Saturday, April 30, 2011

Strange Smells at the Clinic

The first evening I was in China back in the summer of 2002, I thought I was going to vomit. The smells almost did me and I'm not one to be easily nauseated. Luckily, I got over it–the smell of stinky tofu (literally fried moldy tofu) on the streets, fermented mildew from clothes that didn't dry fast enough in my "hotel", and I couldn't even recognize some of the other smells. Now many of these scents have become familiar thought I still can't identify all of them...

Yet sometimes there is a smell that is quite distinct–a smell that reminds me of the stairwell near my freshman dorm where the guy down the hallway would light up his contraband...yes, the smell is marijuana. And quite often when I pass the little medical clinic down the street (the one with the steady stream of weathered and hunched elderly Chinese people), I smell that same scent of hash. I asked my co-workers, and it doesn't seem that medical marijuana is available here so I have only one conclusion–the old folks are illegally getting high at the "clinic". (Actually, I have another conclusion, but this one is far more interesting.)

I tell you...do not underestimate the elderly Chinese.

2 comments:

Sewon said...

I totally know what you mean about the smells. I actually vomited on the side of the street passing by a wet market in southern Shanghai. Just seeing bull frogs being gutted and snakes in backpacks probably did it. I don't mind wet markets now, but I can't get over the stinky tofu!

Sarah Grooms said...

I remember playing the "What is THAT smell??" game. Good times. In Jining there was the occasional rotten cat food smell which may have been the MSG factory up the road. Or maybe there was a cat food factory I didn't know about...