Starkey Mission to China, 2014 - Day 12

Dali to Lijiang, China

Today we head to Lijiang. The bus we have today is quite small compared to the ones we've had so far, and it is about a 2.5 hour drive on mountain roads. It should be interesting...

The bus ride to Lijiang was quite enjoyable. We stopped about two thirds of the way there at a restaurant station for a bio-break and to pick up some food. 

I stuck to my bottled water from the last hotel and sesame snacks I brought with me, but everyone else decided to try the full gambit of local processed food: chips, ice cream, etc.

We rolled into Lijiang around 2 pm.

After checking into the hotel, we split into two groups; those who wanted to go for lunch and those who wanted to go to Old Town. Ros and I went for lunch. The locals had arranged a table for us at a hot pot place where we had a communal hot pot. The main soup dish bubbling over red hot coals contained a variety of things including a rooster's head (complete with comb) and both chicken's feet. Not so appetizing... 

Eventually Mark worked up enough courage to try some of a chicken foot, but no one ventured to try the head. The rest of the items (mushrooms, beef, pork, noodles, and fried chicken skin) was quite good and we washed it down with a big bottle of local beer.

After hot pot, we got a lift back to the hotel and Rosaline and I decided to walk to the closer of the two Old Towns in Lijiang. Old Town was pretty cool and we saw tons of shops selling goods very similar to those in Dali, but at generally better prices. I got some tea and Rosaline picked up a hand-carved stamp for Melanie's son Sebastien. 

One interesting thing about Lijiang (even moreso than Dali) is the fact that there are a lot of dogs here. Many people have pet dogs, but in general there are tons of dogs running around loose - especially in Old Town. We saw a particularly cute puppy along with it's mother.

After spending a couple of hours in Old Town, Rosaline and I came back to the hotel for a small snack (since we had a late lunch and no dinner), and headed back to our rooms.

Tomorrow begins our first and only day of fitting here in Lijiang! Everyone is joking there should be more hearing impaired people here so we can stay longer. It is absolutely beautiful here, and extremely quiet and tranquil. 

Quite the opposite of Dali, where we fell asleep every night to the soothing throb of the dance music playing in the gentleman's club eighteen storeys below us. The hotel here is almost like a resort or spa nestled in the mountains.

We're told that over 100 walk-ins have made a pilgrimage to Lijiang, walking for three days to get fitted with hearing aids tomorrow, pushing the total number of patients up over 700. It's likely to be a long day so I had better sign off and get some rest. 

Starkey Mission to China, 2014 - Day 11

Dali, China

Patients fitted: 613

Today is our final day of fitting in Dali. 

Today started with a whole pile of young kids, which made Rosaline extremely happy. We also had the cutest kid in the world from yesterday return, and believe it or not, she seemed to be hearing! She was joined once again by her teacher and today her brother was there as well (who was also hearing impaired). She seemed to respond when asked if the boy beside her was her brother. Tani fitted both her and her brother, and as far as I know they were both hearing. I never got a chance to follow up, but I did get a couple more great pictures.

We wrapped up the day rather uneventfully (the hundreds of fittings are all starting to blur together) and Rosaline had fun handing out candy to as many kids as possible. There is a lot of candy left over, however, which we'll be bringing to Lijiang.

After the fittings were over Rosaline, David and I went for a walk looking for a place to eat. I managed to find a couple Lego figures for Drew and David managed to get a Red Bull poster off the wall of a convenience store (people here really are amazingly friendly) during our walk, and we finally decided to stop and have hot pot for dinner. This was a new experience for both David and I, but Rosaline talked us through it. It is essentially fondue, except instead of cheese, you have a boiling pot of soup, and instead of bread, fruit, or whatever else you would dip in a fondue you have meat, vegetables, noodles, fish, etc. It was really good, and it was a really cool experience. Once again we had Rosaline to thank for helping us experience something new. Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of this meal!

After dinner, there was a group tour of "Old Town" arranged for us. Apparently there is an Old Town and a New Town of Dali. Old Town was extremely cool, and is a warren of tiny shops, bars, hotels and street vendors all set in an extremely old, walled area of Dali. 

We wandered around and just browsed for two hours. I didn't buy anything but lots of other people did. There certainly seemed to be some deals to be had if you knew what to look for.

I'm now back at the hotel updating this journal (I let it slip for a couple of days and it is hard to catch up!). Tomorrow morning we leave for Lijiang. We have one day of fitting there and one tour day and then we leave for home. China is beautiful and this has been a wonderful experience but to be honest I am ready to get back to my normal life. I miss my family and I can't wait to get back home. I've met some absolutely wonderful people on this trip, many of whom have left already (Todd and Wayne left just this evening, and before that there was Britta, Joe and Bridget, Gary, Sabrina, Patricia, Scott, Marti...am I missing anyone?). I'll definitely need to collect some email addresses before I leave so I can keep in touch with them!

