For several days, I was getting chills, followed by a fever, and ending with a cathartic sweat. I felt crummy most of the time and spent part of each day in bed, but I can't say that I was suffering. However, Deb was becoming increasingly concerned. When you are sick, it is usually the people around you who have the most concern for your welfare; I just felt lousy and wanted to be left alone.

I kept insisting I would get better, and in fact, I did. But not before we visited the hospital. I had been resisting seeing a doctor for a number of reasons. Primarily because, as in the US, I am too proud to admit that I am sick and too stubborn to believe that I won't get better on my own. But additionally, because we are now living in what is charitably known as a "developing nation," with a tradition of treating disease using multiple needles stuck into various parts of your body, and making medicines out of ingredients so exotic that their origins cannot be described using "family" language.

And because I speak essentially no Chinese, when it came to medical treatment, I would be at the mercy of Deb's translation. I wasn't sure that I was ready to give her that responsibility. To her credit, she wasn't ready to accept; she suggested that we turn for help to Miss Pi.

Before anyone accuses me of male chauvinism I need to explain that "Miss Pi" (pronounced "pee") is a young woman working at the college waiban, and this is that how she prefers to be addressed. Her full Chinese name is Pi Ying, which raises an unfortunate image in English, so her preference for a title is understandable. Since "Ms" is essentially unused in China and she is not married, "Miss Pi" is the obvious choice.

Miss Pi has a certain primness and formality that makes the title sound very natural for her. Her spoken English, which is excellent, has a slight British accent. She is quite tall, and has a proud, upright bearing. She is also remarkably earnest and hard working, and takes her duties very seriously. If she had been born a generation earlier, I have no doubt that she would be honored for her patriotism, leading her Red Guard brigade in smashing the counter-revolutionary and feudalistic ancient Buddhist temples.

As it is, she is the Gal Friday of the waiban, who gets our bicycles registered, finds hotel accommodations for us during the busiest travel holiday of the year, and makes sure that our electricity gets restored after power failures. She is a force to be reckoned with and a masterful conqueror of bureaucracy. If I was going to the hospital, I wanted her with me.

Deb got on the phone and set up a time; Miss Pi would meet us at the gate of our grounds at noon. I had no idea where she would be taking us, but I felt that I was in good hands. Technically, Deb is covered by the college health plan, a benefit she has never taken advantage of, and one which mysteriously contributes an *extra* 26 yuan to her pay envelope each month. (The presidential candidate who figures out a way to make health care add to people's paycheck is going to win Florida, and every other state, by a landslide.)

But Deb's health coverage, whatever it may be, does not cover me, so I stuffed a few hundred extra yuan in my wallet as we left to meet Miss Pi. The last thing I wanted was to not have enough money to pay for my treatment; I could end up in some sort of hospital debtor's prison, forced to catch and eat rats while Deb scraped together additional cash.

Miss Pi was as chipper and confident as ever when we found her waiting for us at the gate. She explained that we would be going to the Red Cross hospital downtown, which she assured me was the best hospital in Kunming, and proceeded to flag us a taxi. I found all of this reassuring, but I had to remember that, in addition to her other responsibilities, Miss Pi is preparing for official certification as a government tour guide. Consequently, all of her descriptions are modified with superlatives.

She cannot pass by the central Bank Of China without reminding us that it is the best place to change money. What looks like a perfectly ordinary department store to us becomes the favorite store for foreigners' shopping. When we go out to dinner with the waiban it is always to the restaurant with the most delicious food. As we pulled off the road approaching our destination, I didn't have the heart to point out that the sign over the door said "People's Second Red Cross Hospital."

We walked down a path that might be called an alley to an unexpectedly modern building. Under the entrance overhang and outside of the main doorway, where you would expect the concierge if this was a fine hotel, was a billboard-sized electronic display with line after line of incomprehensible Chinese listings, looking like the flight schedule at a busy airport. Clustered around this were rows of orange plastic seating, like you would see in a bus terminal or a Denny's. All the seats were taken by dejected looking patients-in-waiting. There was something vaguely Orwellian about this; we were at a high-tech welfare station in a totalitarian state. The doors to the hospital were locked.

Even Miss Pi was momentarily taken aback. But she quickly recovered and directed her attention to a startled man slouching in one of the chairs. A few crisp questions later she reported, somewhat chagrined, that the hospital was closed for xiu xi, the mandatory Chinese siesta, and would not reopen until 2 PM. It was now 10 minutes to one. And, oh yes; this was the Emergency Room.

