The Newmans

Another beauty post for those blessed with XX chromosomes (and maybe XO chromosomes, but you’d better let me know if you’re one of those, and I won’t drive with you ).

After three months we are definitely in summer, and have been for a while. Before Shenzhen, I never really understood why people needed those heavy-duty face cleansers, since Adelaidians in general would only need them in the raging heat of summer, if then. In addition to the heat, environmental pollutants play a big role in faces going, ‘help, let’s get rid of all this stuff from the skin by producing even more oil’, so the end result is a face that is more chemically orientated than one would wish for. Oh well. So now I have bought a Johnson & Johnson ‘deep clean’ cleanser, and it appears to be working well. I know that the best thing for skin is still drinking lots and lots of water, but at least I can get de-chemicallised satisfactorily now. Besides, we are already drinking litres of it in this humidity.

On Monday we had our medical assessments that are a requirement for our Visas. I have to admit to having some aprehensions about it, particularly after hearing stories from other expats. Things turned out fine, it seems that things have improved over the last few years. The tests involved basic checks of hearing, colour blindness, eyesight, skin, height & weight, blood pressure, heartbeat, then moved on to an ECG, an Ultrasound, Chest X-Ray and finally a vial of blood taken.

For the ECG there was all these heavy metal probes connected up and I felt the need to do a Keanu Reeves impersonation from the Matrix. During the X-ray (which was a real-time thingy, not a still shot) the lady running the machine was trying to get me to breathe. She was saying “breezzz, breezzz!” Took me a few moments to cotton on to what she wanted. The ultrasound was to check out the internal organs and make sure I still had a liver, pancreas, kidneys etc. Tests confirmed - I am human. The nurse doing this test slapped some goop onto my stomach and at the end of the test she handed me a piece of paper towel to wipe it off. This would have been fine, except that there was more goop than paper towel.

The thing I was dreading was the withdrawl of blood, having heard rumours of un-sterilised needles and false positive tests for all kinds of things. After sitting down the nurse wiped on some iodine-type stuff, applied the rubber tourniquet, removed the new needle fresh from the packet, skillfully jabbed it into the vein in my arm and then plugged on the vial. No sweat. Now all we have to do is wait for 10 days to find out if I’ve got HIV, Hepatitis, Diphtheria, Polio, Yellow Fever, Malaria, Typhoid or any one of about 50 other diseases that we haven’t had problems with in the west for decades, even centuries.

Our clothes really smell like we’re long-term smokers. Linen especially picks up the smell. I am washing things much more frequently. You also feel as though you need a shower in the evening as well as the morning. Andrew’s skin is more oily and gritty than usual, which I’m sure is a result of said pollution. I’m trying to get him to use a men’s exfoliator or something, but he still says it’s a girly thing to do. I don’t think he’s interested. Alas.