Healing of Shoulder Dislocation

Archie Thompson with Cheer-leading Chinese girls

The Guangzhou Pharmaceuticals played Melbourne Victory, with score 2-1. Chinese soccer teams are good. During the game, defender Steven Pace was mistackled and dislocated his right shoulder. After the game, the dressing room was in silent panic for 30 minutes as two physios and a doctor struggled to relocate the shoulder. Steven was then sent to hospital immediately by the Pharmaceuticals' manager. In the car was also a physio, a doctor and a translator.

We jumped the queues at two quality private hospitals in Guangzhou. Chinese people like to jump queues (if there is a queue), but Chinese people don't like being jumped in a queue. As we jumped from 15th patient to 1st patient and entered into the x-ray room flap-doors, the Chinese patients (gotta give some of them some credit for waiting 1 hour+) swarmed us to the entrance like media mobs.

We visited two hospitals because the doctors in the first one could not relocate due to Steven's muscles being too big, such that the bones didn't have much space to move into the right socket. In total, we toiled for 4 hours, which included pulling, pushing, screaming, swearing, and despair. There was a time, when we were faced with a cross road, with the choices of attempting relocation one more time, or use a full body anesthetic for a full 10 hour in-house operation, which would have been troublesome since we had flights to Tianjin early in the following morning.

The decision made was to try relocation just one more time, and the doctors got into positions and began to pull and twist. I, who was tired from hotel/match/hospital translation for 12 hours without food or rest, moved in to rest one hand on Steven's left shoulder and said in my mind: "耶穌醫治你" (Jesus heals you) [Sounds way cooler in Chinese, it does]. And unexpectedly, within 0.8 seconds of saying that, a loud "pop" noise came from his right shoulder, and the room was filled with relief.

Healing Testimonies on the net
More Healing Testimonies on the net
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Unexpected, because at that time, i had small faith that the healing power of Jesus Christ would come upon Steven. Small faith yields small results. No faith yields no results. Big faith, would have been me saying: "耶穌醫治你" right at the start, and it would have yielded a big result.

And no, i do not believe that the two events: (1) the laying of the hand, and (2) the relocation of the right shoulder, were a result of a coincidence.

p.s.
1 second is singular
1.5 seconds is plural
0.5 seconds is plural
1.000 seconds is also plural

Shanghai University City

The Shanghai University City is a university area that contains 7 universities in one single block!

Take a brief look.






This place is big. The buildings are beautiful. But so strange! There are no people. But anyway.



This guy Antonio, is the one who took me around. His face looks pretty cool if you zoom in. Tribute paid for hosting my stay!


Here in one of the canteens is the Staff Service Star Awards Top 5 Charts for the time frame. So from the left, the awards are:
Staff 1: Loved unconditionally and did her best to fulfill responsibilities
Staff 2: The same.
Staff 3: Picked up money and always returned it
Staff 4: Warmly intense service attitude
Staff 5: When she saw injustice, she always interferes to make justice.

Antonio later on told me that he runs an English conversation club. Antonio said that, basically what they do is 'talk some English', once a week.

And look at how the English conversation club turned out! They gathered, standing in a circle in the middle of the university garden and talked English for about an hour and a half. And the aim was to: improve English! And sometimes they invite guest speakers... and on today's occasion, the guest speaker, was me. (ha.ha.ha)


The dorms of this university city are awesome. For a portion of this city's students, they live in a moated dormitory area. And once they cross the bridge, they see 7 storey dorm upon 7 storey dorm.


The above is a photo of the room that is directly opposite to Antonio's. He mentioned that this room is famous for people playing computer games. I asked whether the four of the roommates in that room often gather to play together. Antonio's answer was: "關鍵不在他們是不是一起打, 關鍵再他們一直打." ha.ha.ha. (The key is not that they play together, the key is that they are always playing)

In this moated part of the university city dorms guys and girls live in separate buildings. There are about 40 dorm buildings, two of which are guys bulidings (that means 38 are for girls!). I found that truly amazing.


Above is a picture taken on the balcony of Antonio's room, with the background being a girls' dorm. There are many girls' dorms around this guys' dorm. And i can imagine what the guys all do at night, (since a lot of the girls would be in their rooms studying or relaxing or playing) i.e. chill out on the balcony... =]

If You Pay Peanuts, You Get Monkeys

Prices in Shanghai breaks through the floor, and hits the foundations.