Starkey Mission to China, 2014 - Day 10

Dali, China

Patients fitted: 644

Our second day of fittings in Dali went much more smoothly than the first day. We had a few really tough fittings and one gentleman who was a walk-on who didn't even need hearing aids that we had to send away. We decided to work through lunch today as it was chicken sandwiches (again!). 

Apart from roasting in the sun, the day was fairly uneventful, but we did have a young girl show up at the end of the day who was completely unresponsive and did not seem to be hearing at all. She was the cutest kid I have ever seen and she seemed to be shy, but intelligent and very strong. 

Nothing seemed to faze her, and she even smiled a few times when I honestly expected her to cry. We tried every power of hearing aid and seemed to get no response in her eyes or face, indicating that she did not seem to be hearing anything at all. We called Tani over to try a body aid, and she said that she seemed to be hearing by the way she put her chin down to her chest with the higher power aids. I was very skeptical, and I must admit I teared up when I came to the conclusion that we could not help her. 

She had a teacher there with her who was also hearing impaired so we decided to have her watch as we fit her teacher and perhaps that would give her an idea of what we were trying to do. If you've never heard before, it is pretty hard to know what we mean when we are asking if you can hear something, and if it is too soft or too loud. Tani fit her teacher and had her raise her arm when she spoke into her ear. After the teacher was fitted, she moved onto the young girl again and wouldn't you know it, she raised her arm when Tani spoke into one of her hearing aids! What a smart kid! I was still skeptical she was hearing anything, but Tani decided to leave her with a medium power set of hearing aids overnight and check her again tomorrow and she was coming back with over 70 kids, all from the same school! We left it at that, and Rosaline and I went back to the hotel to shower and get ready for dinner.

Tonight we had another group dinner planned, this time at another nearby hotel. 

We took a bus over (although it was close enough to walk) and had the usual round of speeches, followed by a multi-dish, traditional Chinese dinner and many rounds of toasting. They were kind enough to give is really tiny rice wine glasses for toasts, likely to prevent us getting hammered from the many rounds of "Gan Bei!". Dinner was delicious and there was a large variety of dishes available. I tried everything except the pig's liver and chicken and fish soups.

After dinner some of us decided to walk home as it was a beautiful night and it was only a short walk back. Rosaline wanted to pick up some candy for the busload of kids coming the next day so we decided to stop at Walmart on the way home.

After that David and I decided to have one more beer at a cool little bar right on the river. We were joined by another couple of guys from the USA, coincidentally named David and Mark. So the four of us had a pint and got to know one another, then walked back to the hotel and called it a night. 

Starkey Mission to China, 2014 - Day 9

Dali, China

Patients fitted: 601

I had a really good night's sleep last night and woke up ready to start our first day of fittings in Dali. Breakfast was disappointing as it was mostly traditional Chinese food and I have had enough of that (and fried chicken sandwiches) for the time being. I just wanted a good strong coffee, some waffles, bacon, and maple syrup. Oh well. Maybe in Lijiang?

Right off the bat I got lost trying to walk to the stadium where the fittings were taking place. The interpreter at the hotel pointed me down the wrong road (or I misunderstood her) and I ended up walking for 20 minutes in the wrong direction until I saw some government building and guards with machine guns. At that point I turned around, walked back to the hotel, and saw the stadium about 2 minutes walk from the hotel in the other direction. Sigh. At least I got some exercise.

Fittings today were a mix of frustrating and normal. A couple of patients were unresponsive and had a different dialect of speech which confused our interpreter, Helen. I was working with Rosaline today and she managed to realize when someone was not understanding and helped to communicate. I think we did rather well, and we ripped through all of the patients by about 2:00 pm. Lunch was fried chicken sandwiches (again) so I am really looking forward to something different for dinner. We've had KFC so often that I am beginning to think I'd prefer Chinese food (although not the pig brains).

We're going to go out for a walk and explore a bit and try to do some more shopping.  There is a huge Walmart here so I hope I get lucky and they have some cheap costumes. Maybe I'll luck out and find an Assassin's Creed costume for Drew.

Update: Rosaline and I ended up going for a 2 hour walk around the town looking for shopping and just generally seeing the sights. David joined us as we were walking along the river and we all walked up onto the main bridge where we had an awesome view of the lake and surrounding area.

David ended up heading back for dinner while Rosaline and I walked...and walked...and walked. Eventually we decided to find a place to eat on the way back to the hotel. Most places were closed still (they don't seem to open for dinner here until really late - like 6 or 7 pm!) but we managed to find a Korean BBQ place and man was it good! Some real meat was a welcome diversion from traditional Chinese food and KFC. 

Both Rosaline and I were absolutely stuffed, and I went back to my hotel room early, had a shower and watched two movies and went to sleep.