Avoid 7-11 before exams (Hong Kong)

The first time in my adult life that I suffered from food poisoning was the morning after I ate a 7-11 "beef and cheese" wrap in Tai Po Tsai. It sounded good at the time, really it did.

Now, you can speculate that most foreigners are prone to food poisoning because they are not immune to local viral agents, but as a general incentive to avoid eating late at night and opting for late night escapades to 7-11, I can impose this as a lesson to never forget. Four days later, I'm still feeling gassy but at least I'm feeling better and the diarrhea and vomit are becoming sore memories.

One interesting cultural experience came out of this and I really have to thank Shin for this one: "Po Chai Pills" (Bottle Form Made In Hong Kong). Check this out. The recommended dosage every two hours is two bottles of these tiny pills! According to Da, it's actually a common form of traditional Chinese medicine. Most of the ingredients are herbs and plants as far as I can tell. I always knew TCM was a lot different from Western medicines, but I can say I've experienced it now to some extent.

The fine print on the box reads: "This medicine is good for fever, diarrhoea, intoxication, over-eating, vomiting and gastrointestinal diseases. Direction: 2 bottles are to be taken once every two hours, 4 times daily, 1/2 bottle for children." (word for word, letter for letter)

I honestly don't know if it was just me feeling extremely sick that night but after taking one dose before bed, my digestive system immediately reacted with gassy rumblings. It was amusing but I really wanted to sleep and it was like listening to AC/DC right before sleep. I don't know about you, but I can never fall into sweet slumber with that genre of music (I also hardly ever listen to AC/DC let alone have I learned to appreciate it, sorry). The same thing happened the next morning after taking one bottle so I decided to just tough out the day without the pills. I tried to go to the website and to Wikipedia to find out their exact effects but to no avail. So now I just feel like blogging about it and remaining ignorant until someone enlightens me.

Speaking of cultural experiences, on Tuesday night I had an interview for a Huangshuan service learning trip in the beginning of June. The trip requires some proficiency in Mandarin and I took a risk and said, 'Hey, I took one semester of Putonghua, I really want to participate in this, so I hope I can show enough heart and willpower to impress the interviewers.' I knew there would be some Putonghua involved during the interview and I was scores nervous. I felt so silly being the monolingual American (pues, "monoandahalflingual" si incluye espanol) compared to the locals who are trilingual with Cantonese, English, and Mandarin up to at least functional levels.

Nevertheless, even if the application isn't successful, I have to say it was a good experience. The church friends who helped me prepare my Putonghua for the interview really made a difference. I just hope I retain the confidence to use Putonghua in daily conversation. One place to start: my research lab! Yes!