Here is an idea of how inexpensive Shanghai is.
The exchange rate is 1.00AUD = 5.50RMB

Bottled water - 1.00RMB
Chocolate milk (300ml) - 3.00RMB
Pork Bun - 0.80RMB
Dumplings (15) - 5.00RMB
Rice/Noodle Combos - 8.00RMB

Casual shirt - 20.00RMB
Good quality shirt - 30.00RMB
Sports shoes - 50.00-80.00RMB
Leather Jacket - 100.00RMB
Jeans - 60.00RMB

Taxi - 11.00RMB for first 3 km, then 2.10RMB for every km after that.

Shanghai is the priciest city in all of China. In Guangzhou, taxis are 7.00RMB for the first 3 km. You never have to think about whether to walk or to ride taxi anymore!

Working as a translator for Melbourne Victory Football Club was a great experience. My main role was basically to break down the communication barrier between the football club's members and hotel staff, bus drivers, football ground staff, and officials - most of the time, by translating!


Living in a 5-star hotel for 6 days can do nobody any good. The first day was great, the food was awesome all you can eat seafoods and meats, the king-sized room was massive indeed with all the facilities + room services. The second and beyond days were of the same awesomeness level, and it made me feel like i was on top of the world, because this was the life that every poor man would have aspired to.

But, i realized that living like this, did not make me happy. It was a pretty empty lifestyle - eat big food, live big house, get big service, do no housework and cycle that for your whole life. I'm glad that i was not born in a rich family, otherwise i might have ended up like that. Life fulfilment comes from purpose - the happiest people in the world are those who have an aim, hypothesis, method, and results (sorry too many research projects).

My Dad once said that he doesn't need to eat the good foods on the dinner table, because he knows what it tastes like, and once is enough.

Beijing Olympics 2008 was 3rd ever Summer Olympic Games to be held in Asia. It was estimated that approximately US$40 billion had been spent on the games, which would have made it the most expensive Olympic Games ever by a long way.

And you would have thought that they'd have cleaned up their act.

Pretty sure that isn't the way this lane works, nor the correct translation from the Chinese.

At the capital international airport of Beijing! The only definition i'd like of "handpicked" is "coffee bean picked by hand from the coffee plant".

"Come on, pay it. It's good for you!"

On a plane. But if it were for a taxi, taxis don't takeoff nor land.

Obviously not enough people are pressing the blue lever for water.

Superior door to door delivery method by JiaJu Carpets.

Chinese A-Z II coming soon!

左拐, 右拐, 直走 (!!)

At the hair salon, i asked for a normal 'detailed' cut. The guy said ok. While he was cutting my hair, he told me about 15 times that this hair cut doesn't look good on me, and that i needed to 'upgrade' to a permanently spiked up hair style. And everytime i said, 'no thanks'. And after everytime i said that, he would say: "oh, oh...好吧" then tell me again 10 seconds later that the hair cut really doesn't look good on me! Which makes no sense since he was the one cutting it. Very funny.

Also, as Abe pointed out within 2 days of travelling in Shanghai, Chinese people are terrible givers of direction. If you ask anybody, where something is, they will point in a direction and say: "那邊" (there), or "左拐" (turn left), OR (!!) points in a general direction and says: "直走" (walk straight) *Max frustration!* and as Abe would say it: *hit head* "pcccchhht". hahaha. Then, if they are stationary, they look down, and if they are pedestrians, they begin walking very fast. Once i asked a walking guy: "Where is the subway station?" And before i finished asking the full question, he said: "不知道" (don't know), and changed angles to avoid me faster. But, when he realized that the subway station was in view (i did not see), he said: "Oh oh, 那邊", and sped off.

A few posts ago, i mentioned about an underground service with an out of tune keyboard. My mistake, i figured out on the second time going there that it was because the keyboardist was playing all the wrong notes! (mmm now that i think of it) ha.ha.ha.

Big flowers or accessories such as plants, butterflies, sparkling things look very pretty in girls' hairs. Don't you agree?

Coming up: Chinese A-Z II !