Broken Wrist in China

As most of you know, I came to China with a broken wrist. I very intelligently decided to go snowboarding 2 weeks before my departure date and it snapped on the second run of the day. Well, in reality it was really the first run because before that Prav and I only did a bunny slope :(

The cast in the picture is the one that I had put on in China. I think it was really poorly made and didn't hold my wrist in place at all...luckily my wrist healed correctly and I have not had any issues.

Everyone was very curious about my arm when I came here. I had told one person I met soon after I arrived that I had only been in China 2 weeks and they said “Oh wow and you already broke your wrist! You should just go home.” Haha, I corrected them and told them that in some ways breaking my wrist was one of the best things that could have happened to me when I came to China.

Well…I am exaggerating a little bit but it definitely had its perks. For one, on every flight I took coming here I went to the front of the line with the elderly and people with children to board the plane first. I felt a little stupid, especially when I got in to Chinese territory and I had no idea how to explain that I needed to go to the front of the line in Chinese. Basically, I would just show them my arm, make a sad face, and they would let me on first. That was definitely a wonderful perk.

When I was getting on the plane I even had one Chinese woman take my really heavy back pack from me and push through the hoards of people to carry it on for me. How nice of her!! She was really insisting on it too, I tried to wave my hand and tell her no but she grabbed it from me. The only words in Chinese I knew coming here were hello and thank you so I just said thank you to her like 20 times hahah.

Also, I’m not sure if this happened due to my broken wrist or not but Delta set me up with a big white limo to take me from La Guardia to JFK where my flight to Shanghai was. What happened was that the morning of my flight I got to DCA and my flight to JFK was cancelled, and the only other flight that would get me to NYC in time for my flight to Shanghai flew into La Guardia. When I got there, I went into the Delta office next to the baggage claim area to see if I could find someone to help with my bags and to catch the bus/take a taxi over to JFK. The woman asked for my flight information and then she got on the phone and made a call to have me picked up and the cost of the ride would be on Delta since they cancelled my original flight. I was so happy! A worker helped me with my bags and I went outside to wait for my ride. She told me it was a white car so I was just looking for that. All of a sudden a big white limo pulled up and the driver asked who needed a ride to JFK for a Delta flight. The worker and I both looked at each other baffled. We couldn’t believe that I was going to take a limo to JFK! I was pretty embarrassed- there were other people waiting out there and I just wanted to tell them that I typically don’t use limos as my main form of transportation.

The other great thing about having a broken wrist was that I learned how to use chopsticks with my left hand. In fact, even though my cast is off now I still use my left hand to eat. I learned that Chinese people think that those who use their left hand are clever, so I want to maintain that image, hehe. I learned this because quite often when I am eating, Chinese people will point out that I use my left hand, so I asked a Chinese person about it. I just thought it was strange that they would notice this because in America I never notice (let alone care) which hand someone is using so I knew something was up with it in the Chinese mind!

The worst part about having a broken wrist in China was trying to take the buses. They can often be quite crowded and people didn’t seem to care much about the fact that I was handicapped. I was definitely pushed quite a bit and people wouldn’t give up their seat for me but I could handle it. If you ever saw my cast it was pretty large and I planned on using it as a weapon if I needed to. Fortunately, this never happened.

Next post, I will write about the tortures of dealing with the Chinese hospital