Capital of Sichuan Province and the major City of South Western China — From Sydney flights go to Chengdu via either Hong Kong, Guangzhou or Shanghai To give you an idea of the scale here ~ Flight from HK or Guangzhou ~ CHDU = 2 hours, 25 mins, Shanghai ~2hr 45 mins Beijing ~ 3hrs — by bullet train - 14 hours, regular train = 23 hours It's timezone 2 hours behind Sydney time — so | didn’t really have any jetlag issues. Chengdu itself is a central transport hub which makes weekend trips via bus, train or plane easy ~ most of us headed out of town on the weekends.Quite Laid back though not as much as Kunming, Geographically Chengdu sits in a basin surrounded by mountains. The land is very fertile and historically agriculture and trade have made it a very rich province It’s importance as a trade route meant it was highly prized and it was fought over by various warring factions. So unfortunately not much of the ancient city of Chengdu has been left in tact.Kuan Zhai Xiang Zi It remains a rich province and is quickly modernising. There's construction activity going on everywhere but there are some beautiful places quite close to the uni ~ My morning walk to uni took 15 -25 minutes ~ | could either walk along the main boulevarde next to the 6-8 lane highway or meander through the Kuan Zhai Xiang Zi or “narrow and wide alleys. This is an historic precinct which they are restoring — the same way they are doing with the some of the hutong district in Beijing.Walking to uni This is 7.45am — later in the day these laneways will be bustling with bars, food, live music, boutiques, art displays and people! The streets are all very clean ane-twas-pleasantly surprised that there wasweryittleThe People’s Park One of the main parks in Chengdu, and there are many, is The People’s Park — also walking distance from uni, Here you'll find lovely meandering walks, bonsai gardens and other displays. Of course people doing Qigong early in the morning, but dancing, like Line Dancing, is also popular here. Lunch break is 11:30-2:30 so it’s nice to take your lunch here or try one of the teahouses beside the lakeThe Environment... Warm & Damp These are pretty good examples of the light and haze you are likely to have 6 days a week. - It’s warm and damp ~ and you will clearly see this manifesting in the patients you meet. It’s quite polluted — though for those of you who have been to Beijing, it’s nowhere near as bad ~ | got by without a mask — not so in Beijing where the air is much more acrid and toxi ‘There was a heatwave when we arrived ~ definitely T-shirts and light clothes for first 2 weeks. By mid November — we were into our jumpers and fleeces ~ and if you plan to travel to the mountains you definitely need fleeces, beanies, scarves and good pair of 1g oF hiking shoes. Rain was rare but we did get some.Accommodation - hotels Xinting Hotel ‘The Green Garden Hotel 777 LHS= The Xinling hotel. It sits right beside the hospital and is afflliated with the Uni ~ about 10 of our students started out here. ... RHS is the hotel where they ended up ~all on the same 6" floor, (the only floor) — ‘Weihong will have the details of both of these. Both are Hotel room only~ no cooking or washing facilities, On campus: We were offered on-campus accommodation: Price for a standard room (twin share) on Campus is 120RMB/room/day $24 It excludes bed sheet, quilt, quilt cover, pillow, pillow cover, towel, cooking facility). We were advised that a Kettle and microwave may be offered, but if not, you may buy and share one together. ... The rooms are tiny and spartan. If you are interested in this, Weihong can help you to bank a room.....12 of us stayed in AirBNB accommodation taking whole apartments all to ourselves. ‘One group of 10 shared a 3 BR- | shared a 2 BR -This is a shot of the second one. | had one already booked when we had a visitor from Chengdu last year. Both were excellent. Prices range - We paid around $36/night each for our 2"! two br - That got us within walking distanceof uni and close to Metro and Peoples Park So about $1420 for 6 weeks plus a couple of days either side. Chris has told me that the faculty has secured $60,000 funding for your trip this year ~ So if 20 of you go, that’s $3000 grant each !! We only got $800. Additionally you can apply for an extension on your HECS loan of around $8000, and, if you complete a suitable short course in Chinese before you go, you can qualify for an additional $1000 loan. The loans are done through the Build prograrn and you need to goand talk to them if you are considering this option. The faculty grant is automatic.www.airbnb.com This was one of our kitchens’ New appliances — good size fridge for sharing, plenty of pans, washing machines and either a dryer or internal line. Both were fully airconditioned hot and cold — we used both! This market was was right outside one of the gates. My flatmate had some very particular food requirements and she brought a lot of food with her from home. In the end this was