Any questions? All good? (Good.) Do you have any last question? Make it louder. Are these all Chinese? Are those in the back also? (Yes.) What about those who speak English? (They are waiting outside first; the English group.) English? (English, and Koreans, and Aulacese [Vietnamese].) Then, what shall we do? (I’ve arranged for translation. I’ve asked someone to come and help with translation. Those who can speak English all come here to help with translation.) OK.
Are you going home? (Yes.) Those doctors are also leaving? Are the Chinese doctors all here? Also leaving? What shall I do with the patients? You come and go as you want, and leave your patients here. Strange, weekend doctors. Weekend doctors. And holiday doctors. Holiday doctors and weekend doctors. This is already quite good. Thanks a lot. How many patients are there today? Does anyone know? How many “pieces” for each one? How many “pieces”?
(…there are 80 patients.) Ah? (Eighty people had their teeth extracted.) Eighty people? (Tooth extraction.) Tooth extraction! My God. Besides those 80 people, how many more people have had their teeth extracted? Is that all? All extractions are done? (All finished.) (Completely extracted.) All done. Extract one, get one free. Then no more extraction will be required in future. The teeth won’t decay anymore, because they are already gone. Then it’s very convenient. You come to extract all their teeth every weekend. Then you’ll never have to come again. That’s what he’s doing; he is quite farsighted. Sooner or later, those teeth have to be extracted anyway. They’re going to decay after you die anyway. So, you might as well, just extract them all now and save yourself from future problems. No more toothaches, and no more tooth decay. No more cavities. Because there’s nothing left.
Did you advise them to have (vegan) soup? Those who had all their teeth extracted? From today on, they’ll only have soup, right? And drink tea. What I mean is, regardless of how many patients came, you treated them all? (Yes.) Only teeth extraction? (There were treatments using both Chinese and Western medicine.) I know. After extracting the teeth, what did you put inside? (Gauze was used.) What do you mean? (Using gauze.) (Medical gauze.) (Medical gauze was put inside the tooth hole.) (To stop the bleeding.) (After the tooth was extracted, there’d be a hole.) (Have to stop bleeding.)
You doctors come over. Come and let me have a look. Then if patients have future inquiries, I know who you are. Please. You go and ask the Thai doctor to come. He is there. It’s you? I’m sorry, I don’t have a seat for you. Please sit here, OK? Take this out for them to sit. Is it a long one? (This will do. This is good.) Is this good? It’s occupied, anyway. Only five of them? Didn’t you say that you saw a lot of them? (Some are not leaving yet, so they didn’t come in. Some of them are not leaving. That’s why today they didn’t come.) Is that so? What a pity. You tell him to come in also. Tong, is the Thai doctor here? And those Chinese doctors. Can some of you go and find them? Does anyone volunteer to go and find them? No. No one is willing to leave this place. Just dreaming. Ah! Thankfully there is someone who has a different mentality from yours, and he went out to look for them. But it’s not going to be easy. Now you can make the announcement over the loudspeaker. It’s nine o’clock. They want to go back and rest.
Who’s the one actually pulling the teeth? You? For sure. (There is also a Korean dentist...) Where is the Korean? The Korean doctor… Korean doctor also? With the language barrier, how could he extract the tooth? Is that so? Amazing! (“You, OK.”) “OK.” That’s it. Just tell them “OK,” and then go ahead with the extraction. I can do that, too. Who needs you? Did they give them anesthesia or anything? (Anesthetics are given...) Did they scream out of pain? (Yes, we sprayed the anesthesia first.) First spray, and then you inject the anesthesia. You don’t understand what he was talking about, anyway. And he didn’t understand you either. He is screaming in his language, which we also don’t understand. (He pointed at the tooth to be extracted.) OK, he pointed at it, and did you extract the right one? Because I have doubts about you doctors.
There was a dentist. He extracted people’s teeth recklessly. He extracted an extra one. Just sit there. Extracted one more. A good one. He extracted the bad one, but also a good one. Then the patient said, “Strange! Why did you extract that one? That one was all fine! Is this how you earn people’s money? Are you doing this to earn money?” He said, “No. I don’t earn money from that. That one is free of charge.”
Then, there was another dentist. Did I tell you yesterday? No? (Yes.) (In English.) In English. (Yes.) It seems there was a dentist who, after extracting a tooth, he charged the mother US$40. And the mother said, “It’s just one tooth, why are you charging $40? (Too expensive.) Wasn’t it supposed to be only $10?” The dentist said, “Yes, yes. It’s usually 10 dollars. But your son screamed too loudly and scared three other patients. Scared them away.” So he charged for those as well.
Another dentist. I tell you, I’m very experienced with seeing dentists. My ex-husband was one. Dentists are supposed to extract people’s teeth. They extract an extra good one. The same thing happened. And then the patient said, “How did it come to this? That one was very good! Only the one next to it was bad. Why did you extract two teeth? It was supposed to be only one. Why did you extract the good one as well? How could this happen?” The dentist said, “This would save you problems in future.” Did you use this kind of “supernatural power” to save trouble?
What do you do? (Chinese medicine doctor.) Chinese medicine doctor. Do you have a license? There’s a lot of bad stories, which are not good for doctors. A lot. And what do you do? (I am an ophthalmologist.) Ophthalmologist. (Yes.) How many eyes have you seen today? How many eyes have you looked at? (Today there’s only… Today my business was the worst, only three patients.) Oh! How unlucky you are! Be careful. There is a bee. Strange. So popular, even the bee comes. Ah! That’s good. It’s not good for you or your business, but it’s good for the people here. Because it means their eyes are fine. (Yes.)
How did you diagnose them? Just looked at them, and then what? What would you do? (Nothing. I didn’t do much; just gave them eye drops. Because their symptoms were quite simple. It’s just their eyes were rather… Just inflammation. Nothing serious.) I see. What about nearsightedness or farsightedness, do you help with that too? (No, no. Nothing like the dentists do; no eye extractions, only…) What did he say? (Extracting eyes.) Oh, extracting eyes. Like this? When people pull out eyes, it’s to pull them back to normal. Isn’t it? When they see that you are wearing glasses yourself, they don’t trust you. “His eyes are not good, anyway, so how can he cure our eyes?” So they don’t even want to talk to you. (Actually, most of the ophthalmologists in Taiwan [Formosa] wear glasses. About 80 to 90% of ophthalmologists in Taiwan [Formosa] wear eyeglasses.) That’s why you are called “doctors of eyeglasses (Chinese pun).” It’s all because of the eyeglasses.
Come here. Come here, this way. Here. Come and let me “take care” of you. Is there anyone who can speak good English? Men? No? (Only Doctor […], over there.) But now he’s busy looking at me. How can he go? Find someone else to translate for him. Forget it. Forget it. Never mind. OK, what do you do? For women? (Internal medicine.) Internal medicine doctor. No wonder. Last time, I was alright, but he still put me inside a tube, just because he does internal medicine. And he didn’t find anything wrong. Last time, we didn’t find anything wrong. (No.)
Photo Caption: “AH, HOW NICE, THERE COULD B A DOG ON THE SUN!?”
