jamie doom

Today I went to the dentist. I was scared at first because I have seen a couple of dentist offices around Haikou, and they consist of a dental chair out in the street and a pan to catch the blood. One time a friend walked by one of these, and the dentist was out front squatting in his chair cleaning his toenails with a drill. (And we allowed these people to join the WTO…) Anyway, I didn’t go to one of those, I went to a nice large building that said Dental Clinic (a sign with the correct words spelled correctly..a good sign of things to come). I walked to the comforting, familiar smell of fluoride and that other dentist office smell I can never place.

I observed objectively that all the dental assistants were pretty hot, well from the bridge of their nose up anyway — they were wearing masks. They were all wearing white hose; evidently the universal dental assistant attire, and their dental assistant skirts happened to be a bit shorter than in the US which I totally applaud in a nonsexist kind of way. (OK they have some points in their favor for the WTO–short uniform skirts and the fact they manufacture every product in the entire world). There was no waiting room. Why not? Labor is cheap in China. If you’ve got the time, they’ve got a dentists lined up just waiting to stick their fingers in your mouth. I was led straight to a chair and the dentist, a hot-from-the-bridge-her-nose-up girl about my age began taking a look. She grunted in displeasure.

My mouth is a cesspool. A cesspool. I have black holes where teeth should be. If my mouth stays open too long everything in the room will be sucked into those holes. She spoke some English, but she commented in Chinese to Simon, my homie and translator, that she thought Americans had good teeth. Evidently, my mouth was the first American mouth for her to get a close look at. I have ruined her mental image for millions of flossing, shiny teeth Americans everywhere. So on one side of my mouth I have holes in three different teeth. One up top and two on the bottom. We decided to do the top first. She gave me some Novocain, a lot of Novocain actually (I didn’t get the feeling back in my right jaw for about five hours and found myself wondering if I could find a dime bag of that numbing magic on the street somewhere) and with the help of her two lovely assistants, she had me outta there in twenty minutes. I go back tomorrow for the bottom teeth and next week for the permanent fillings. I paid about US$ 32.00 for her to drill and remove the cavity and along the way I experienced no pain and gained a little appreciation for something called Chinese progress. A man in space and a Jamie Doom cavity all in one week…hey, take a few days off China, you have been tested this week.

Yeah that Chinese astronaut is back home in China (if he ever really ever left). Everybody is happy, relieved, and proud. By everybody, I mean the five people I saw cheering about it on television. The people around here only had a vague notion that anybody was/had been in space and none of them knew the details or how long he had been up there. The average person has enough of their own problems…boyfriends/girlfriends, exams, a demanding boss, pedaling a rickshaw with a bad ankle, etc., without worrying about some guy floating around up there (pointing at the ceiling). I imagine they simply didn’t know how it could improve their life at all. I tried to tell them (them consisting of anyone who would listen) they needed to do it a while, lose a few shuttles, maybe a teacher or two and then they could become bored and disinterested in their space program. Still, it’s cool that they sent somebody to space…finally. What’s next China? The eight-track? New and improved velcro?

I like the word smarmy. I think whenever I am in a debate and getting beat badly, I’m gunna accuse the person of being smarmy. I don’t think anybody is really sure what it means, but it kinda takes people back. And brother, once you get the label of smarmy, kiss any type of respect good bye.

There is this door that I walk past in my apartment building every morning. And somewhere in the shallow recesses of that apartment is a teacher who is always singing, off-key, as loud as he can, in Chinese of course, with his door wide open. He always is standing there in his underwear with his back to me when I walk by. I have never actually seen his face. He’s got great set of lungs thought, and life is one big continuous Karaoke session for that guy. Sing I say. Sing louder. And this is one the qualities I love in Chinese people. They sing a lot in public and don’t care who is listening in. I think it’s beautiful,spontaneous, honest thing to do.

This has been an interesting week. Recently, I was asked to play the part of a foreign assassin for a television show. Having never assassinated anyone, I was a bit hesitant at first. But I am foreign, and I have no qualms with perpetuating sterotypes of evil violent white people. So I said I would do it. It will be a weekend job and I really don’t have any details yet. I’ll keep you all up to date on my burgeoning acting career. I hope I don’t have a large speaking part but still get a nice RV and my own hair dresser. But this is the beautiful part about China, you never know what’s going to happen. I don’t even try to guess anymore.