methinks

Without a Paddle

The Beginning

Without the language life is hard. I stumbled through two years of Chinese forms and bills and formalities blabbering baby talk at kind workers. Not to sell myself short; I was good at small talk. But the nuts and bolts of civilization come with a massive amount of protocol and jargon that take determined effort and years of experience to master - neither of which I had - which meant that now and again when my life crossed the path of a bureaucrat, I'd be as helpless as a newborn in winter. Today I saw that newborn in America. And American winters are much, much colder.

"Ni hui shuo zhongwen?" I said.
"Hui a."
"You chuan cai mei you?"
"Sichuan?"
"Shi a."
"Youde."

So began my chat with the server at a local Chinese restaurant. She was from Fujian and seven months pregnant. She'd lived in America for two years but still only spoke a little English, her husband even less.

"Ni shi na guojiade?"
"Meiguode."
"Bu kenneng. Meigouren shuo zhongwen meiyou neme hao."
I smiled.

I ordered a dish off the menu (the buffet was looking scanky) and asked them to spice it up. I guess they don't eat spice in Fujian, because milk in Sichuan is spicier than this was. But hai keyi. I finished the dish and she came back to chat.

"Wo nengbuneng wen ni yige wenti?" she said. You always know there is a difficult question coming after that. She knew I was an English teacher in China, so I anticipated the question to come. Yes, she would like some help with English, maternity English in particular.

"You know, I'm going to have my baby soon. And I can't understand the doctor. And...I'd just like to have some idea of what to say at the hospital. I've been having headaches, and I don't know how to ask if it is a problem. I don't know about my baby's health." (All of which she said in Chinese, but that's starting to stretch my abilities to accurately reproduce, so I'll stick to English for now.) Would I give her some help with doctor office English? Of course, I would.

She went on to tell me about how people at the bank won't help her. How social services won't talk to her because, in her own English words, she has "No proof." Her husband has a driver's license, but who knows what they have beyond that.

I suggested she enroll in the local ESL program; it's free to county residents. She said she'd look into it, but was wondering if they'd require "proof."

After about an hour of chatting - 1/2 Chinese, 1/4 English and 1/4 where we just pretended to understand the other - I said I'd come back Thursday afternoon with a sheet of doctor's office vocab. She thanked me. I paid my bill and went on my way.

The Creek

Today was Thursday. I don't even know how to begin telling the latent tragedies in this tale.

We sat down at one of the many empty tables.

"I'm not sure exactly what to teach you because there are so many things to choose from. Maybe you could start with something you'd like to know."

"Okay," she offered, "Yesterday I went to the doctor and the nurse said I had..." and then she wrote out w...a...r...t...s .

I stifled my surprise and pulled my hands under the table.

She continued, "I asked if that was like "water" but she said no." They sounded the same in her Chinese accent. She punched the letters into her electronic dictionary, but the resulting Character didn't make any sense to her. (Those dictionaries are awful.) I looked it up in my trusty red pocket dictionary, showed it to her and she discretely dropped the subject.

I'd brought my PC lesson book and had opened it to Chapter 32 "Wo Bingle", which is mainly about getting diarrhea from lajio. Not to helpful for pregnancy. I'd also prepared a sheet of possible questions the doctor might ask and answers she might give. They were pretty basic and she already knew most of them. We talked about forms at the hospital; we sorted out once and for all should the xin come first or the geide mingzi. (I also learned she has no insurance.) Overall, things were looking good. I had the feeling that I was helping her navigate the maze called America. Then she whipped out the mail.

"I can't understand all these papers. Too many words. I don't know if they are important or not."

At first it was easy. Paid bills? Yes, keep the receipts for a while. Previous tenants mail? Not your problem...oh, you've been opening it? Don't do that anymore. Just mark it return to sender and forget about it. What's this, Indiana State Revenue Department? Oh..whooosh...just a silly form about industry codes changing and how you need to pick your new code and send it back. Wait a second, I asked, "Why do you have industry codes?"

It turns out she wasn't just a worker at this restaurant; she and her husband had bought it a month ago. I started to get nervous, for her or me, I wasn't sure.

The next letter, also from the Revenue Department, "Effective mm/dd/yy [date omitted for privacy] you are no longer authorized to conduct business at this location."

"Is this one important?" she asked.

