the dentist in china

my mother will be happy to know that i made a trip to the dentist this past week. i get　(i think) one free cleaning and checkup a year through my health insurance at select dental clinics in beijing. so of course i just picked the one that was closest to my office, called "Care Plus". i didn't really know what to expect, but several friends, i believe clark included, had been to the dentist, and said it was just the same as in the states. really at this point i'm way past being surprised when anything in beijing meets western standards, and the dentist wasn't an exception. everything was clean and all the equipment was modern. but what really struck me was how much nicer of an experience it was than in the states.

first of all i scheduled the appointment only two days in advance, whereas for the dentist i went to growing up it's so crazy you almost need to schedule your next appointment in six months time before even your current appointment. they even called me up to change the time to make sure there was an english speaking staff member to do my cleaning, which i graciously accepted because i don't know any dentist vocabulary but turned out i didn't need. and everybody was extraordinarily friendly, especially after i awed them with my ability to speak and write chinese. (the best way to really impress a chinese person is to write something in chinese, as most people in beijing now are pretty jaded by foreigners who can speak. luckily i only had to write my address, which besides my name is about the only thing i can write from memory in chinese anymore).

but the kicker was at the end of the cleaning, where the girl who cleaned my teeth (they called her a "doctor" in chinese but i'm not actually sure if she was a doctor in the english sense) told me "your teeth are really great!" a far cry from in the states, where the end of a cleaning usually results in some heavy admonishment, about how you should floss, and then once you start flossing about how you are doing it wrong, and then about how you're brushing too hard or too straight or not for long enough. i mean i take ok care of my teeth (i actually floss everyday), but i suspect most of her praise was due to some pretty weak competition from the locals on the dental hygiene front. still, i walked out of there feeling pretty good, which is more than i can say for any trip to the dentist back home.