A Day in Xining

Hi! Here is how we spend most of our days in Xining:

We wake up around 7:30am and get ready for the day.

We arrive at the Tibetan Hospital at 8:30am. We then spend two hours in the hospital with a Tibetan Doctor named Kolchog Sadau (shown in the picture below). The doctor typically brings us in to see one or two patients during this time. We begin by hearing a little background information on the patient. Next we take the patient's pulse using the Tibetan three finger technique and then discuss our findings. We then look at the patient's tongue and examine his/her urine (if available). We then leave the patient's room and have a meeting with the doctor to discuss the case and possible treatment.


At 11:00am we have Tibetan Language class for one hour. This is usually taught by Dolma Dondrup (pictured below), an 18 year old Tibetan who is fluent in Chinese, Tibetan and English. He is a really nice guy and a good teacher and also assists in translating during our morning clinical sessions. Tibetan is a tough language to learn mainly because many of the words require us to make sounds that we have no experience with in English.


At 12:00pm we get two and a half hours for lunch. At first we thought this was a lot of time for lunch, but we have discovered that many times it takes over two hours if you go to a restaurant. This is partly due to our inexperience in ordering in Chinese, and partly due to the slower service which is customary.

At 2:30pm we head back to the hospital and have class for 2 hours. The class usually consists of a Tibetan Doctor from a particular specialty presenting a specific aspect of Tibetan medicine. The doctors do not speak English so we have a translator (whose American name is Stan) convey the doctor's presentation to us in English. The topics covered so far include pulse taking, blood letting (pictured below), moxibustion, urinalysis, Tibetan medical paintings, Tibetan medical history, behavioral analysis amongst others.



At 4:30 we are done for the day. Our evening activities generally vary. We have spent this time in the past for sightseeing around the city (South Mountain Park pictured below), shopping, emailing and other activities. We always go out for dinner with varying results.



We have now found a few favorite restaurants which include the following:

13 Flavors: A Muslim restaurant with a potato dish that everyone loves.

Casa Mia: Probably the only Italian restaurant in Xining. The owner is really nice and the food is great.

French Jazz Island Cafe: The name of this place is almost as confusing as their menu. They have a few decent dishes.

The biggest challenge thus far has been avoiding overly spicy foods, both at Tibetan and Chinese restaurants. Tibetans love to eat meat so a typical meal consists of Yak meat and Sheep mutton, along with other dishes. Tibetans use almost every part of the yak for either cooking or medicine or other uses. They also use yak butter for artistic carvings, which we saw at a recent trip to a monastery.

We usually head for bed at around 10 or so and rest up to do it again in the morning. It's been a lot of fun so far and it is hard to believe we are already over halfway done with our rotation. It will be sad to leave but we are looking forward to our future travels in Tibet and China which begin in 10 days.