Hua Xin

Today I went on my first visit with Magic Hospital to a hospital called Hua Xin, in the northwest part of Beijing. A lady named Pauline has been visiting once a month and she offered to let me accompany her to see what a visit is like. The hospital looked surprisingly new, and the children's floor was clean and nice, but not very bright-colored.  We went into a small toy/play room, and Pauline spread out the toys she had brought, including home-made playdough.  There were three parents with little babies, and a few 6-7 year-old patients, and one nine year-old patient.  

It was interesting to see the way the parents and nurses interacted with us while we were there.  Part of their reticence might have been the language barrier (Pauline's Chinese was better than mine but not by much), but they seemed much less likely to jump into the activities the way American parents would. We read several stories, and I admire Pauline immensely for having translated The Very Hungry Caterpillar into pinyin so she could read it along with the english!  The parents just sort of sat there, they didn't seem willing to say anything or try to get their kids interested in the story. After reading, we played with playdough and had a drawing session.  I feel like at home, parents would have sat down to draw too, talked about the pictures, and tried to get their kids interested, but not so here.  They just watched us drawing, and trying lamely to talk to the kids (one of them turned out only spoke a dialect of Mandarin and couldn't understand a word we were saying anyway). Even the nurses just stood in the background, if they weren't holding one of the babies. They did get excited though about my hand puppet frog that I learned how to make in high school - there are now 6 or so Chinese people in Beijing who can make versions of Chuck! 

 Overall it was a very fun time despite not being able to communicate in words with the kids that much; kids are still kids and they enjoyed make believe and excited voices even in another language. Loads of smiles go a long way with sick kids everywhere.

Pauline and I with a very precocious patient who knew way more English than I know Chinese