The best chicken soup ever! (And other things)

On Sunday I leave home to go back to school for my last semester. It’s so crazy that I’m already graduating in just a few short months. All that’s left to do is:

1. Get an A in each and every one of my classes (I don’t think I’ve done that since elementary school)

2. Work on my SAA project locating graves in a Lutheran graveyard-turned-park.

I don’t think I’ve gone into detail about this yet. Last year was a prehistoric Native American village and this year I am conducting a project in a park that was once a graveyard for a Lutheran Church.

In the late 1800’s, Indiana County decided that they didn’t want people to be buried in the county anymore; they wanted those already buried to be moved to another cemetery nearby. However, exhuming bodies is hard work, and gravediggers probably didn’t understand why it was necessary. They probably thought that no one would ever know if the bodies weren’t moved. So, sometimes just the tombstones would be relocated and the bodies would stay put.

There is also a county legend that places a Frisk Coffin in the park. Around the time of the Civil War, when it was difficult to transport soldiers who were killed far from home, an iron sarcophagus-like coffin was invented that would prevent the body from decaying over the journey home. Gross, I know. But extraordinary. There would be a circular glass plate that was at the head so that the families were able to see the soldier when he finally made it home.

So, I’m hoping that there are still Civil War veterans and a Frisk Coffin buried in the park. And it’s part of my job to figure out!

3. Practice my Chinese and come up with some way to get back to China, except this time I WON’T be getting swine flu, or any other flu. Got that, China? Got it?? This is going to be the abridged version of my H1N1 experience…the longer version takes up an entire composition notebook that I kept as a record of my trip.

My professor, three other students, and I flew into Hong Kong for a month-long internship associated with Xiamen University. I was going to be helping my professor arrange a full-scale, systematic survey in Fujian province, and help a Chinese archaeologist work on a Neolithic site. I flew out of Newark and transferred in Vancouver.

Two days after arriving in Hong Kong, I woke up really, really sick after coughing all night and with a fever of about 103. The coughing was probably also because of the air in China but the fever was strange and out of place because the other two girls, with whom I shared a room, didn’t get sick at all! But I felt like death warmed over. While everyone else was sight-seeing Hong Kong and meeting archaeologists, I was confined to a hotel room. They did bring me a PizzaHut pan pizza when they came back, though.

Anyway, the next day we were supposed to leave Hong Kong for Guangzhou, an entry point to mainland China. Carrying my suitcase to the train station and trying not to cough in front of people, while also trying to keep my fever down was interesting. I really didn’t think I could possibly have H1N1; I thought that I was just weak after having travelled for 25 hours and not sleeping the night before because I was just so excited. But, apparently the Chinese thought otherwise. I had my temperature taken on the train – everyone had theirs taken – but mine wasn’t even the highest among my group. Then, when we entered the train station in Guangzhou, panic broke out. (Not really, but I was definitely panicking.)

While I was standing in line waiting to show my ID I set off a heat sensor; yeah, I’m just that hot. Security guards immediately whisked me away from my group and brought me to the nurse’s station. They made me put a face mask on as a preventative measure, but combined with my fear and asthma, it just made everything worse. They interpreted my shortness of breath as a symptom of swine flu and swabbed my mouth to test. I guess it came back positive because the next thing I know, I was being taken outside and put in an ambulance to be taken to a hospital for further testing. Somehow, without knowing any Chinese, I managed to get my professor to come with me so I wouldn’t be alone. I was too busy crying hysterically and trying to avoid looking at the ambulance people in HAZMAT suits to notice, but my professor told me that we were going the wrong way down one way streets to get to the clinic. It’s a good thing I wasn’t dying or anything because it took 30 minutes to get there.

Once we got the clinic, I was placed in a room that had bars over the window and bugs on the floor. The doctor came in to take my blood but hysteria took over. I eventually gave in, but quite begrudgingly. That would be my first blood test of many for the week to come and I hated needles. I would need a comedy routine performed for me if I ever needed to get a vaccination, let alone a blood test. No way did I like having a needle stuck in my arm. Uh-uh, not a chance! But I had to so I tried to be strong. I convinced myself that once they had a sample of my blood that was clean of H1N1, they would let me go, apologize and pay for my trip all around China. HA!! I was wrong.

I spent the night on my cell phone with my parents (this move brought our phone bill up to $1,000 but my mother talked T-Mobile out of charging us) trying to stay calm but when they went to bed, I tried reading a book, listening to my iPod (until it died), and learning some Chinese from one of the nurses. When the doctor came into my room the next morning with the news that I had H1N1, all I heard was that I was going to die. With all the hype and stigma associated with it, and that it was affecting younger people with underlying medical conditions (asthma!!), I though I was goner. But, I was relocated to a better another hospital which became my home for the next week.

