As a tourist in Beijing, the last thing you want is to have to go to a Chinese emergency room.
But there
I was on a Chinese family vacation in Beijing in 2001, having lunch in a
standard-issue, hole-in-the-wall restaurant that maintained standard-issue Chinese
cleanliness (read: dirty). And I had just gotten a fishbone stuck in my throat.
A sharp, thick, horizontal dagger of a cod bone.
Panic
ensued. My sister yelled, "Your throat might swell shut and they'll have
to cut your windpipe open so you can breathe!"
No! I thought. I'm not going to a Chinese emergency room! Not if it's as grimy as this
restaurant!
My kid brother,
eleven years old, jumped into action. He instructed me to down a teacup of
vinegar, followed by a ball of rice he mashed together, to be swallowed without
chewing. It didn't work. We tried again. More vinegar, another ball of rice.
More panic.
Meanwhile,
Dad was sitting across the round table from me. All calm.
Several
minutes passed. Then Dad quietly asked, "Are you done yet?"
