The process of getting the Residence Permit in China to stay here for the year is not the easiest. Luckily there is someone at the school who handles a lot of it, so I just have to show up and have my passport. I arrived in Shanghai on Friday night and orientation for work started on Monday morning at 7am for teachers new in SSBS this year and not from the sister school (SSHID). There were about 7 of us that met Lily, a member of the Foreign Affairs Office (FAO) at SSBS, in the lobby of our building and we were off to the hospital for the required health check.
Yep, you read that right. A health check.
Now, everyone except me had either taught in China or had official teaching jobs before, so they knew the drill (or so they thought). They told me that all they have had to do is pee in a cup and bam, you're done.
LIES!
It was not that easy. First of all, a typhoon hit Shanghai so it was pouring rain. Hot, sticky rain. The roadways were turning into rivers and most of use got pretty wet, even with our umbrellas. When we got to the hospital we had to wait for awhile (shocking, I know...waiting at a medical institution) and got passport photos taken. We went into a corridor that had about 10 rooms off of it. Each of us was given these blue plastic shoe-cover things and ushered into a room one at a time to have our weight and height taken. Then the lady looked at me and said, "Here is the key. Please remove your upper underwears and put on this robe."
WHAT???
No one told me that being bra-less was part of the deal. And with a bunch a people that I just barely met, let alone all of them being guys except one? Cool beans, this was either going to be hilarious or painfully awkward.
Luckily there were stalls to take off the "upper underwears", so I at least didn't have to do that in public. The robe, on the other hand, was not made for busty American women...just sayin'. The whole "one size fits all" is the biggest lie of all and it was definitely true in this case. I held my arms over my chest with the hope that nothing too exciting would happen.
So, there we were. A bunch of strangers with no shirts on, wearing these tiny robes, sitting in a line and going into different rooms for a bunch of tests. The tests included an EKG, chest x-ray, ultrasound, blood test, eye exam, blood pressure, the person who feels your belly to make sure nothing weird is going on, and a lung check. And it isn't slow, you are through like bam-bam-bam-bam. They aren't messing around.
But you know what is funny? No peeing in a cup! Oh, and I also marked "drug addiction" and not "food allergy" (best way to put down celiac disease here) and that raised a few eyebrows. Yeek!
In the end we all put our clothes on a drove an hour through the rain again to school for orientation, which is fondly known by another name at SSBS.
Good times, good times.
A fair warning to all of you looking to work in China....have fun with the health check!
Yep, you read that right. A health check.
Now, everyone except me had either taught in China or had official teaching jobs before, so they knew the drill (or so they thought). They told me that all they have had to do is pee in a cup and bam, you're done.
LIES!
It was not that easy. First of all, a typhoon hit Shanghai so it was pouring rain. Hot, sticky rain. The roadways were turning into rivers and most of use got pretty wet, even with our umbrellas. When we got to the hospital we had to wait for awhile (shocking, I know...waiting at a medical institution) and got passport photos taken. We went into a corridor that had about 10 rooms off of it. Each of us was given these blue plastic shoe-cover things and ushered into a room one at a time to have our weight and height taken. Then the lady looked at me and said, "Here is the key. Please remove your upper underwears and put on this robe."
WHAT???
No one told me that being bra-less was part of the deal. And with a bunch a people that I just barely met, let alone all of them being guys except one? Cool beans, this was either going to be hilarious or painfully awkward.
Luckily there were stalls to take off the "upper underwears", so I at least didn't have to do that in public. The robe, on the other hand, was not made for busty American women...just sayin'. The whole "one size fits all" is the biggest lie of all and it was definitely true in this case. I held my arms over my chest with the hope that nothing too exciting would happen.
So, there we were. A bunch of strangers with no shirts on, wearing these tiny robes, sitting in a line and going into different rooms for a bunch of tests. The tests included an EKG, chest x-ray, ultrasound, blood test, eye exam, blood pressure, the person who feels your belly to make sure nothing weird is going on, and a lung check. And it isn't slow, you are through like bam-bam-bam-bam. They aren't messing around.
But you know what is funny? No peeing in a cup! Oh, and I also marked "drug addiction" and not "food allergy" (best way to put down celiac disease here) and that raised a few eyebrows. Yeek!
In the end we all put our clothes on a drove an hour through the rain again to school for orientation, which is fondly known by another name at SSBS.
Good times, good times.
A fair warning to all of you looking to work in China....have fun with the health check!
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