Beijing is tough. Flu and colds are constant epidemics. Once you catch something (easy as everybody around you has “it”), you can’t get rid of it unless you go on a strict diet of antibiotics, Chinese pills & liquids, barrels of water, rest etc. Don’t listen to your European doctors. Just run to the pharmacy where you can get all antibiotics over the counter. At least, that’s the easy part in Beijing.
The horribly polluted air must be the cause of this evil. Seems few people escape. And if you want to know, pollution today was at 130 to 150 around here. Compare that to the WHO max. of 20. Well, could be worse, could be 500. Easy to be satisfied in Beijing.

I was more than right.
On 7 March I was interviewing nearly 30 candidates to be English-speaking volunteers for “120”, the medical emergency service here. OK, once again all because of 2008, seems those Olympics will never take place, new tasks always pop up. Must be of course because it was just Lei Feng Day two days earlier and I am the “New Lei Feng”. If you have no clue what that means, Google it and relax, many Chinese don’t know either. Some poor soldier in a corner of China doing great things for free. Funny is, there was always some photographer around the corner to take cool pics (Peter Danford denies any involvement).

So, well documented, all his good deeds. “Hold it right there, a bit more to the left”. Click! Some bad mouths question why he seemed to have a watch on his wrist, not normal at that time for a poor soldier. Oh well. No Photoshop that time.
To learn from him, a large picture stands in my office and Chinese friends admire my zest.
Back to 120. Valerie and me teaming up, all for the good cause. Valerie was very convincing: her wife (oh well, she was playing the husband, just to confuse the candidates I guess) and the kids were all in a traffic accident, etc. etc. Blood all over. Ambulance urgently required.

We must have made some impression as we were promptly featured on the website of 120 (pics taken from their website). The whole family. All LeiFeng-ing. But we must admit, the 120 staff are real nice and friendly. We even got a reward. And I start to be too well know – out of under 30 candidates 2 actually had met me. Scary.
After hours of interviews my voice started cracking up (or down, rather).
Back in the office. Some “old friends” (foreigners!) came to say hi. In reality they came to bug me for 2 hours on some Olympic stuff. Yeah, try this with a doctor:
“Hello Dr. Sam! Long time no see! How’s the family? Just came to chat, by chance passing by. By the way, I have this pain right here, what could it be? Have a look. What medicine should I take?”. Right. I guess Dr. Sam would have said, sorry, make an appointment. Being nice does not work.
So, voice down the drain even more.
Then, damn, I had promised to attend the Amcham/EUCCC cocktail at the Centro Bar.
Some red wines later with friends and charming Chinese girls, my voice went 100% dead.
Tried to call 120, the operator couldn’t hear me.
So, I shut up for the next days (to the delight of many). And looked up at Lei Feng.