During my first few weeks at the hospital an elderly janitor worked in my room now and then. He left me with only one impression. He had a bad cold. As he mopped the floor, the most visible symptom of his condition slowly descended from his nostril, only to disappear again as he inhaled. This tentacle reappeared, then disappeared numerous time, until he finished his task. Naturally, I thought of naming him Snotnose. In any case, I never would have uttered his name aloud since we never talked.

The older gentleman was replaced by a younger, skinny fellow, about nineteen years old. He was friendly and loquacious. Consequently, I soon learned his name was Hwo Gwung-yin. When Hwo came into my room to mop, he'd stand the mop up by the door and sit on one of the beds. He was as interested in learning my language as I was in learning his, so we would engage in an English-Chinese word exchange. He had come to mop, but this didn't mean that he would actually perform the task. On more than one occasion, he would depart after about twenty minutes leaving his lonely, unused mop still standing in the corner. In a few seconds he'd reenter and with a sheepish grin grab his mop and be on his way.

My most vivid memory of Hwo came the day he quickly corrected the usage of an expletive I'd picked up from the guards. I assumed it to be something on the order of “damn” and innocently uttered it in the presence of two nurses. They put their hands to their mouths and ran, giggling, from the room. Naturally, the girls lost no time spreading the tale, and shortly, Hwo entered. Laughingly he told me “---” was “bu hao” (not good). I learned its meaning from a book I was given some months later. It definitely was “bu hao!”

There was a fourth doctor, but I did not think of her as Number Four. While pleading “not guilty” to male chauvinism, I simply thought of her as Lady Doctor. She was probably in her late twenties and was pretty by any standards. She had braided hair and seemed quite intelligent; however, she was rather aloof, and we only spoke regarding medical matters. If she spoke any English, she didn't let it be known.

At this time, in my comparatively young, thirty-one years of life, I normally would have been shy about presenting a delicate matter to a female doctor. However, early one morning, I passed blood in my urine! This scared the hell out of me. Knowing Lady Doctor had been on night duty and was probably still there, I sent the guard to get her. She arrived in a hurry. Not having all the necessary Chinese at my command, I felt that demonstration would be the best explanation. I demonstrated. She nodded, and with a serious look on her face, she left.

Sometime later as I lay there sweating, Number One arrived. I told him the problem and another performance revealed the color to be much lighter. The doctor was reassuring, explaining that sometimes a crystalline substance caused a wound in the urinary tract, which soon healed. I told him my father had died of cancer and I was very concerned. He told me not to worry, but to let know if it happened again. He could count on it!

The condition never returned.

That incident was cause for an interesting exchange between me and Number Two. He stopped by later, and after a few minutes of some gestures and a bit of his limited English, I realized he was asking me if I'd ever had a venereal disease. I emphatically assured him I hadn't. We both laughed at our clumsy route to understanding.

Picking one's nose isn't exactly a major operation, but once I had to have a doctor do this for me. About two weeks after I'd arrived, I was having difficulty sleeping. One of the reasons was because some major obstructions in my nostrils were forcing me to breath through my mouth which was becoming very dry. My hands were bandaged, so I could do nothing about it. I explained this to Number Two. Examining my nose, he nodded and began removing large scabs with a pair of tweezers. I guess I came closer to losing my nose then I'd thought.

Grumpy was a guard of some importance. Each unit of the Red Army has what is called a Party Organizer. There seems to be one of these people in almost every group in a Communist country. It's this individual's job to keep the members of the group on the party-line track. It seems the citizens forget they are “political beings,” and that everything they do has a “political tie”, if they're not pumped up regularly. In fact, they may even become disbelievers. Therefore, meetings must be conducted from time to time to remind the members of the group how they're supposed to think. The organizers also keep tabs on individuals. If Grumpy wasn't one of these, he certainly acted like one. I called him the Party “Agonizer,” and with good reason.

On two separate occasions he came to my room, when he was not on duty there. Each time he had serious conversations with the duty guard. The first guard became only mildly upset, but what he had to say to the other guard, really short circuited that guy's wires. Being by nature a slightly jumpy sort, this second poor sinner was still pacing and muttering to himself long after his tormenter had left. He was so agitated he ate only about two bites of his rice and beans.

When Grumpy was on duty, he slept all day, then wrote or read all night. My devious mind imagined he was keeping records on all the guards; recording all their misdeeds. His presence had a definite effect on the hospital personnel. They avoided my room as though I had the leaping scurvy. Normally, the workers came into my room to discuss a problem among themselves or just to goof off. It's possible they thought I understood less than I did. Maybe they didn't realize how much my Chinese “language lessons” were paying off. If they had known, I'm not sure they'd have cared what I heard. I do recall hearing one very lively conversation about pay. It seems they felt they weren't getting enough. Since they couldn't form a Union, I wondered if they could really have a voice in changing the situation.

I can't be positive that Grumpy didn't tell the staff to stay away, but I did get the strong impression that they were very wary of him. Of course, the personnel tended to most of my needs, but some tasks were simply left undone when Grumpy was there. He did choose to do a couple of little things himself, like get the bedpan.

I started to devise little arrows to fire in Grumpy's direction. They had to be subtle enough to insure that I didn't alter my already tenuous position. My most common ploy was to thank him in Chinese for every little thing he did, no matter how small. I had discovered that, for some reason, this infuriated him. Consequently, I went way overboard with it. He would grumble and call me names and I'd barely be able to keep from exploding with laughter. Who could say I wasn't just being polite?