But Miss Pi had a Plan B. We had passed an older wing on our way in, and we marched back in that direction. Sure enough, they were open, and a supremely weary receptionist checked me in. After filling in the cover of a small manila booklet with my name (which Deb wrote for me in Chinese) my birth date and my blood type, I paid 5 jiao - half a yuan - and was admitted to the hospital. This is very cheap, even by Chinese standards. To put it in perspective, getting a flat tire fixed on your bicycle, an event much more common for most Chinese than seeing a doctor, costs twice as much.

And you get what you pay for. We were led down the unlit hallway to a small room with several beds, a desk, and a few extra chairs. It had a look that recalled the evening news images of the Ebola ward in a Ugandan bush hospital. It's not that it was dirty; it was actually very clean. It was that everything seemed to have come from another century. Nurses in ill-fitting and unpressed white lab coats carried chipped enamel basins filled with rolls of unwrapped gauze. The walls were roughly spread, painted plaster; all the furniture was wooden. There was nothing electronic anywhere, even the room lighting came exclusively from the sunlight streaming in the tall windows. If I didn't think I was going to be treated here, it could almost have been charming.

But this was not some yuppie restaurant and I was beginning to feel that maybe this wasn't such a good idea after all. Fortunately, the doctor who arrived to treat me, who looked to be about half my age, had his own reservations about treating a foreigner. He got on the phone, had a quick conversation, and announced in English that we were to go to the 16th floor of the main building; the place, he explained where they "treat the cadres." This made a big impression on Miss Pi. I was relieved, and also intrigued by the location; I had never been on the 16th floor of *anything* in China. Perhaps we would be visiting the tallest building in Kunming?

Miss Pi appeared a bit crestfallen when we got on the elevator and saw that there were 18 floors in the building and we would not be going to the top. Getting off the elevator caused me to be taken down notch, when Deb could not resist pointing out that the sign over the left hand side of the reception desk said "Geriatric Ward." But the sign over the right hand side of the desk said "V.I.P. Clinic." Which was in store for me?

This place at least looked like a hospital. We were led by a doctor across the shiny linoleum floor, down a long corridor lit by recessed, overheard fluorescent lights, to a large ward with four empty beds. The doctor had me sit on one, Deb and Miss Pi stood nearby to translate. I explained that apart from the fever, I had no other health problems. The doctor took my temperature (with a thermometer in my armpit!) but it was normal. In fact, the doctor seemed more concerned with what looked to her like an inflamed throat.

I reminded her of my symptoms: chills, fever, sweats. She asked if she could take a blood test. We had been lectured in the US about the dangers of needles in the Third World and had brought needles with us to China and to this hospital. Miss Pi could not understand our concerns. She pointed out that the hospital's needles were disposable and that the needle in question was sealed in a plastic bag that clearly said "Single use only." I could not bring myself to disagree; it felt like bad manners to refuse the care being offered. It wasn't until later that I remembered how the hotel cleaning services routinely put the same unwashed drinking glasses into the cellophane wrappers proclaiming "Sterilized for your safety."

I lay down and the doctor took a sample. She then left to room, and Miss Pi and Deborah, now relieved of their responsibilities, sat on one of the beds near the window. Miss Pi confided that she was terrified of needles, even for acupuncture, and that her boyfriend always teased her about this. I rolled on my side to look over at them, sitting on the bed, swinging their legs; they looked like girls at a pajama party. Miss Pi caught my gaze and said, with a touch of derision, "You look like... a patient!" I immediately sat up; laying down no longer felt very comfortable.

The blood test came back normal, and I was sent home with a prescription for 62 yuan's worth of medicine; by far the greatest expense of this expedition. Up until now, I had paid 0.5 yuan to be admitted to the hospital, 1 yuan to see the doctor, and 10 yuan for the blood test. What accounted for this new princely sum? Drug company gouging perhaps; my three part medicinal regime consisted of vitamin C (1 yuan); a packet of traditional throat pills (1 yuan); and two boxes of antibiotics (60 yuan). In my mind, they were Placebo 1; Placebo 2; and Placebo 3.

Miss Pi was not so skeptical, and especially endorsed the antibiotics. "Last week, I got a fishbone stuck in my throat. The doctor gave me a prescription for this very same medicine. I took the pills for four days, and the bone is gone!" The miracles of modern science; we now have antibiotics that dissolve fishbones.

And maybe I am too cynical, because I took the medicine and I got better. I suspect that what I had was the flu (the Asian flu, no doubt) and given time, I would have recovered without any special attention. But it may be the attention, more than the drugs, that made me better. Despite the confusion and the institutional roadblocks, everyone did their best to treat me well. And when I look back, I think I did receive my care in the "V.I.P. Clinic."