I had two roommates who’s names I only know as Bensy (after Mercedes Benz), and Gucci. These weren’t their real names, so I can’t really find them online. I’d like to get in touch with them, but I don’t know how to. Bensy has a blog but it’s in Chinese, and even though I’m learning, I can’t figure out how to send her a message. Bensy also had a computer which she let me borrow so that I could be in touch with my family. My mom had called the White House and the consulate in China when we found out I was being moved, but since I didn’t know where I was going, they weren’t much help. Eventually, the Economic Officer in Guangzhou found me and helped me get the treatment I needed. I had blood taken at least four times a day, every day, and pretty much spent my days crying or sleeping.

When I was finally released, I hated China. For one week, I was all alone in a country whose language I didn’t understand, being treated by doctors who were too scared to come near me. I wanted nothing to do with the country and I just wanted to go home. I was so upset that my internship was ruined, I ruined my friends’ internships, and my professor’s project wasn’t going to happen. We left Guangzhou the next day and spent the rest of our month travelling throughout the country. We visited Xian, Luoyang, Beijing, Wuyishan, Fuzhou, and finally Xiamen. We went to tea houses, climbed the Great Wall, floated down a river on a bamboo raft, rode overnight trains on hard sleeper, ate delicious food, went to beautiful Buddhist temples, and Grottoes. We lived as the Chinese would for the rest of the month, not American tourists. Even though our internship didn’t work out as we had planned, we got even more out of it than I think we would’ve, had we stayed put in Xiamen.

I realized that I had to be a good anthropologist and not be upset with China. China was only trying to do its job and protect its people; I couldn’t argue with that.

With the help of my friends and my professor, and Buddhism, I eventually got over my anger. I am not a very religious person; I haven’t been for several years. And I am not one to push any thoughts or views on others, but Buddhism helped me find myself when I was sick, it helped me forgive China (not that I had to) and myself for how I behaved.

As a petite, asthmatic female, I think I should have been sicker than I actually was and I am thankful for how easy my hospitalization was, instead of what it could’ve been.

4. Stay stress free, healthy, and have fun!

Alright, I really digressed there big time. Focusing now…

One of the many things that is going to keep me stress free is my cooking. Since Monday is Martin Luther King Day and we don’t have classes, I plan on waking up early and going to the store to fill up my fridge. Then, I’ll be spending the day making dumplings, egg rolls, cinnamon rolls, and whatever else I can fit in the freezer. That way, on my busy days when I’ll be leaving my apartment early in the morning and not getting home until late at night, I will just have to pop some dumplings into a fry pan, cook up some noodles and bok choy, and voila! Easy dinner. Of course, I’ll probably get quite bored with that so I’ll have to split it up with some crock-pot days of soups and pulled pork. And pasta, too. Mmm! I’m getting hungry just thinking about all the yummies!

Here is the “sicko soup” recipe that I promised last week, that I haven’t been able to post. Amounts of ingredients really depend on how much soup you want to make, but I typically use:

3 boneless, skinless chicken breasts

3-4 stalks of celery with leaves, chopped

3-4 carrots, peeled and chopped

1 large onion, chopped

1 ½ cups barley, rinsed thoroughly

2 cans low-sodium chicken broth

1 tsp celery salt

Pepper

Parsley

1. Fill a stockpot ¾ with water.
2. If you’re using frozen chicken, you can place it in the water and boil. When it is cooked through, remove it from the pot to let cool. Defrosted chicken can be added with all of the other ingredients.
3. While the chicken is cooking, cut the celery, carrots, and onion. Rinse the barley.
4. Put the veggies and barley in the broth. The barley should add some thickness to the soup. Add the chicken to the mix once it has cooled enough to shred.
5. You can add a few cans of low-sodium chicken broth once the soup has reduced a bit. Simmer for one hour on medium low heat and stir occasionally.
6. Shortly before the soup is done, add celery salt, a big, healthy pinch of black pepper, a pinch of parsley. Stir one last time and bon appétit!

If you used too much chicken for the soup, you can use leftover boiled chicken for chicken a la king! All you’ll need is:

Leftover chicken cut or shredded in bite-sized pieces

A small jar of pimentos or 2 roasted red peppers, sliced

½ cup of peas cooked ahead until almost done

Pepper

Celery salt

Gravy:

2 cans low-sodium chicken broth

½ cup flour

1. Stir flour into broth with heat turned off. Turn heat to medium and stir constantly with whisk, until thick.
2. Add pepper, salt, peas, and chicken. Keep stirring. A few moments before it is done cooking, add pimentos.
3. Serve over rice, noodles, or pastry shells.

***Of course, you can alter the amounts for the chicken a la king and soup***

Finally, I’d like to send my good wishes, thoughts, and prayers to those affected by the earthquake in Haiti, and friends and family elsewhere. Namaste.