A second-generation village physician reflects on the decline of her profession and its uncertain future over a 20-year career
Last year, I entered my final year of medical studies. As I waited for the results of my postgraduate entrance examination, I submitting my resume left and right just in case I needed to find a job. But I heard nothing back on either front.
Forced into being idle, I called Dr. Han. Half-joking, she asked whether I would be keen on returning to take over her clinic. “Fair enough,” I smiled. “I’ll go home and take on your job if I can’t find one.”
Dr. Han balked immediately. “I was just kidding! How could I ever let you come back to this? Kid, you better work hard to stay at that big hospital and get something to fall back on, you hear me? You promise me?”
She emphasized “fall back on.”
I was perfectly aware that Dr. Han’s profession had been a thorn in her side throughout her entire life. Yet it was not a thorn she was willing to remove.
Renjian the Livings is the nonfiction storytelling platform under NetEase. It aims to “reconstruct life through narration.”
Translated By
Ana Padilla Fornieles is a Spanish translator, writer and creative currently based in Beijing, where she is part of Spittoon International Arts Collective and a regular contributor to The Beijinger. You can find her prose and poetry featured in The Shanghai Literary Review, Voice & Verse Poetry Magazine, Womanhood, Sledgehammer and more. Her comics and linocut prints have appeared in Shaving in the Dark, F*EMS and Celestite Poetry. Her literary translation work has been published or is forthcoming with a series of publishing houses and magazines, such as Penguin, De Gruyter, Spittoon Magazine and Books from Taiwan.
