Hospital stays are rather uneventful occurrences. After all, they’re designed to ensure that nothing particularly exciting happens. My mom’s unexpected relationship with a Beijing hospital provided me with, at most, an opportunity to learn a little bit about how that slice of life operates in China.

Probably the most noticeable difference isn’t the hospital itself, but the expectations of hospital staff vs friends and family. In the USA, as far as I know, hospital staff are responsible for pretty much all the patient’s needs, such as food. In China, hospitals have taken advantage of expected family contributions and simply absolved themselves of those responsibilities. Family members will to bring food to a patient. It’s a given. So why should the hospital even bother? To be clear, the hospital has food in its cafeteria. But it’s the family’s responsibility to buy the food and bring it to the patient, provided they don’t cook and bring food with them.

On one hand, this makes perfect sense. The culture emphasizes collective responsibility, so why operate as if it doesn’t? On the other hand, surely there are individuals whose family members are too few/far away to provide adequate assistance. Maybe there are designated personal assistants for those types of patients?

We were not clear about this division of labor because we had spent so much time outside the country. Luckily, our family still in China were quite familiar and helped us prepare for my mom’s hospital stay. My family went shopping that morning and cooked until the afternoon. We then carpooled to the hospital and spent time with my mom, who was resting comfortably after successful surgery.

Cindy and I used the time to catch up on work and blogging. Since my mom is comfortable, albeit stuck in the hospital, she told us to go explore Beijing some more. We plan on doing that tomorrow.