Chronicles of the Dragon of Unhapiness

Many of you will have noticed a sharp decline in the rate which I have been updating this web log of my journies. Part of this is due to an increase in my work load as many of my fellow Lao Wai (foreigners) head home for the holidays, but the true reason has been from added work loads from other sources.

First I have been attempting to develope a social life with the many lovely ladies at work. While this is a very rewarding pursuit I can hardly justify it as taking up my time for writing short diddys about my times in China though as I have only met marginal success to date and all of it has been recent.

Second I am preparing to have a big Christmas party and so there has been a goodly amout of time spent running to stores trying to find the various things I need to make cookies, cider, and decorate my flat for christmas (I will take pictures when it is set up). But again much of the time involved baking durring which there is plenty of time to post something here, and the rest of it met with little success.

Lastly this brings me to the final and true reason for my lack of attention to this log, the visiting of the Dragon of Unhappiness upon my flatmate up until his return to the states.

Just a little over a month ago the dire events were set in motion, events that would cost Nico a great deal of money and wear my patients somewhat thin despite the swelling of sympathy his plight would create in me.

Nico's friend Mark took Nico out to dinner on a Sunday night and introduced him to a local brand of Baijo (Chinese alcohol ~112 proof) which Nico actually enjoyed. It was cheap and had actual flavor according to Nico, I never contested the point as a simple smell of the liquid was enough to repulse me. I will never understand the appeal of drinking alcohol even if I understand the appeal of the effects. Close to nothing in this world is worth drinking something which tastes as vile as that smells.

The following day Nico set off to buy a bottle of about 500ml of this same alcohol for about .80 cents. The Alcohol might have had nothing to do with the following events, and it might have started it, since I can't tell I include it.

That night Nico drank what I would estimate to be about 70ml of the bottle and then we went out to a resturant with friends. The resturant served traditional, local, food which we had never eaten before and featured rarities in China such as large peices of tender beef. Everything tasted very good and Nico ate a fair amount more than I did.

With Chinese food I find that the variety of flavors and sensations overwhelms my sense of taste after a while and causes me to be very satisfied with eating much less than I otherwise would. This might be part of the reason why I have lost considerable weight since being here.

The day following our dinner outing Nico became very ill. Indegestion mixed with digestive disfunction and all kinds of unpleasant things. He continued to be very ill for two and a half days and then slowly recovered somewhat apart from a soreness around his bottom.

He did not know it but the Dragon of Unhappiness had flown up his bottom.

Each day the pain got worse and when he couldn't quiet stand alone he decided it was time to ask if the people from work could get him some pain killers. When they couldn't do that without taking him to the hospital he agreed to go.

This started three weeks of hospitalization and two surgurys in which they had to releive the preassure cause by two sizeable infections in either half of his rear. The process left him immobile and me as his go-to guy for refilling his Mp3 player and other errands which he didn't know how to ask other people to do in Chinese, or when he just wanted to speak in Enlgish for a while.

Over the course of those three weeks I made it to see him on each day that I had time, which averaged out to everyother day or once every three days. I built up a little sleep debt from running my errands and caught a couple of colds durring that time also, but am now doing very well.

The passing of the Dragon of Unhappiness may very well have left a physical scar upon the unfortunate soul it visited, but it certainly made my life difficult for a while.

Imagine having to go a whole month with a friend in the hospital constantly calling you and not being able to use any variation of the phrase "pain in the ass"...