I got my dictionary to look up a few key terms. I replied, "I am not an account. I am not a lawyer. This is not my job, so I can't be sure about any of this." Everyone knows bad news follows a C.Y.A. like that. I tried my best to explain what it said, to give reasons for why it might not be bad. "Maybe you have a new retail ID? This one is for the old owner." Right.
She looked sullen.

Then we got to "Your application for credit card processing has been denied." Clear enough to explain. But she countered, "I can process credit cards." I looked to the cryptic last paragraph. Something about "A processing of credit cards is not an agreement of terms but a matter of convenience.'" I couldn't make sense of it in English, let alone explain it in Chinese. Then came "Indiana Workforce Development" and workers comp.

"This is important if you pay workers money," I said, knowing that - despite the 4 other workers in the room - she would find that a relief and she cheered up a bit. I have a feeling meimei doesn't get paid cash.

Seven months pregnant, no health insurance, owner of a business of questionable legal status, herself of questionable legal status...what am I supposed to do? What should I do? There were phone numbers on those papers I could've called. But I'd known this woman for about 3 hours total. But then I thought of the ways people helped me in China. But then I think about what kind of legal situation do I put myself into. What kind of legal situation would I put them into, "Yes...I'm calling from the Chinese restaurant you closed down, we'll the new owner is just wondering why...uh huh...no, I don't think she has any kind of "proof". What? You're transferring me to INS?" More fundamental, what could I do if I even wanted to do something? I'm not Frances. I translated "no longer authorized to conduct business at this location" to "ni zeli buneng mai dongxi". That kind of translation does more damage than good.

We chatted a bit more. I asked about Chinese support groups in Louisville. She wasn't too sure where that was. It's the city of 300,000 people 10 minutes across the river. And then it came time for me to leave. The bearer of bad news should bow out sooner than later. As the door was closing I heard meimei say, "Kenneng ta deng yihuar gen women chi fan." At least one of them still likes me.

After I got home, I made a few calls. I got the number for the ESL program in town. I called the Crane House, an Asian cultural center which technically offers no immigrant services but - after some silver tongue wagging on my part - was willing to at least field a phone call (in Chinese) from the woman. I called her at the restaurant and gave her the two numbers. She said thanks, I hung up and have been writing this ever sense.

Zenme ban?

Ensurance

Have you ever wonder why insurance companies would rather insure bad health than ensure good health?

The Moral Majority

As a nation, how do we choose a president?

Do we thoughtfully weigh the issues?

1)What are the long-term implications of creating a national health care plan? Of not creating one?

2)What are the long-term consequences of our current war in Iraq?

3)What are the long-term effects of our 5 trillion dollar deficit?

4)How feasible is it now to assemble a coalition of nations to continue the war in Iraq?

5)What are the short-term effects on your life from a tax cut? A tax increase?

What percent of the voting population could (regardless of their conclusion) thoughtfully answer more than one of those questions? We could all nail the last one, but what about the others?

What if President Bush got up and said, "I stand by everything I've standed by before, for the good of the American people, but I just thought it would be fair to let y'all know I'm gonna leave you with a deficit larger than Texas is wide." Would he win? Or what if Kerry said, "In the spirit of fairness, I'd like to amend my previous statements on domestic issues, particularly those regarding taxes, with the admission that my administration intends to "roll-back" the tax cuts from the previous three administrations." Would he have a chance? The answer to both is "no". So it must be cost. We vote for whoever is cheaper, right?

But both candidates claim to be equal in that regard. They usually do. No new taxes. Balance the budget. Blah blah blah. In fact, that's claimed so frequently that we've become accustomed to being deceived in that sphere, which means that even though we understand the tax issue and the concept of a balanced budget, we can't totally trust that either candidate is being honest with his financial plan.

So...from an analytical standpoint, I don't really understand most of the issues, and the one that I do, I can't really trust...how am I going to decide? Well... I still have my feelings and my morals. And the politicians, they know it's a complex world, so they boil the issues down into moral absolutes to help me out.

1)There are 40 million people - families with children - who do not have health insurance. When they are sick, they can't afford a doctor. Is that fair?

2)Saddam Hussein killed thousands of innocent people. They could've given terrorists WMD to kill your children. Do you want that?

3)We are shouldering all the costs, all the deaths. We should share this with the world, right?

4)We have to do everything we can to get those terrorists, don't you agree?

The candidates thoughtfully put their moral compasses out there so I can pick the one that most closely points in the direction of my own. I mean, it just seems right. He's a moral man, a man of the people, a man with values who can lead us through a tough time and make the tough decisions in a way I find morally agreeable. That's comforting.