Chinese Nursing Home part 1 of 2

My dad is a pretty optimistic guy; he’s a glass-half-full kind of fellow. Over the years, we kids have catalogued a few Roger-ism. Just in case we weren’t sure whether or not we were supposed to be enjoying ourselves on whatever family excursion we found ourselves, Dad would narrate, “Oh this is deee-lux.” Always the consummate promoter.

When we were on vacation sitting on a park bench cutting up that $11.00 brick of Mackinac Island fudge into bullion-cube sized pieces, we could pretty much count on Dad to chime in with “Oh, this is a real highlight.”

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I am always looking for unique opportunities for our family here in Hong Kong, so you can image my excitement when I saw in our church bulletin that they were calling for volunteers to do some Christmas caroling in local nursing homes on the Sunday before Christmas. I immediately put it on our family calendar. In pen.

I knew that I had a bit of a sales job ahead of me to get my family on board. I'm sure that they had other things they would rather do. But hey, how often do you get to visit a Chinese nursing home?

I not only managed to get my family on board, but I convinced the neighbor family to join us as well.

It turned out to be a good thing that our two families showed up because our Church had committed themselves to two nursing homes and without us they would have only had seven people. Our two families were assigned to one of the nursing homes and we were joined by two young Chinese women from the church who knew where to go and knew how to speak both Cantonese and English.

I never would have found the nursing home. While it was right on the main road, it was in a tall, non-descript building that looked older than it probably was. I assume the staff was expecting us, but when we arrived, they had to scamper around to accommodate us. The ten of us pressed ourselves against a wall and tried not to get in the way as the staff pulled together plastic chairs to create a make-shift theatre.

The entire nursing home –-which appeared to house about fifteen residents-- only took up a fraction of the fifth floor. The nursing home was essentially one big room that was subdivided into little cubicles. Most residents slept in beds that were behind shoulder-height dividers. A few residents –the ones who appeared to be most in need of care- slept in semi-private rooms with a door that closed. The nursing home was clean and bright, but it was old and anything but high-tech.

With the help of the staff, the residents slowly started to shuffle into the main room. The residents seemed a little indifferent to all of the hubabaloo, but the staff seemed to be showing some enthusiasm. If nothing else, we visitors promised to break up the monotony of a quiet Sunday afternoon.

I had no idea where they came from, but a bag of really inexpensive Santa hats suddenly appeared. One of the staff members went around putting the hats on the residents. At first I cringed. Oh, that really is necessary. You don’t need to do that on our account. But none of the residents seemed to mind. Besides, it did make them look kind of festive.

As we stood there, lined up against the wall, waiting for whatever was going to happen to happen, I couldn’t help but feel as if my girls and our friends were thinking “Man, VanNoord what have you gotten us into? This is awkward.”