First thing seen upon waking up (China / Toulouse)

One of the episodes in The Heart of the Dragon was about Chinese science, featuring acupuncture, among other things.  

A rabbit’s nose was exposed to a heat lamp, and the time taken for the rabbit to turn away was recorded.  Then, acupuncture was applied to one of its meridian points — the heat-bearing one, presumably — and the rabbit’s nose was once again exposed to the heat lamp.  This time, the rabbit was able to withstand the heat for a bit longer.  The experiment was to prove how acupuncture could take the place of ether as an anaesthetic.  

For the human experiment, an old woman (in her 80s?) who’d been blind for a few decades underwent an eye operation, using acupuncture instead of ether.  Our British film crew went to the hospital to film the bandage-removing ceremony a few days later, to record her first reaction to being able to see again after such a long time.  So the first thing the old lady saw when she opened her eyes were these human beings with big noses, pale skin, hairy bodies and faces, and blue/green eyes.  She must’ve thought, “How the Chinese race has changed in the last few decades!”

Throughout this 12-day visit to France, I was helping an ex-student in Lisbon proof-read a handful of articles on tea that he was editing for a magazine he’d set up (called eighty ˚).  Back and forth, back and forth went the questions, comments and suggestions, sometimes for a few hours in one stretch, sometimes late into the night.  I certainly always checked last thing at night and first thing in the morning to see if he might’ve left more amendments for me to read.

On the day I was flying back to London, I got to Toulouse airport really early.  Sat in front of one of the Departures screens, to make sure I didn’t miss the call for checking in.  Dozed off at some point, and woke up to see the screen saying there was a flight to Tenerife on VOLOTEA.  Couldn’t believe my eyes.  Never heard of Volotea, so I thought I was dreaming after 10 days of reading tea articles!  It turned out Volotea was the carrier — a Spanish carrier.

(China, 1982; Toulouse, 2018)