Streams of life (30)
I am reading Oliver Twist at the moment, and I would have never related this book to people’s life in China, hadn’t I had an argument with my friend earlier on. In Oliver Twist, I am at the point when Oliver was an apprentice of Mr. Sowerberry, who was a coffin maker. One day they went to a man’s house to gather his
wife’s corpse, who was starved to death. My heart was stricken with my useless
compassion, when her mother said that she gave birth to her, but now had to see
her lying there so cold and still, whereas she herself was alive and merry.
My argument with my friend started from the point when he criticized about what
he has seen and experienced in this country. It had been a sulky evening. I guess because I knew that his criticism was right, I got irritated and crestfallen:
I got irritated because I felt how weak I was as an individual to change the situation; I got crestfallen because the current situation in China affected my family, relatives, and people I know, as well as millions of Chinese people, who were strange to me.
When I called my parents the very last time, my mother told me how miserable the
life of my grandfather from my father’s side is at the moment. My grandfather
had been a teacher, then a judge in my county over thirty years. He was a highly
respected man when he worked for the court. But then when he got old and finally arrived to the age of retirement, he was gradually neglected and forgotten by
his once colleagues and subordinators.
Now another some ten years have passed. His neglecting his health when he was young caused effect on him during the past ten years. It became inevitable gradually that he couldn’t do without medicine and doctor. But what had hospital and
doctor done to him? Had he got any sound help from them? Several years ago when
I was still in my county, my grandfather was still a very active man, despite
his health condition. He read, he wrote, and he did sports. Then one day he went
into hospital and the doctor diagnosed that he might have chance to get brain thrombus if he didn’t stop reading and writing. “Rest more, and don’t use your
brain if not necessary,” Said the doctor.
Ever since that my grandfather indeed stopped using his brain. He dropped the idea of writing a book about poetry appreciation, he stopped reading books, newspapers, and he even stopped watching TV, which would have been at least one way of
keeping himself informed about the outside world. Earlier this year when I was
listening to a memory program, I suddenly realized what influence that would fall on my grandfather. Surely it was his fault to wholly believe the doctor’s advice. But on the other hand, as a doctor, how could you be so irresponsible, stupid, and random when you gave your patient advice?
Then quite a few people I knew called onto my mind; none of them had typically good experience of dealing with their doctors and hospitals. Forget about poverty
-stricken areas, even in big cities such as Shanghai, you simply can’t afford to be ill. When I got allegoric this summer and naively went to hospital, it took
me over one hour and a half to queue up for the doctor. What happened afterwards? It only took him two minutes to diagnose my symptom and finish his prescription, which cost me a few hundred. It was a ridiculous experience. But what’s more ridiculous was those doctors didn’t even bother to pretend that they cared about you, while easily ripping you off.
My friend said that if the doctors ripped people off it was because people let them. I was furious sometimes because I couldn’t deny the fact that I was born in this country, that I couldn’t detach myself wholly from this country and people, and that I couldn’t do anything accountable to change the situation. I hate what I saw and heard about those ripping-you-off stories, but I hate even more the ignorance of people. I hope that people here,myself included sometimes,will be less ignorant, more educated, and stand up for themselves. In Oliver Twist,
the woman died from starvation. With a bit food she would have easily survived.
But I am thinking if you are ignorant and won’t choose to do anything about it,
you might have chance of dying without knowing why. And with it nothing could help.
