crowds getting on and off the subway. But it sill had that companionable, intimate feeling. You don't see male friends walking that way with each other in Shanghai. Or in the US, need I add. Here, a young woman rides her bike and eats her breakfast at the same time. You can see that lots of students ride their bikes. She's in front of the cafeteria, where we all ate lunch together on Friday. Peter showed me how to ask for rice, and point at the toppings I wanted. I ended up with two toppings: one with tofu, celery, and a tiny bit of fish, and the other with gelatinous duck blood and quail eggs and some other green. I honestly didn't know what those little squares were. They looked like a dark-colored tofu. But Peter's Chinese tutor let me know they were duck blood, and made a face -- indicating she would never eat it herself. But really, they tasted great. Let's hear it for culinary adventures. Peter shows me a scale model of Fudan University. We are standing inside the two towers, about to join the conference. The buildings closest to where Peter is standing are roughly where his dorm room (pre-Fiona's-arrival) was. The scholar in his element. After lunch with Bill and Peter's former roommate Nathan (and their Chinese tutor) in the Fudan cafeteria, Peter and I took the huge, hulking suitcase of goodies to his apartment. Fiona met us there, and the next fun thing was opening all the treasures. They appreciate everything! Thanks to Fiona's parents, too. I have never before seen two people utterly enraptured by the mere scent of Mint Milanos. Peter and I then joined Bill again at the conference and heard some excellent scholars speak about their work. And since we couldn't join the conferees at dinner, I took Peter out to dinner. (Fiona had to work.) I told him he could choose Western style, since he so rarely gets to do that, and so we ended up at Pancake Day. Here he is about to dive into what has been his favorite restaurant meal as long as I've known him: strawberry pancakes. Our first breakfast together in Shanghai. A friend from Bill's conference (The 18th Annual Meeting of the Comparative & Continental Philosophy Circle) took this for us. This is what I chose. Notice the green tea is in a glass. That's some corn porridge at top left, a steamed bun with meat and veggies in it, a tea-cooked egg, noodles with some greens, slices of melon and a "folded" bun (white flour never tasted or looked so good before). And when well-fed, it's time to explore a little. This is in the courtyard garden of the hotel. The blossom looks for all the world like a rose, but the foliage is confusing me. There was a good rain overnight, and lightning flashes (but didn't hear any thunder). Everything is damp, but as the morning wears on the sun is coming out. All this is a delightful distraction from the incredible pain of trying to call Peter. Apparently our phone automatically generates a long-distance code that we now don't need, and I have to figure out how to disable it. Arrived Thursday about 2:30 pm China time after 24+ hours of travel from Syracuse. Now it's 3:40 am China time, and I am wide awake and ready for the day. Yesterday evening, after settling in to the Fudan Yanyuan Hotel, Bill and went out in search of dinner and some bottled water. We chose a street vendor of noodle and rice dishes, and managed to communicate what we wanted (include hot oil and friend egg: wo yao). As I sat at a tiny table on a blue plastic stool, a gentleman stopped to speak with me. He knew no English, I know no Chinese, but he was able to communicate to me that this place where we were eating was "not clean." That took both me and Bill aback. We knew that our son had survived for several months on food from street vendors, and we had been told by people who know that food they prepare in front of you, that is hot and fresh, is even more likely to be safe than food from some restaurants. We decided that the dishes our food was served in were the most likely risk, as they were probably washed in local, unboiled water. Maybe even without soap? We made a mental note to accept the take-out containers in the future. We had packaged chopsticks at hand, and we decided to eat all but about the last quarter-inch of the food -- the part most likely to be contaminated by the plate. And we're both fine. And it was delicious. And we had spent about $2 each.
