chinaadventure (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} chinaadventure) wrote,@ 2007-09-05 17:02:00 |
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Taipei/Tainan - modern diseases and traditional values
Last week I took a three-day break from my candy project to visit Dr. Hu at He-ping Hospital in Taipei. Dr. Hu is an infectious diseases specialist who works mostly with AIDS and TB patients, so it was a good chance for me to get a look at how those diseases affect the body as they progress. I also was able to discuss some of the rarer but quite virulent infections found in Taiwan, such as KP. I spent most of my time there looking through X-rays and photographs of patients’ infections; needless to say, I didn’t eat much last week.
My candy project ended last week, so I spent most of my time writing and rewriting the current patient survey, which will provide me with most of the data I need to determine if my project was a success. The survey took nearly the whole week to develop, because in addition to the translation issues I also had to reformat it to fit on one page (because the patients won’t turn the survey over to look at the other side), add check boxes (Taiwanese don’t circle answers, they check them), change the question about the patient’s birth year (it had to be in Taiwanese years, which start at 1911 so this is Year 96), and add unprompted and prompted recall questions about the candy messages. I eventually went through eight or nine drafts, but hopefully the final version will provide me with the information I need.
After work, I went to Tainan for the weekend to join my former classmates on a bike ride. I felt a visit to Taiwan wouldn’t be complete without joining one of Tommy’s semiannual efforts to kill his classmates. Just as I expected, we were told by our fearless leader that the ride would only last three hours (it was six), we would stay on the roads (we went through a lot of open fields with no bike paths), and we wouldn’t need a repair kit because it was a short ride (I got a flat tire - twice). However, I did enjoy going to the Tainan Cetacean Museum to see the remains of a sperm whale whose body spontaneously exploded in the Tainan streets as it was being transported to the university. We also visited a temple where Taiwanese could pray to Matsu the sea goddess, Guanyin the bodhisattva or the Old Moon Man, a Taiwanese version of Cupid. I was curious about a small shrine at the side of the temple where Taiwanese couples could pray to a god of childbirth. As I read over the many wooden placards in front of the shrine where couples had written their requests, I realized how strong the pulse of tradition is under Taiwan’s modern surface: “A boy child...a boy child...we really want a boy child...”
Photos from the bike ride: http://s15.photobucket.com/albums/a
Last week I took a three-day break from my candy project to visit Dr. Hu at He-ping Hospital in Taipei. Dr. Hu is an infectious diseases specialist who works mostly with AIDS and TB patients, so it was a good chance for me to get a look at how those diseases affect the body as they progress. I also was able to discuss some of the rarer but quite virulent infections found in Taiwan, such as KP. I spent most of my time there looking through X-rays and photographs of patients’ infections; needless to say, I didn’t eat much last week.
My candy project ended last week, so I spent most of my time writing and rewriting the current patient survey, which will provide me with most of the data I need to determine if my project was a success. The survey took nearly the whole week to develop, because in addition to the translation issues I also had to reformat it to fit on one page (because the patients won’t turn the survey over to look at the other side), add check boxes (Taiwanese don’t circle answers, they check them), change the question about the patient’s birth year (it had to be in Taiwanese years, which start at 1911 so this is Year 96), and add unprompted and prompted recall questions about the candy messages. I eventually went through eight or nine drafts, but hopefully the final version will provide me with the information I need.
After work, I went to Tainan for the weekend to join my former classmates on a bike ride. I felt a visit to Taiwan wouldn’t be complete without joining one of Tommy’s semiannual efforts to kill his classmates. Just as I expected, we were told by our fearless leader that the ride would only last three hours (it was six), we would stay on the roads (we went through a lot of open fields with no bike paths), and we wouldn’t need a repair kit because it was a short ride (I got a flat tire - twice). However, I did enjoy going to the Tainan Cetacean Museum to see the remains of a sperm whale whose body spontaneously exploded in the Tainan streets as it was being transported to the university. We also visited a temple where Taiwanese could pray to Matsu the sea goddess, Guanyin the bodhisattva or the Old Moon Man, a Taiwanese version of Cupid. I was curious about a small shrine at the side of the temple where Taiwanese couples could pray to a god of childbirth. As I read over the many wooden placards in front of the shrine where couples had written their requests, I realized how strong the pulse of tradition is under Taiwan’s modern surface: “A boy child...a boy child...we really want a boy child...”
Photos from the bike ride: http://s15.photobucket.com/albums/a
