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Show BEGINNING TO UNDERSTAND. DURING the following days and weeks I went daily to the hospital. Soon I abolished the idea of leaving at once because, being here now, there was really no way out and also because I immediately got my tasks; I had my duties and felt I was needed in this place. The clinics were crowded with people coming not only from the city but from the country miles and miles away. They walked, they came in little carts drawn by donkeys, or they were carried by relatives and friends to get our help. The wards were full to the last bed, the operating schedule was such that we could not be idle in the mornings, on the second floor babies were born, students from the school came, and emergency cases were brought in day and night. The laboratory technician worked hard and sometimes needed our advice, the X-ray man wanted to know how to take a picture, the pharamacist too called on us sometimes; laymen from the country came in to get vaccines to take back to their districts, letters and patients' histories needed to be written up, and a day was gone shortly after we had started it. It took me months and months to get acquainted with the native population, their customs, habits, and language. But it was not long till I found out that it wasn't very important that this country is strange to newcomers but that we, foreigners, are strange to the natives. I thought the broad Chinese noses looked a little funny; but I soon found out that the Chinese have much more fun with our noses, which are awfully long compared with those they have. Grown up people are polite enough not to speak about it; but the children, as soon as they feel we are friends, do not hesitate to ask why we do not have black hair and why we have such terribly long noses; and they do not hesitate to make painful investigation of the hairs we have on arms and legs. Thus I changed my attitude toward this country. I forgot for a while that I didn't like it and watched it more with the attitude of whether it liked me. Wasn't I a guest here after all? Did it make any difference whether the patients' dirty clothes suited me or not if they came to get my help? Is it right for a doctor to complain about this and that if he is needed to treat the sick, to deliver babies, to save lives? What did I do before? I studied medicine because I wanted to and because my parents could afford it. I worked in hospitals to increase my knowledge, I worked in clinics to get practice and experience, and I was in research work because it suited my am- |