Heading South, Aimless
I chose a slow green-skinned train and bought a sleeper ticket. To the clatter of the wheels and the waves of snoring from my car, I fell fast asleep, sleeping deeply.
I had an upper berth, right over the air vent. They say that on an upwind, even a pig can fly. But though my pig was on the upwind, it could not fly—it was freezing.
I asked to swap to a middle or lower berth, but the conductor said none were free. One conductor told me to stuff the vent with newspaper; another taught me to "protect the head but not the feet"—put my head at the sheltered end and my feet in the draft, then cover with a thick quilt. After that, I was no longer cold.
Comfortable, I read for a while until drowsiness came and I slept, even better than at home.
Before leaving I told my family I would follow Bill Porter—author of Road to Heaven and Zen Baggage—spend years visiting the ancestral seats of the five houses and seven sects of Chinese Chan, and write something, so that even traveling I would not waste time. But in truth I lack that leisure, and I am not cut out for such derivative work.
So I had no real destination, only a purpose—to get out and relax. Walking in an unfamiliar place, I emptied the clutter from my mind.
Waking, I opened WeChat and, as usual, found various patient updates, which I answered one by one. Diligence is a good habit I cannot drop; once I grow lazy, much joy goes out of my life.
After all, treating patients is not all toil; helping others relieve their physical and mental suffering is deeply rewarding, even though I cannot solve every patient's pain.
Among the messages that morning was an update from a Shandong University teacher I had treated for allergic rhinitis a few days earlier. Someone always finds a way past the barriers I set. I generally refuse to see non-cancer patients, but in China's acquaintance-based society, "acquaintances" or "secondary acquaintances" introduced by them never respect the rules. This teacher had been referred by an old patient of mine—another Shandong University teacher.
His rhinitis treatment went smoothly: allergies that had troubled him for years resolved after three doses of Maxing Shigan Tang (Ephedra-Apricot-Gypsum-Licorice Decoction). But when I took his pulse I found a weak, feeble knotted/intermittent pulse—a heart-pulse pattern associated with heart failure and infarction. I asked if he had heart disease; he said yes. So after Maxing Shigan Tang I prescribed Zhi Gancao Tang (Honey-fried Licorice Decoction) for his heart, suggested Erzhi Wan for his baldness, and long-term Shengmai Yin to prevent heart failure and infarction. So today he asked whether, now that his rhinitis is cured, he should start the heart medicine.
For a doctor, saving lives is a pleasure. I hear that Canadian doctors are so busy they must limit each visit to one problem. But I doubt that rule works: patients always want several problems solved at once, and doctors are unlikely, knowing a patient has a life-threatening hidden risk, to stand by.
Wherever I go and whatever I write, I probably cannot escape a "medical flavor." Though no medical obsessive, I am already deep in medicine, unable—and unneeded—to extract myself.
Beyond medicine, I really do not know what theme my life has. So even traveling, I wander free, aimless, wherever I end up. I just need a relatively quiet place to rest body and mind a while.