www射-国产免费一级-欧美福利-亚洲成人福利-成人一区在线观看-亚州成人

US EUROPE AFRICA ASIA 中文
Lifestyle

When I'm under the weather the cure is colleagues

By Ellie Buchdahl ( China Daily ) Updated: 2012-09-13 11:21:11

When I'm under the weather the cure is colleagues

I should never have gone to Happy Valley theme park. It wasn't that I don't love lethal roller coasters, chaps in psychedelic bumblebee suits who look about as "happy" as a morgue, or teacup rides that threaten to hurl you into orbit at every turn. The problem was that I loved it too much. I expressed my excitement rather too loudly for someone who already had a "frog in my throat", or a "a bit of a cold".

Related: The fairest of them all is tanned?

The result was that, by Monday morning, I had gone from mild Kermit to completely mute. Nothing would leave my throat but a faint hiss. I had lost my voice - completely.

Complaining is a major part of being British. The weather, work, foreign food and people anything and everything is worthy of a moan.

On the other hand, the British law of the "stiff upper lip" states that nothing is ever so bad that you should actually do anything about it. Indeed, this would remove the source of the complaint. Complaining itself isn't broken, so don't fix it.

When it comes to sickness, a true Brit will ensure everyone knows exactly what he or she is suffering from - in loud, graphic detail that includes information on the number of toilet trips and the decibels of the noises produced. But should you suggest that he or she visit the doctor or take some sort of medication beyond cheap supermarket painkillers, he or she will respond with a long-suffering sigh of: "No - I'll survive."

Related: Missing piece in the new public bicycle service puzzle

This tendency is even stronger in my family. Both my parents are doctors and so will christen whatever you are suffering from with fatal-sounding Latin words, before declaring, "But then a little cough never killed anyone." When I was about 12, that "little cough" turned out to be pneumonia, but as dear Mummy said at the time, "A little bit of pneumonia won't hurt a big girl."

Fast-forward to that post-Happy Valley Monday morning in Beijing, and you see me preparing to go to work in a manner of which Mummy would be proud. I wrapped my thickest scarf around my neck and eagerly anticipated the first opportunity to flaunt my lost voice to my Chinese colleagues.

But when I responded to the first pleasantry of the day with a disgusting hiss, the response from the office was not the mutual British-style griping I expecting.

"What have you done to your voice?" cried my colleague, who had just asked me how I was.

"I've got a cold " I tried to say, but every chair in the room had already turned to face me.

My boss was beside herself. "You're sick!" she cried. "We'll take you to hospital!"

"No!" I whispered with as much volume as I could gather. "I'm fine!"

The chaos of concern from all angles was terrifying. I desperately tried to take things back to the more comfortable realms of self-deprecation. "It's my fault, I went to a theme park "

"You must have medicine!" my boss commanded. I was frog marched to the pharmacy to buy a bottle of thick black "pear grease".

For the rest of the day, people prescribed me cups of tea, bowls of porridge, massage treatments, herbal concoctions their grandmother had made them I began to feel like a proper fraud. I wasn't dying yet.

At 5 pm I staggered home, exhausted.

By the next day, I was speaking again. It was almost a miracle.

Related: You may not be Kobe Bryant but you're OK

Perhaps the flood of green tea and the "pear grease" (which turned out to be oddly addictive in a way that made me suspect it was not just pear grease) had worked. Or perhaps - unlike in the UK, where I would have proudly nurtured my lost voice for all its worth - all this concern had overwhelmed my sickness.

In China, you're not "a bit under the weather". Either you're sick or you aren't. So obviously, I had had to get better. With their kindness that bordered on hysteria, my colleagues had cured me.

Since then, I've rarely had a cold in Beijing. I definitely haven't lost my voice again.

I still buy the pear grease though. Occasionally. As a special treat.

Contact the writer at elliebuc@hotmail.com.

Editor's Picks
Hot words

Most Popular
...
主站蜘蛛池模板: 天空在线观看免费完整 | 99国产精品久久久久久久日本 | 手机在线视频一区 | 男人添女人下面免费毛片 | 成人18视频在线观看 | 成人免费一级片 | 一区在线看 | 欧美日韩一区二区三区视频 | 成 人 黄 色 视频 免费观看 | 在线视频欧美亚洲 | 欧美一级高清毛片aaa | 国产精品三级手机在线观看 | 日韩美视频网站 | 91国内精品久久久久影院优播 | 成人久久网 | 国产乱码精品一区二区三区四川人 | 久久久久久久综合 | 国内自拍视频一区二区三区 | 成人丝袜激情一区二区 | 亚洲高清成人欧美动作片 | 国产亚洲小视频 | www国产 | 99久久国产免费中文无字幕 | 呦视频在线一区二区三区 | 国产一级毛片亚洲久留木玲 | 91在线精品亚洲一区二区 | 青青草福利视频 | 国产v欧美v日韩在线观看 | 精品国产高清a毛片无毒不卡 | 国产菲菲视频在线观看 | 亚洲一区二区三区高清视频 | 免费一级毛片在线观看 | 全部在线播放免费毛片 | 欧美精品束缚一区二区三区 | 成人18视频在线观看 | 久久亚洲精品视频 | 99久久精品自在自看国产 | 深夜做爰性大片很黄很色视频 | 国产精品手机在线观看 | 亚洲片在线观看 | 久久久久久久免费 |