not really necessary ~ We found English health food stores with known brands ~ and department stores which stocked most of what she required. BUT if you do plan to eat at home, we were warned to wash our produce in water and vinegar... Both were fully secure buildings — we were given passcards to get in /out of the entry gates, plus keys to the apartments. Word of warning ~ Chinese beds are ALL like boards unless you're going 5 stars. Fernanda and | used all the spare duvets folded up underneath us to sleep.Download before you go *WeChat *viber ‘WhatsApp_ *VPN - Astrill By far the best reason for choosing Airbnb were the four hosts | met, who became friends: Picked up from airport, ‘Showed us where to shop, gave us local maps, wrote out instructions for taxi drivers, booked train tickets and accommodation for out of town trips. ‘They also helped us out with our technology glitches - for eg our Apple plugs don’t work there. So our host lent us multiple converters until we could get to the shops and purchase some. Local SIMs - Top ups and reading odd messages from the carriers, ~ Top TIP: - make sure that you have wechat/viber and whatsapp organised before you go. Ditto for a VPN (Astrill is what many of us used) as otherwise you can't talk to anyone at home ‘TOP TIP: Use your phone to photograph address cards or letterheads so you can show the driver where you wish to go and Learn some phrases to make ordering/ buying food from the markets and general daily life easier. For example: '! would like...' ; 'how much is that’ ; Learn the numbers, hello/goodbye /thankyou etc etc. Another TIP: I used my phone and iPad to take a lot of video and photos — | found | needed to purchase an external device to take the overload as even my mac Al got full. 10Great Street Food Eating out offered a wide variety of cheap options — but you do need to be mindful — they love chilly and oil .... @eck —LUs, Gea havee vith peace Hooters Weihong gave us a list of phrases, which | kept on my phone so that | could definitely avoid too much chilly. 1Of course the obvious way around this is to eat with the locals!! Meals with the translators became a regular event ~ they know the best spots on the streets near uni and lunch usually cost about $5-8 ‘These friendships made the trip so much richer — we saw so much more with the translators keen to speak English and also make connections. 12Getting around —There is a brand new METRO system which is easy to use but you need to remember it stops around 10:40 -11:30pm. The top picture shows the Rapid Transit ringroad ~ this carries dedicated bus lanes and is super quick - it connects to the metro stations and many places in between. You access it via escalators and stairs right from the pavement at the various stops. The ticketing system is similar to our Opal cards - ~- It’s easy to top up and you can just hop on and off without having to explain where you want to go. RECOMMEND: Get a bus/train pass! So much easier to get around. The buses are only 1-2 kuai per journey and you see some super weird parts of Chengdu. If you're up for the traffic, cycling is definitely an option....t’s flat! Taxis — you need to have your destination written in characters to show the driver. Also always check the meter is running — better still, get a Chinese mate to speak to the driver and negotiate the fare for you before you set off. 13Teaching Hospital of Chengdu University of TCM This is the Teaching hospital which backs on to the university campus where we spent most of our time. ~ (there are five different campuses) ‘Also known the the Sichuan Provincial TCM Hospital, it offers patients both Western and TCM. There is also 2 research, rehabilitation and general health care Centers here. They carry out clinical trials on both Chinese herbs and Western drugs. -Recognised as a National Clinical Research Base for Diabetes Melitus Each morning we would gather at 8:15 - Groups of 4 set up by Weihong in advance — would be assigned a translator each day. They would lead us off to clinic. Translators all TCM trained — mostly up to masters level, some PHDs ~ paid a little, Very enthusiastic and helpful 4Hospital Foyer - orientation rh | ay Day 1 Orientation: white coats and official name badges are given to you~ these have to be worn at all times You also have to keep your bags with you — there are no lockers ~~ especially challenging on rainy days... - You did sometimes get shelves in the acupuncture clinics but they're not secure. Having said that, I'm not aware that any of us experienced any theft There are 2000 beds, 35 clinical departments, 9 labs, 8 TCM departments. And there are Emergency and full surgical Depts. 