The doctor was okay to me. But I'm quite annoyed to hear he doesn't like foreigners who don't speak Cantonese.

I don't speak a word of Cantonese, but my Mandarin is reasonable. Good enough to have a conversation with the doctor and, frankly, probably better than his English. When locals don't speak English well, I often would rather just speak Mandarin. But I'm hesitant to assume they'll understand me, etc. as I can barely make out their Cantonese.

So it's annoying to hear others presume to know what languages I do/don't speak. I'm sure there's a stereotype of the monolingual expat. But that's not me. I don't speak what locals speak, but I do speak what the rest of CHINA speaks.

I don't care if people are surprised at my Chinese. Plenty of vendors on the street are, and they're entertained by it. But it's appropriate to be offended when someone treats you worse because they are making assumptions about you based on your appearance alone, no matter who that person is.

Well I went this week and the doctor (usual guy) was very nice, concerned that I had not taken my blood pressure but when I assured him I do it at home and showed my record from home, he followed through by asking how my regular visits to the hospital are and did my last treatment work satisfactorily, and was generally everything I could expect from a GP.

Maybe he's been reading these pages so he was putting up a show, but frankly, I suspect that the clinic has very limited supplies/choices of medicine and he is forced to offer what is available. For sure, once I asked if he thought the cream he was suggesting (for a fungus) would work, he admitted it was not as effective as some other stuff but it was better than pills which act negatively on the liver.

So I think he is doing a job as well as he can and if we can't speak his language we should be grateful he can speak ours reasonably well!