To Come In...You Must First Shave Your Chest

...well...at least patches of it.  Allow me to explain.

In order to be let into China, I had to show their government that I am a strong and healthy foreigner.  Or...at least show them that I don't have leprosy.  (seriously...leprosy was a deal-breaker.  along with plague and psychosis.)  And in order to do this, I needed a doctor to fill out the "Physical Examination Record for Foreigner" form.

As you can see on the sheet, one of the things that the Chinese government requires is an EKG.  I had never received one of those before, so as the tech led me into the backroom, I started to get a bit nervous.  Not that nervous.  But that little tiny niggling possibility of a rare heart defect that had been almost killing me my whole life...but that had avoided detection up to this exact moment.  Interrupting my thoughts was the tech's request to remove my shirt.

So I did.

"Whoa...looks like I'm gonna need a razor," said the tech.  Probably confused how someone with such dainty feminine features and fair skin could be hiding such a mass of hair under their shirt.  He then left me to retrieve what I imagined to be a set of clippers not too different from poodle shears.

He came back into the room and proceeded to shave my ankles and two 2'' x 2'' spots on my chest.  And then applied the leads to my skin.  After a few tries, he had decided that he was either doing it wrong, or that I had an incredibly rare heart defect that inverted all of my peaks.  So he had to bring another tech into the room.  There I was.  Shaved, embarrassed, and facing the possibility of a never before seen heart defect with two guys in their 20-somethings trying to figure out what was wrong.  If it couldn't get any more ridiculous.  It turned out that he applied the leads backwards.  In addition, the new tech also decided that the chest lead placement was a tad off and shaved two more spots on my chest, this time slightly below my nipples.

With my embarrassment quota met for the day, the machine did it's thing, and my heart was deemed fit by the cardiologist.  And with that, I was one step closer to getting into China.  One step closer to teaching English for a year. 

And one step closer to having a chest that resembles a checker board.

I'd post pictures...but ya know...gross.