So having gone to bed about 7:30, of course I'm wide awake now and hungry. What to eat? Of course: the sandwich I bought in O'Hare thousands of miles and maybe 30 hours ago. It's been sitting (well-wrapped, of course) without refrigeration in my carry-on luggage ever since. It's delicious. If I get sick, was it the nice, hot, prepared in front of me fried rice with lots of goodies in it? Or the ham and cheese on a roll (no mayo, though -- I do have some sense)? I've got my Pepto Bismol in any case. And I'm drinking tap water, which I have boiled in the electric tea kettle kindly provided with our room. (What use would a coffee maker be if you have to boil water?) The water is perfectly clear, does not look or smell like deceased swine. It tastes fine, too. On the way through the Shanghai airport yesterday, I thought again of how both Peter and then Fiona (2 months or more later) made this trek completely alone, and navigated everything just fine: the plane, the customs, changing money, getting a cab or on a train, etc.) I am so proud of them both and humbled by their gumption. I would not have done this without Bill. And I'm thinking of what I get to do today: see Peter and Fiona, and deliver the 30 pounds of stuff we brought for them: Peter's Go board and stones (TSA had to take a look at those - they showed up as just black in the scanner), chocolate, cocoa, chocolate chips, yeast, baking soda, baking powder, nutmeg, some of Fiona's favorite books, a camera and batteries for it, razor refills, Pepperige Farm goldfish crackers -- and some other things I can't remember right now. Just some of the items they've found they really do not like living without. Plus a couple of items they didn't ask for: Easter basket grass, an egg dying kit, some Peeps. It will be like bringing them Christmas and Easter all at once! Not a romance, just the job keeping me up. Chaplaining is not for the faint of heart. Among other duties, as Managing Chaplain I am on 24/7/365 back-up call for the on-call system at Crouse. If the on-call person does not respond, the Operators call me. Last night, it was at 2:36 am (thank you, cell phone). This morning, I wasn't called, but the agonies of the kerfuffle over the previous night's on-call glitch woke me way too early. Basically, it was a perfect storm of on-call mishaps: the priest who was supposed to be on-call, didn't respond. So the Operators called me, which is what they are supposed to do. It was a Roman Catholic need, and I asked the Operator to call a priest who has been so good as to help out in the past, even when he wasn't on duty. I stayed up long enough to make sure he had responded by calling in, and went back to bed. But that was when the trouble started. In short, the need of the family at that time was emotional, not sacramental, and the priest declined to actually come in -- having, in fact, already spent over an hour with the same family (and dying patient, providing for all of the end-of-life sacramental sacramental needs), from 10 to 11 pm (he had been on call until midnight), and needing to be able to get up and do mass in the morning, plus do a major funeral the next day. The family was furious, the staff were upset, and all the anger came spilling out over email in the morning. Sigh. How to fix a system that relies on Roman Catholic priests who are already so overworked it's a miracle they are not all dying of heart attacks? How to make sure the staff feel supported in their work of taking care of family members when a patient dies?
Just saw "My Coma Dreams" by Fred Hersch at the Miller Theatre on Columbia University campus in Manhattan. This was billed as a “Jazz Theater,” as good a description as any. Fred Hersch is a first-rank jazz pianist who suffered sepsis and an 8-week drug-induced coma at St. Vincent’s Hospital in Manhattan in 2008. During his coma, he heard and saw or dreamed many things, and he has written music to express some of it. He has also told his experiences to others, as has his partner, Scott, who lived with him through it. Herschel Garfein conceived, wrote and directed this multi-media presentation of Fred's experiences. Sarah Wickliffe did animated versions of some of the images (and riffs off those images) that came to him during that time. An 11-piece ensemble (string quartet, 2 reeds, 2 brass, bass and drums) performed the music, which Fred Hersch himself wrote, with Fred at the piano. Michael Winther was the actor who played both Fred and Scott, and the video ran in the background (video systems credited to Eamonn Farrell). It was produced by The Program in Narrative Medicine at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons at the Miller Theater on Columbia campus today, March 2. Bill and I saw the 3 pm show. It was thrilling and moving and riveting. The performance we saw was also recorded, so I’m hoping that it will be available for purchase at some time. Some of the visions were nightmarish: Being helpless and strapped down in the back of a panel van, hearing the driver –as they hurtled through the streets -- saying, “You must pay to be released,” but not being able to move his hand to get his wallet out; Finding himself in a 5’x5’ cage alongside Theolonius Monk (in a 6’x6’ cage), and being told whoever wrote a song first would be released – while Monk smiled a serene smile as if he knew something Fred did not. Some of them were comic: Finding he had committed to a gig at a diner in the woods, where the woman who ran it was incredibly demanding, as if this were a great venue in a great location. Some of them were heartbreaking: His partner’s face gazing at him with love from within a green orb, calling to him to come back. Some of them were simply mysterious: He was in a room, and in the room below him was a circle of women in dark, devout clothing who were knitting, knitting, knitting, and whispering to each other. He couldn’t hear what they were saying, but as they knitted, a goose would come into being off the end of one pair of needles, and fly away, and then another off another pair and so on.
The music likewise went through many moods: tender, Thelonius Monk-like (angular, dryly humorous, drivingly rhythmic), wild, serene, and all very beautiful, With the man himself at the piano, his story was all the more riveting. This is someone my husband, Bill, considers "in the running" for the best living jazz pianist. I had the privilege of being able to speak with Fred afterwards briefly, and to ask him if any chaplains made a difference in his stay. He said he couldn’t remember any chaplains, though he assumed they were there, and all of the staff were wonderful. But somebody’s rabbi did visit, and Fred did experience him as a “solid” presence. Fred denied being “a Jewish Jew,” but appreciated this one particular man. This was a completely unforgettable experience for me, and if I can get the dvd of it, I’d love to present it to others. It ran about 1 hour and 20 minutes, no intermission. That was the tearful lament of a patient I met one day. He was married, with kids and extended family, and even as he faced yet another horrific treatment plan, he knew in his body he might not make it. He was facing death. But nobody who loved him would admit it. "You're going to be all right," said his mother-in-law. "Keep fighting! We need you!" said his wife. "We're just going to stay positive," said his brother. So he was all alone. OK, racked with pain, and with no cure in sight, and feeling all alone, what could help? Just having somebody who didn't contradict him or cajole him or choke him with positivity, at least for 15 minutes. In that short a time, he was experiencing less pain, more energy, more peace, and there was a smile on his face.
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AuthorKate Lufkin Day is a writer, Episcopal priest and hospital chaplain based in Syracuse, NY. Archives
June 2019
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