15Morning Clinic 8:30-11:30 Patient This is a typical morning hospital clinic set up. The Chengdu staff were very keen to make this experience a good one for us. As the first group from Australia and the largest ever foreign group to go through, there were some teething problems, but Weihong and the Senior Monitors from the Inernational Student Office visited every group, every morning, every afternoon, every day - (including the evening specialist clinics outside the hospital in the final two weeks), to observe and get our feedback .. It was clear that Weihong is held in high esteem by the university, she was a great advocate for us and they listened to her. She asked many of us to write reports on our time there and there’s every reason to think that there will be some positive changes based on the feedback everyone gave Weihong will ask you what you departments you wish to spend time in - Neurology, Dermatology, Gynacology, Paediatrics, Gastroenterology, Oncolcoy, Cardiovascular and Acupuncture —so you may like to give some thought to this as well as to the groups of four you may like to form. 16Consult Chinese intern. > So this is a slightly different view of the same consultation and you can see the “audience Not all clinics are like this, it depends on the doctor. But all doctors have at least one Chinese medical intern who works with them. All health records are computerised — the intern here is typing up the notes as we go. Our translator is explaining as we go~ some of the doctors speak English. But you can see that privacy isn’t really on the agenda in the public system ~ the caseload is huge and the time pressure on the doctors is enormous. Their ability to focus was impressive, 7Case discussion This was a case discussion with a Doctor in our Cardio Clinic who spoke some English. Most of the time was spent in Internal Medicine — with Herbs. ‘We asked for print outs of the herbal prescriptions being given and we got them for most cases. These were translated on the spot (or afterwards) by our translators and we could keep them. 18Herbal Dispensary This is ONE of the herbal dispensaries in the hospital. Patients take their prescriptions here and can choose to have them decocted for them here or to take granules, pills or capsules You can go ouside the host to get the preseriton filed ~mare expensive and) Thea Unespoted is amore fee moma 4, A's (gent fx — DON owe Secret ety Nenep been yesearcled + Levetapedt bee — and Can be ape ot a oN ae me) Ars penserrn 19Lots of Pulse taking ‘As you would expect, Some days better than others, some doctors were better than others — but patients were always very happy to let us take their pulses and check tongues. You see a huge range in up to 50 patients in a morning session. 20The top picture shows Fernanda having a free dermatology consultation - She took her prescription to a dispensary outside the clinic. This was another advantage of having a well equipped kitchen — if you get raw herbs you can cook them at home ~ this was a great experience. 21This was something none of us had seen before and after a morning here our group was fascinated by this digestive disorder clinic. The whole group, including Weihong, had consults here and got poultices ~ the conclusion the next day was that , from bloating to constipation to diarrhoea, they work a treat! 22Acupuncture Clinic One of the main criticisms we had was that there wasn’t enough time spent in the acupuncture. CAL {7S ‘Some of us got to do needling — it depended on the interns and doctors on the day. But this is definitely a great opportunity to needle and get feedback from the interns. (VIDEO of Brit) 23Afternoon Lecture Room We had lectures on Pulse, Tongue, Scalp, Pestle Needling and Tuina. To be honest, these were probably the weakest part of the trip - Pitched to low — and some slides in Chinese... So Weihong arranged for us to all get English versions of the presentations electronically by the end of the trip. Most of the lecturers spoke in Chinese and we had an expert transiator.... We asked for more advanced lecture material and more hands on sessions to hone practical skills in the afternoons. 24Pi Wei Lun specialist They listened and offered an additional night lecture by an external doctorr who was a specialist in Li Dong-Yuan’s Spleen- Stomach treatise. He was excellent and we got him back. Fernanda and | then both visited him in his private clinic for herb consults and he later took some of the Private group clinic sessions which took place in the last two weeks off campus. A Neurology presentation and discussion was also added —at no additional cost. 25Questions? And here we are at the Closing Ceremony — with our enormous certificate and tiny pandas. | haven't included anything here on all the external trips that were included — The Herb market, our Pill and Suppository Making lessons, the Herb Gardens, The Panda Sanctuary were all done through the university and many of us also made additional weekend trips to the snow capped mountains and beautiful National parks such as Mount Qing Cheng, Jui Zhai Gou and the Huang Long Valley ~ It was a wonderful experience. A great way to round out what you have been earning here and | highly recommend it to you. vp? 26HD MAE EB HE a 2. October 19, 2015—November 24, 20: eee a | aay . , i@ .' 27